James Sicily, the captain of Hawthorn, avoids suspension before the AFL tribunal after kicking

James Sicily, the captain, will play against Melbourne after the AFL tribunal reduced Hawthorn’s kicking penalty from a ban to a fine.

For kicking Essendon opponent Andrew McGrath, Sicily was facing a one-game punishment; however, the Hawks persuaded the tribunal that the impact would be minimal rather than significant.

The All-Australian defender received a $2500 punishment after entering a guilty plea to the crime.

The panel agreed with Hawthorn counsel Myles Tehan that the risk of injury from the kick was “quite modest,” according to tribunal chairman Jeff Gleeson KC.

“McGrath was never going to sustain any significant injuries from the force of the kick. In his ruling, Gleeson stated, “We are not satisfied that there was a considerable prospect of bruising.”

Tehan had argued, using a golfing analogy, Sicily’s kick had “no long backswing” and if he’d kicked a football with the same motion, it probably would not have gone 10m.

But the Hawks’ bid to downgrade the penalty started badly with Gleeson disallowing their application to call McGrath as a witness.

 

On Monday, the Bombers star batted for Sicily, claiming to SEN that the incident was “quite harmless” and that he had no bruises.

Gleeson stated that this did not meet the criteria to be an exception to the tribunal’s current policy of not accepting victim testimony due to the previous “players’ code.”

Tehan successfully argued that the Sicily kick should not have the same grade consequence as an incident from the previous season in which Tom Atkins of Geelong was accused of kicking Jimmy Webster of St Kilda.

Webster was left writhing in agony after the event, which was given a medium rating and cost the Cats player money.

McGrath’s remarks were supported by the Essendon medical report that was given to the tribunal.

Brad Scott, the coach of Essendon, has acknowledged that they would not have been successful in having Mason Redman’s one-match penalty for striking overturned at the AFL tribunal.

Redman was accused of hitting Jai Newcombe of Hawthorn in an off-the-ball incident that happened during the Bombers’ Saturday 24-point victory.

It was determined that the interaction was low impact, high touch, and purposeful.

Redman’s tough job against Sydney at the SCG in round two will go unpunished as an inevitable one-match ban followed.

In an effort to get Redman cleared to play the Swans, Bombers coach Scott believed the team owed it to their supporters to think about appealing the match review officer’s ruling.

However, Scott, who took over as general manager of football for the AFL before moving to Essendon, believed it would have been a pointless endeavor.

Scott said to Fox Footy on Monday night, “You read through the criteria and they’ve sort of structured it so that we have absolutely no grounds or legal grounds for an appeal.”

“We can on principle appeal it, but we’ll lose.”

Newcombe wasn’t seriously hurt by Redman in the second-quarter incident.

Gold Coast’s Malcolm Rosas Jr and Western Bulldogs recruit James Harmes have accepted one-match bans for headbutting opponents in round one.