Updated ,first published
Collingwood defender Billy Frampton is free to play, after his rough conduct charge for his tackle on Brody Mihocek that resulted in a serious injury for the Demons forward was not considered unreasonable.
“We find that the majority of the force was provided my Mr Mihocek,” said tribunal chairman Jeff Gleeson KC on Wednesday night.
Collingwood chose to challenge the three-match ban handed to Frampton for the tackle in the King’s Birthday clash that left Mihocek with a fractured neck that required surgery and almost certainly ended his season.
At the tribunal Frampton said he “would never in a million years want to hurt another player” and, once realising that Mihocek had a potentially serious injury, he felt “horrific”.
“I don’t know what else I could’ve done. I approached cautiously with his care front of mind, I didn’t want to hit him in the head, I didn’t want to go front on,” Frampton said.
“That was genuinely what I was thinking at the time. He said he needed help, he couldn’t move, which was quite a distressing thing to hear. He said that a few times straight away, which is why I reacted the way I did to call some people over.
“It was a pretty stressful couple of days for me but now that I’ve heard he’s trending in the right direction, it’s sort of taken a bit of the load off.”
Match review officer Michael Christian ruled Frampton’s actions on his former Magpies teammate during the second term of the close match at the MCG to be careless and high, with severe impact.
Mihocek, 33, temporarily lost feeling in some of his limbs after being knocked out when the top of his head was accidentally driven into the ground in the tackle.
The MCG crowd of 88,019 people fell silent as the game was held up for eight minutes while Melbourne’s medics attended Mihocek.
He was carefully loaded onto a motorised stretcher and taken from the ground before being transported to The Alfred.
It was Mihocek’s first game against his former side. Players from both teams went over to wish the forward well before he was taken from the ground.
He underwent surgery on Monday evening and Melbourne confirmed the power forward, who was a premiership player at the Magpies, had since been out of his hospital bed and was walking.
Collingwood have spoken with the AFL, the Demons, Mihocek and his family to explain the grounds for their tribunal challenge.
Senior Magpie leaders and players have also been in contact with Mihocek, and were pleased that their former teammate was doing well after surgery.
On Tuesday evening, Footy Classified host and former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said Frampton’s three-match ban should be overturned, arguing it was just an accident.
“He fell down first of all, he’s in there, he’s pushing off and pushing forward,” McGuire said watching the replay of the tackle.
“You can’t go forward on a player now, to protect the player, you can’t stand there, it’s just an accident.”
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Hannah Kennelly is an award-winning sports reporter and Formula 1 writer at The Age.Connect via email.