Match Review Officer Michael Christian has explained the reasons why Dustin Martin’s case was not sent to the tribunal.
The Richmond star was given a $1500 fine for making careless contact with umpire Jacob Mollison in Sunday’s clash with Geelong.
The decision has divided opinion but Christian felt that the similarity to the incident involving Gold Coast’s Steven May earlier this season was enough to hand down the sanction and avoid taking the case to the tribunal.
“It’s been challenging trying to interpret the provisions and the guidelines,” he said on SEN's KB & The Doc.
“When Steven May went up and the tribunal ruled his action was of a careless nature, we certainly took that into account yesterday in determining the charge for Dustin Martin.
“That happened in Round 8 and certainly it was a key aspect to us determining the fact that Dustin Martin’s action with Umpire Mollison was of a careless nature and not an intentional nature.
“It brought into a broader discussion in light of these recent tribunal decisions how to interpret sending a player to the tribunal for umpire contact.
“Where we ended up was to interpret that (as) intentional umpire contact and therefore referring a player directly to the tribunal, if that intentional contact is of a disrespectful, aggressive, dismissive or forceful manner, then that’s the scenario with which we would send a player to the tribunal.
“The Steven May case was a precedent case where we sent it to the tribunal, the tribunal were emphatic with the response, they didn’t believe it was careless.
“What we concluded that the Martin case was very much aligned to the Steven May case and (we were) sitting back and exercising a degree of common sense.
“Sending this to tribunal just doesn’t make any sense.”
Former Collingwood defender Christian used further examples of previous umpire contact cases in 2018 to defend the Martin decision.
“When we track back in time, I certainly think that the Tom Hawkins incident was in that category (disrespectful, aggressive, dismissive or forceful) and also the Ed Curnow incident was certainly of a dismissive nature,” he added.
“What we are trying to do is find the balance, exercise some common sense and put some clarity, so we’re not changing the rules.
“What we are doing is trying to put some clarity around what incidents should and what incidents shouldn’t be sent to the tribunal because it doesn’t make any sense to send and keep sending up incidents like the one we saw on Sunday with Dustin Martin to the tribunal.
“Because effectively we know what the outcome is going to be.”
Listen to Michael Christian’s explanation in the player below: