Long on Monday night copped two fines from the MRO<\/a> for acts during the Suns\u2019 win over the Giants on Sunday night: One for striking and one for misconduct against Clayton Oliver.<\/p>\nAfter giving away a holding free kick, Long and Oliver tangled in the pocket, with Long seeming to connect with a jumper punch before grabbing Oliver\u2019s head on the ground \u2013 an act that cost the Suns a 50m penalty \u2013 then giving him a slap.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m being completely honest, you get a week for stupidity, if I\u2019m Ben,\u201d Hardwick told Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360. \u201cIt\u2019s uncalled for, it\u2019s not in the football game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a disappointing thing, it cost us a 50 and to be fair it probably should\u2019ve cost him a week, I feel. It\u2019s a non-football act.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking later on Fox Footy\u2019s on The Couch, Buckley said he \u201cdidn\u2019t like the look of this at all\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBen Long is a very physical, aggressive player and he might have thought that Clayton Oliver was staging a little bit, but there was a little bit in that and then there was a bit of taunting and then there was a slap.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s copped two fines for that and players are getting weeks for throwing an elbow or a little punch off-ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is off-ball and I just can\u2019t understand why that didn\u2019t draw a week.\u201d <\/p>\n
Buckley said Hardwick\u2019s honest take on Long was \u201cpowerful\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can get away with one, that\u2019s fine, but I think it\u2019s great that your senior coach still calls it out for what it is,\u201c Buckley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing the AFL didn\u2019t follow through on their own laws.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hardwick said he was also pleased that Suns player Sam Clohesy was offered a two-game ban \u2013 instead of three \u2013 for a dangerous tackle on Giant Ryan Angwin after the MRO graded the incident as high impact, rather than severe. It comes after the AFL made an off-season change, which now means incidents that lead to a concussion don\u2019t automatically lead to a severe grading.<\/p>\n
But Hardwick said he was still grappling with the fact that a \u201cfootball act\u201d like Clohesy\u2019s can received a greater punishment than a non-football act.<\/p>\n
\u201cSam Clohesy didn\u2019t go in with any intent or malice to injure young Angwin \u2013 and we hope he\u2019s OK \u2013 but when you sit there and think about his intent, his intent is to tackle, not to hurt,\u201d Hardwick said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find it a little bit challenging at stages where Sam has been taught his whole life how to tackle and he gets to two weeks, but you can walk up and punch someone and get a fine. One is a football act and one isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy they\u2019ve used some precedent and got that reduced, but I still look at football acts a little bit differently to non-football acts and feel they should be fine. The game needs its talent playing, we\u2019re an entertainment industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018TERRIFIC REDEMPTION STORY\u2019: INSIGHT INTO STAR SUNS RECRUITS<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Hardwick said he was proud of how recruits Christian Petracca and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan had settled into Suns life.<\/p>\n
Petracca since arriving at Gold Coast has returned to his best form, ranking among the top AFL players so far this season. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been terrific, his ability to play the game has never been questioned,\u201d Hardwick told Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s a new lease of life for him and a different environment that he\u2019s thoroughly enjoying.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what we\u2019ve been really captivated with is his off-field connection, the way he\u2019s brought our younger players in group together has been quite significant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been really blessed to bring him into our footy club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ugle-Hagan, who missed the entire 2025 season before being traded from the Western Bulldogs to the Suns, has returned to senior footy in the past two weeks, including a three-goal haul against the Giants on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Hardwick said Ugle-Hagan was \u201cjust a terrific redemption story\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still got a long way to go \u2013 we understand that \u2013 but we\u2019re really excited about what he\u2019s brought,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sent him a text (on Monday) about a couple of \u2018room for improvements\u2019 because I wasn\u2019t happy with his goal celebration song. I said \u2018that\u2019s probably due for a change\u2019, but he said: \u2018Look to be fair, it was on repeat a fair bit.\u2019 So he\u2019s got the swagger about him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hardwick said he wasn\u2019t surprised Ugle-Hagan had made an immediate impact upon return.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like you can pick up that part of your game relatively quickly, but what we\u2019re looking for is that next 20 per cent \u2013 and that\u2019s probably the hardest bit, to get back to that AFL fitness \u2026 That will come over the next few weeks then we think the second part of the year is where he\u2019ll really hit his straps.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s indebted, not only to me but to the Gold Coast Football Club that was prepared to give him an opportunity. That\u2019s what footy clubs are about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our players and our leadership group have been absolutely outstanding the way they\u2019ve wrapped around him and general level of understanding about who he is and what he wishes to become.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damien Hardwick\u2019s blunt MRO take over an act of \u201cstupidity\u201d from his own player has been lauded as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,25847,314300,7803,314303,14385,44818,104150,232375,61,314302,2485,9130,314299,3255,26511,677,314301,701,313571,22401,85,159556,314297,314298,698],"class_list":["post-649916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-ben-long","tag-blunt-honesty","tag-clayton-oliver","tag-coaching-prospect","tag-damien-hardwick","tag-entertainment-industry","tag-football-game","tag-footy-clubs","tag-gerard-whateley","tag-goal-celebration-song","tag-gold-coast","tag-gold-coast-suns","tag-jumper-punch","tag-leadership-group","tag-nathan-buckley","tag-oceania","tag-punch-off-ball","tag-queensland","tag-sam-clohesy","tag-senior-coach","tag-sports","tag-star-recruits","tag-star-suns-recruits","tag-terrific-redemption-story","tag-western-bulldogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649916","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=649916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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