{"id":546487,"date":"2026-03-17T16:04:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T16:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/546487\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T16:04:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T16:04:25","slug":"collingwood-champion-scott-pendleburys-charge-downgraded-at-afl-tribunal-after-marathon-deliberation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/546487\/","title":{"rendered":"Collingwood champion Scott Pendlebury\u2019s charge downgraded at AFL tribunal after marathon deliberation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collingwood<\/a> have gone to desperate measures at the AFL<\/a> tribunal to demonstrate how fair and law-abiding Scott Pendlebury is, using the champion\u2019s clean record during his junior basketball days as part of their attempt to have his one-match ban overturned.<\/p>\n

And while it might have been a wild throw at the stumps, it evidently worked, forcing the tribunal to deliberate for seemingly an eternity on Tuesday night … and ultimately keeping Pendlebury\u2019s suspension-free record intact.<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old received the one-match suspension for rough conduct after he bumped Josh Worrell in the head during the Pies\u2019 MCG clash with Adelaide on Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

Remarkably the incident \u2014 graded as careless conduct, medium impact and high contact \u2014 was the first time he had been in the books across 21 seasons in the AFL, and, according to the Pies, that clean record extends into his junior basketball career too.<\/p>\n

Collingwood also dragged into it the names of some other 400-game greats, noting that North Melbourne\u2019s Brent Harvey was suspended for 12 matches, Hawthorn (and Port\u2019s) Shaun Burgoyne was suspended for six matches, and Essendon\u2019s Dustin Fletcher was suspended for 20 matches.<\/p>\n

As well as his squeaky clean record as a sports star, the tribunal also had to consider Pendlebury\u2019s own evidence, with the respected veteran saying that if he didn\u2019t turn and brace, he and Worrell would\u2019ve run head-first into each other.<\/p>\n

Tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson also noted that Pendlebury had extended his left hand out during the incident to protect himself, saying that was unusual if his pure intention was to bump.<\/p>\n

After deliberating for almost and hour, Pendlebury had his charge downgraded but was given a $3000 fine under \u201ccompelling and exceptional circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not satisfied that Pendlebury was either contesting the ball or that circumstances beyond his control caused the contact with Worrell,\u201d the tribunal said in a statement explaining the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurning now to the plea of exceptional and compelling circumstances, we are comfortably satisfied that this provision applies to Scott Pendlebury.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have played 427 games of AFL football as a midfielder, engaged in many thousands of contests over his career, and to have never been suspended is clearly exceptional when compared with the entire history of the VFL\/AFL players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis record is of itself a compelling circumstance, but we also take into account that this was a careless act, and certainly not at the high end of the careless range.<\/p>\n

\u201cPendlebury moved in such a way so as to reduce the force of the impact, rather than to increase the impact. It did not cause injury, and it was very much an in-play incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

After both sides agreed, the tribunal then changed the sanction from a one-match ban to a $3000 fine.<\/p>\n

He will now be able to play in Collingwood\u2019s clash with GWS at Marvel Stadium after this week\u2019s bye.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collingwood have gone to desperate measures at the AFL tribunal to demonstrate how fair and law-abiding Scott Pendlebury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,10133,1625,3863,588,85],"class_list":["post-546487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-collingwood-magpies","tag-lifestyle","tag-sponsored-content","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546487","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=546487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}