Ban may prompt appeal

Power’s Scott Lycett

Port Adelaide is considering appealing ruckman Scott Lycett’s four-game suspension for his dangerous tackle on Crows young gun Ned McHenry in Showdown 49.

The Power had been hoping for a three-game ban for the incident, which was graded as careless conduct, severe impact and high contact, and led to McHenry being subbed off with concussion in the first quarter on Saturday night.

Although Lycett pleaded guilty on Tuesday night, the tribunal agreed with AFL QC Jeff Gleeson that four games was the appropriate sanction, given the way McHenry’s head hit the ground, the potential for further injury and how it compared to similar tackles.

Lycett will miss the Power’s matches against Western Bulldogs (home), Collingwood (away), Fremantle (home) and Geelong (home).

McHenry will not play against West Coast in Perth due to the AFL’s 12-day concussion protocols.

Lycett said the club would decide its next move overnight.

“I’m very remorseful for what’s happened over the weekend,” Lycett said. “I’m disappointed with four weeks but very remorseful.”

During the hour-long hearing, Gleeson said the tackle had potential for a worse injury, including a facial issue, because it was a whipping action that slammed McHenry’s head into the turf.

The AFL’s representative compared the incident to Alex Neal-Bullen’s sling tackle on Crow Will Hamill last year, for which the Melbourne player received a four-week ban.

Gleeson also said Lycett being much bigger than McHenry – 102kg to 73kg – needed to be taken into account when considering the force that the Crows player’s head hit the ground.

He called the tackle “extremely forceful” and vision of it “unpleasant to watch” because McHenry was immediately dazed.

Paul Ehrlich QC, representing Port Adelaide, had argued Lycett’s incident was on the lower end of the scale for severe impact.

He refuted the comparison to the Neal-Bullen tackle, saying it was on a lesser level and should only be penalised for three matches.

Likening part of his argument to a physics lecture, Ehrlich discussed centrifugal force and compared Olympic hammer throwing and shot put when relating Lycett’s incident to Neal-Bullen’s.

Ehrlich told the hearing Lycett’s size should be irrelevant to the sanction.

He called on the tribunal of Stewart Loewe, David Neitz and Wayne Henwood, whom he noted were all former keyposition players, to not punish him for “being Goliath”.

The tribunal took a short time to deliberate before handing down the four-week ban.