Ump abuse shake-up

GLENORCHY coach Paul Kennedy has questioned AFL Tasmania’s tribunal process after its appeal over Josh Grant’s one-match ban for umpire abuse — as TSL boss Carl Saunder conceded the league had been pushing for a month-long suspension.

Grant missed last week’s loss to North Launceston after being reported for behaving in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards or in relation to an umpire in the match against Lauderdale. It was alleged he threatened the official.

The TSL independent tribunal handed down a onegame sanction, against which AFL Tasmania management appealed on the ground it was “manifestly inadequate”.

But the appeals board dismissed the appeal on Wednesday night and Grant will return for this weekend’s clash with the Tigers.

“It was a pretty tough time for him. It is something he found difficult to deal with,” Kennedy said.

“A charge like that really challenges your credibility as a person. It is something he didn’t want to be seen as him.

“There is some learning from the whole situation for everybody, for our club and I also think for AFL Tas, where you had the situation where a media release went out detailing that side of events and then they appeal it afterwards. Looking back, probably that could have been done a bit differently.”

State League general manager Saunder said while the league respected the decision, it would heed the advice of the appeals board and consider putting a rule in place for any player or official found guilty of a similar charge.

Saunder believes a base penalty of about four weeks should be implemented in line with a zero tolerance approach to umpire abuse.

“It showed a bit of a loophole within the tribunal guidelines we all operate under. A serious charge like that probably doesn’t have the direction the guidelines should,” Saunder said.

“That’s why we thought it was really important we appealed it. We’ve been very overt and public around zero tolerance with umpire abuse and behaviour towards umpires. We just felt the onematch sanction didn’t marry up with that.

“We would look at putting a base sanction in place to give everyone a bit of clarity about what an offence would look like around that rule. We argue a base sanction of somewhere in the vicinity of four weeks.”

Saunder said he would discuss the matter with AFL operations and innovations manager Patrick Clifton.