AFL<\/a> wanting three games and North arguing for two.<\/p>\nIn handing down the penalty, tribunal chairman Jeff Gleeson KC said it was \u201cdisgraceful behaviour\u201d and noted Xerri\u2019s hand was close to McGrath\u2019s open mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe \u2018look\u2019 of the act is quite shocking,\u201d Gleeson said. But he also noted Xerri made \u201cno attempt whatsoever\u201d to minimise what happened and called the evidence \u201cimpressive\u201d.<\/p>\n
The tribunal said there was \u201csome significance\u201d to Xerri admitting in evidence that there had been blood on his hand, given that was not clear in the video footage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf not for Mr Xerri\u2019s early plea and his impressive, candid and remorseful evidence, we may have considered a sanction of more than three weeks as appropriate,\u201d Gleeson said.<\/p>\n
Xerri will miss the Good Friday game against Carlton, then matches against Brisbane and Richmond. He was referred directly to the tribunal and said in evidence that the bizarre incident was a \u201cbrain fade\u201d.<\/p>\n
As expected, Xerri threw himself at the mercy of the tribunal. The incident during Saturday night\u2019s game overshadowed North\u2019s 12-point win over the Bombers.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s hearing was held a day earlier than normal.<\/p>\n
The incident happened after the North Melbourne big man had complained to an umpire about a blood nose before kicking a goal and clashing physically with McGrath.<\/p>\n
Xerri then touched his bloody nose and wiped his hand on McGrath\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
The ruckman called McGrath to apologise, saying in evidence that it was a good conversation, and added he was \u201ccompletely owning\u201d the mistake.<\/p>\n
Xerri said he reacted after being sledged by Essendon opponents. He had just kicked the goal from a free kick.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was getting called a \u2018weak c-word\u2019, a \u2018effing, flopping c-word\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not right what I did. I\u2019m sorry and sincerely apologise for that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a lapse in judgment. There\u2019s no excuses, mate. It\u2019s a poor look. I had a brain fade. I was defending myself and in that moment I had a brain fade. I should have done better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The incident predictably attracted widespread condemnation ahead of the hearing, with AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon on Sunday saying it was \u201csomething that we don\u2019t want to see\u201d.<\/p>\n
North tried to draw comparisons with previous cases, where Nathan Buckley and Jeremy Howe received one-game bans for wiping blood on opponents\u2019 uniforms.<\/p>\n
But Gleeson said those incidents were \u201cquite significantly less serious\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North Melbourne star Tristan Xerri would have risked a heftier AFL ban had he not shown remorse for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-575220","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575220","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=575220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}