HAWKINS TO MISS PRELIM
Tribunal upholds one-match ban for star in huge blow ahead of Cats’ Friday night showdown with Richmond.
Geelong coach Chris Scott says no one is more shattered than full forward Tom Hawkins that the champion goalkicker will miss Friday night’s blockbuster preliminary final against Richmond. Hawkins last night failed to have his one-match ban for striking Eagle Will Schofield overturned.
GEELONG coach Chris Scott admits the Cats do not have an obvious forward-line solution to cover for suspended spearhead Tom Hawkins.
Hawkins’ one-match striking ban will stand, dealing the underdog Cats a significant hit for their preliminary final against Richmond.
Scott last night refused to say Hawkins had let his side down for its most important match of the season so far, but did accept the key forward had an issue that needed to be addressed amid a growing list of judicial incidents.
“By taking the approach that we should support him — because no one’s more devastated than Tom — doesn’t mean that you’re pretending that he hasn’t got a bit of an issue with this swinging-arm stuff,” Scott said on AFL 360.
“I know him well enough to know that he’s not the type of bloke to go out and say, ‘If I’ve got half a chance, I’m going to belt this guy today’.
“The idea that he has let the team down, I can see that, but it’s a simplistic argument — if we didn’t have Tom Hawkins, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
“My view is, he doesn’t owe me anything as a coach. If I didn’t have him in the last nine years, we wouldn’t have been in five prelim finals. He won us the premiership in 2011. He doesn’t owe me anything.”
After a one-hour tribunal hearing last night, the threeman jury took just seven minutes to uphold the original penalty given to Hawkins for striking West Coast’s Will Schofield.
The tribunal will sit again tonight in another major case, with GWS trying to overturn the one-game ban that currently means star midfielder Toby Greene will not play in Saturday’s preliminary final against Collingwood.
Hawkins was shattered as he left the hearing and said his job now is to support teammates ahead of Friday night’s clash at the MCG.
“I felt like we got a really fair hearing,” Hawkins said.
“I’m really disappointed that I’m not going to be there with my teammates on Friday night. However, my job now ow turns to supporting them as best as I can, lend a hand d where I can and prepare myyself to play next week.”
Hawkins pleaded guilty at the start of last night’s hearing. ng.
Rather than fight the he charge, the Cats tried to downwngrade the classification from om intentional to careless conduct uct to allow him to have the ban an cleared.
Hawkins testified he was fighting for position with Schofield when he collected the Eagles defender with a high blow.
Schofield went to ground and was dazed by the impact, but played out the game.
The Eagles’ medical report said he had suffered no ongoing injury from the impact.
“I didn’t intentionally hit him, I was trying to fight for best position, to get back where the football was coming from,” Hawkins testified.
Hawkins also said he first played on Schofield when they were at school and considered him a friend.
The Cats star said Schofield was restricting him, holding his arm, and that he hit the West Coast defender as he tried to break clear. He said his forearm and elbow collected Schofield’s neck.
G Geelong l advocate d tB Ben Ihl Ihle said the video footage was inconclusive and added the burden of proof was with the AFL to convince the jury that the strike was intentional.
But tribunal advocate Nick Pane QC pointed to Hawkins having a clenched fist immediately before the blow.
“It was a forceful swinging motion, consistent with an intentional strike,” Pane said.
Scott said Hawkins’ absence would make Friday night “much more” difficult, admitting “we don’t have an obvious replacement”.
“(His teammates) would be really disappointed they don’t have him this week. It’s so hard to get an opportunity like the one we’ve got this Friday night and to go in without one of your best players against the premiership favourite makes it that much harder,” Scott said.