Paul Curtis\u2019 controversial three-week ban earlier in the year<\/a>.<\/p>\nThey claimed Curtis\u2019 tackle was more dangerous as he propelled Josh Sinn forward, and Curtis completely wrapped his arms around his opponent, while also not trying to roll Sinn sideways.<\/p>\n
The AFL said Stewart was driven into the ground with excessive force with his arms pinned to him in a way that meant he couldn\u2019t break his fall.<\/p>\n
They argued it was open to Chol to release one or both of Stewart\u2019s arms, or to roll Stewart rather than fall right on top of him.<\/p>\n
Mabior Chol of the Hawks looks on as Tom Stewart of the Cats is seen with medical staff during the AFL Second Preliminary Final match between the Geelong Cats and the Hawthorn Hawks at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 19, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Willson\/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Hawks said Chol \u201cfeels sorry for what happened to Mr Stewart as a result of this footballing accident, given the significance of the game this weekend\u201d, but argued he tackled reasonably in the circumstances.<\/p>\n
They pointed to a \u201ctangle of legs\u201d which occurs due to Chol\u2019s teammate Sam Butler also applying a tackle on Stewart.<\/p>\n
The Hawks said Stewart was capable of moving his left arm enough to protect himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, we\u2019re not at all victim blaming in this, but it\u2019s a factor which Mr Chol was entitled to take into account – that he didn\u2019t grip Mr Stewart\u2019s arm so tightly that it was incapable of being moved,\u201d Tehan said.<\/p>\n
The Hawks also argued Chol tried to roll to his left but he \u201cwasn\u2019t especially successful at doing it\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tribunal reasons<\/p>\n
We find that Chol did not engage in rough conduct.<\/p>\n
An important factor in our consideration is the involvement of the Butler tackle in the way it affected the Choll tackle.<\/p>\n
Butler\u2019s tackle caused Stewart to lose his feet, and by the time Chol commenced his tackle it was inevitable that Stewart was going to ground.<\/p>\n
Importantly, Butler\u2019s tackle also affected Chol directly.<\/p>\n
It caused the tangle of legs between the three players, and had the effect of sweeping Chol\u2019s feet to the right, which prevented him from maintaining any sense of balancing contact with the ground.<\/p>\n
Butler\u2019s tackle limited Chol\u2019s ability to plant his left foot and entirely removed his ability to plant his right foot.<\/p>\n
He lost any meaningful control of the tackle through contact to his own legs and those of Stewart that was beyond his control.<\/p>\n
It suddenly changed the nature of the tackle from being one affected from Stewart\u2019s side to one where Chol was falling onto Stewart\u2019s back.<\/p>\n
That leaves the question of the pinning of the arms.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt that the tackle around Stewart\u2019s arms limited Stewart\u2019s ability to brace for contact, but he was able to affect the handball while being tackled by Chol, so the limitation on movement of his arms was not absolute.<\/p>\n
Having said that, we accept that the fact that Chol tackled both of Stuart\u2019s arms meant that there was little that Stewart could do to prevent or limit the full force of the large body of Chol landing on him.<\/p>\n
The question is, however, whether what Chol did was unreasonable in the circumstances. We\u2019re not clearly satisfied that it was.<\/p>\n
The tackle happened very quickly, and the nature of the circumstances of the tackle changed even more quickly.<\/p>\n
We are not satisfied that Chol had sufficient time to adapt to the changed circumstances of the tackle to release a greater proportion of one or both of Stewart\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n
As we\u2019ve said, it was only as a result of Butler\u2019s tackle, the tangle of legs and Chol therefore partway through the tackle having no ability to control the tackle that the need to release an arm became paramount. By that time it was too late.<\/p>\n
There was discussion about whether Chol could have rolled, or whether he did indeed attempt to roll, so as to minimise the impact to Stewart.<\/p>\n
The vision shows that there is some indication that at the moment of or perhaps immediately after impact, Chol was conscious of the need to attempt to roll so as to not land fully on Stewart.<\/p>\n
There was insufficient time after the dynamic of the tackle changed mid-tackle for him to effectively achieve that.<\/p>\n
As the AFL, submitted, it was too little too late. That was not because Chol acted unreasonably.<\/p>\n
The Hawks relied on certain points of difference from the Curtis tackle. There is force in that submission.<\/p>\n
There was no third player involved in the Curtis tackle, no tangle of legs, no part of either arm free. The time available to Curtis to sum up the situation prior to affecting the tackle was considerably longer than that available to Chol.<\/p>\n
The circumstances of Curtis\u2019 tackle did not change mid tackle. The circumstances of Chol\u2019s tackle did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn forward Mabior Chol has successfully escaped a three-game dangerous tackle ban at the AFL Tribunal after his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-163235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}