Western Bulldogs games record-holder Brad Johnson has questioned whether Harley Reid is being “adjudicated differently” after being left flabbergasted by a free kick paid against the young Eagles star.
Reid on Friday night was penalised for an off-ball elbow to Crows midfielder Sam Berry during Adelaide’s 25-point win over West Coast.
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Reid appeared to make light contact to Berry’s arm/rib area in front of an umpire, who paid a free kick after the Adelaide player bent over.
It came as Sydney star Nick Blakey wasn’t penalised for an elbow to the midriff of Western Bulldogs forward Will Lewis, and after Gold Coast forward Ben Long sparked a wild melee with a crude elbow to Collingwood’s Brayden Maynard on Saturday night. All three incidents occurred with a field umpire within close vicinity.
Long on Sunday was handed a two-match ban for rough conduct against Maynard, yet wasn’t penalised for a free kick in the moment.
MRO hands Long two game ban | 00:56
“The umpire is in the perfect position here to pay a free kick to Brayden Maynard,” Johnson told Fox Footy’s First Crack. “That is a free kick every day of the week.
“He was snipered from behind, didn’t know it was coming, potentially could have a broken rib off the back of it – zero free kick paid.
“If that umpire pays the free kick, maybe it deflates a little bit of the way Maynard is feeling. Yes he was hit hard and blindsided, but if he gets the free kick it maybe calms the farm a little bit.”
On the Lewis-Blakey incident, Johnson said: “It’s not a report by any stretch of the imagination. Is it a free kick? Maybe borderline. But no free kick was paid there either.
“That one doesn’t worry me too much because it was front-on, he’s not blindsiding him, he’s facing him, he can see him coming at least and you can prepare yourself – unlike the Long one.”
Nick Blakey wasn’t penalised for this.Source: FOX SPORTS
But Johnson was left mightily disappointed that Reid was punished.
“This is the one that frustrated me the most. I hope he’s not adjudicated differently in our game,” Johnson said.
“That there on Berry – that’s (paid) a free kick against at an important time of the game … It’s not even ‘light’ (contact). It is less than a feather.
“We cannot be serious that we’re giving Harley Reid a free kick (against) for that when we don’t give a free kick to Blakey or (against) Long in worse scenarios.
“Berry goes down. He didn’t get hit in the stomach, so Berry should get done for a stage and that’s got to go out of his game. There is nothing at all in that. There is no reason why he should flex over.”
Harley Reid was penalised for this.Source: FOX SPORTS
Asked by First Crack host Jay Clark if Reid was “being punished for being Harley Reid”, Johnson said: “He’s an aggressive player, right? We love the way he goes about it, he throws his arms around and jumps in and is going to get penalised along the way.
“But that one there? No way. Not with what else we saw on the weekend.”