Hawthorn co-captain Jai Newcombe faces possible suspension over a dangerous tackle ahead of the AFL Opening Round clash with GWS, in a result that would further test Sam Mitchell’s midfield depth.<\/p>\n
Already without injured star Will Day (shoulder), and with James Worpel moving to Geelong in the off-season, the Hawks lost young midfielder Cam Mackenzie (concussion) in their pre-season loss to the Western Bulldogs last Friday night.<\/p>\n
Newcombe has come under scrutiny over a tackle that drove Ed Richards’ head into the ground in the same match.<\/p>\n
Richards had one arm pinned by Newcombe but wasn’t seriously hurt in the incident, getting up to take his kick and playing out the rest of the game.<\/p>\n
But the match review officer (MRO) has the option to elevate the force of an incident based on a tackle’s potential to cause serious injury.<\/p>\n
The latest MRO findings will be released on Monday.<\/p>\n
A grading of medium impact would result in a one-match ban for Newcombe, ruling him out of the GWS clash at Engie Stadium on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The loss of their inspirational skipper would be a blow for the Hawks, who take on an injury-hit Giants outfit first up after last year’s preliminary final appearance.<\/p>\n
Tom Green (knee), Josh Kelly (hip), Sam Taylor (hamstring) and Toby Bedford (hamstring) are all sidelined for GWS, while Finn Callaghan (hip flexor) still has to prove his fitness.<\/p>\n
Essendon are also sweating on Monday’s MRO findings, with Sam Durham facing scrutiny over a tackle on St Kilda’s Ryan Byrnes.<\/p>\n
Durham had one of Byrnes’ arms pinned as he picked up his opponent, rotated and took him to ground during Saturday’s pre-season match at Ballarat.<\/p>\n
If banned, Durham would miss the round-one clash with Hawthorn on March 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn co-captain Jai Newcombe faces possible suspension over a dangerous tackle ahead of the AFL Opening Round clash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,22718,16118,6854,19100,12936,85,698],"class_list":{"0":"post-511160","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-gws","14":"tag-hawks","15":"tag-hawthorn","16":"tag-jai-newcombe","17":"tag-sam-mitchell","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-western-bulldogs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511160","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=511160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}