Collingwood’s Billy Frampton has escaped a dangerous tackle ban at the AFL Tribunal for the second time this season.
Frampton is available for Saturday night’s blockbuster with Carlton after his rough conduct charge for the tackle which sent the head of North Melbourne’s Matt Whitlock into the Marvel Stadium turf was downgraded.
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Initially graded as careless with medium impact and high contact, the Pies argued it was not careless (trying to get it thrown out) and low impact (trying to get it downgraded, if it wasn’t thrown out entirely).
They said Frampton had no choice but to pin Whitlock’s arms in the tackle and then did release them; conceding it was too late for Whitlock to protect himself, but arguing doing it at all – along with rotating Whitlock’s body and trying to land under him – made the tackle reasonable.
The AFL argued Frampton acted unreasonably by pinning Whitlock’s arms in the first place, and then by increasing the momentum of the tackle rather than decreasing it.
Whitlock’s head making forceful contact with the ground was argued to be evidence the tackle had the potential to cause serious injury.
The Tribunal found Frampton acted unreasonably by pinning Whitlock’s arms, and not releasing them earlier, but said the impact was low rather than medium resulting in a fine.
Frampton was previously successful in escaping a sanction for the tackle which broke ex-teammate Brody Mihocek’s neck on King’s Birthday.
In that case, the Tribunal found Mihocek was primarily to blame for the incident, not Frampton.
Tribunal reasons (Renee Enbom statement)
We find Frampton did engage in rough conduct in tackling Whitlock.
He pinned both of Whitlock’s arms until the very last moment. This meant that Whitlock could not use either arm to protect himself as he was taken to ground.
A reasonable player would not regard it as prudent to hold both arms until the last moment. A reasonable player would have released at least one of Whitlock’s arms earlier as he was falling to ground, especially given the force being used to take him to ground.
It’s the combination of pinning both arms at all relevant times and the force used to take Whitlock to ground that makes the tackle careless.
As to impact, on balance we find it to be low.
The vision shows that while Whitlock’s head did hit the ground, the force was reduced by his knee and shoulder first making contact with the ground.
This is relevant to both the force with which his head hit the ground and also the potential for injury.
We’ve looked at the vision, and Whitlock does not appear to be in any discomfort following the tackle.
We know from the medical report that Whitlock didn’t suffer an injury.
We’ve also carefully compared the incident to the other tackles relied upon by Frampton and we consider that the impact to be similar to those examples.
Accordingly, we uphold the charge but reclassify the impact as low.
Originally published as Collingwood star Billy Frampton learns fate for tackle weeks after incident which saw rival break neck