LUKE Hodge’s contact with Port Adelaide’s Chad Wingard in Friday night’s game could be scrutinised by the MRP today.
While Hodge was not reported on Friday night, if the case is reviewed by the MRP today, there are circumstances that could see Hodge receive anything from a $1500 fine to a multiple-week ban.
According to AFL.com.au’s tribunal expert Nathan Schmook, two of the three gradings are careless conduct and high contact. He asserts that the impact of the collision is more difficult to grade.
However, it is difficult to know how the MRP might adjudicate the incident.
Given Wingard was able to not just play on after the contact but kick two goals in the next 10 minutes, the impact would normally be graded low. That would result in a $1500 fine and Hodge's record would be irrelevant.
If the impact was graded medium, the penalty would be pushed up to two weeks, and Hodge's record would mean he couldn't plead that down.
"It is played at top level speed (and) the difficult thing with this one is that there is a goalpost involved,” Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson told Melbourne radio station SEN on Saturday.
If the MRP decides to grade the impact as high, Hodge would have his base sanction sit at three weeks.
Any player who has been suspended for two matches or more in the past two AFL seasons has one match added to their base sanction, and therefore taking into account Hodge served a three-match suspension earlier this season, in this scenario the Hawks skipper’s base penalty could move to four weeks.
He could plead that down to three weeks, but with only two weeks to go in the home-and-away season, that would still result in one missed final.
As Clarkson said on Saturday: "They will look at it and make their determinations from that, but (it's a) pretty tough call."
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