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Hickey’s hair adds further complexity to Tribunal as Cerra and Laird go free

2023-05-31T08:55+10:00

Is anybody any closer to working out what goes on at the Tribunal?

After Adelaide’s Rory Laird and Carlton’s Adam Cerra had their one-match bans for dangerous tackles overturned, and Sydney’s Luke Parker did not, it feels as if the footy public is none the wiser.

Blues midfielder Cerra had initially been suspended for tackling Tom Hickey at the SCG on Friday night with the Sydney ruckman seemingly hitting his head on the ground, but he was not concussed.

SEN’s Sam Edmund attempted to explain to Tim Watson and Garry Lyon the thought process of the Tribunal after 16 dangerous tackle appeals in a row had been upheld.

To add further confusion to the mix, Edmund said that part of lawyer Peter O’Farrell’s defence of Cerra was to use the optical illusion of the whip of Hickey’s voluminous hair.

It just adds another layer of complexity to the Tribunal in 2023.

“Carlton might not be able to get a win on the field at the moment, but they’ve won their last three at the Tribunal,” Edmund said on SEN Breakfast.

“They’re in good form there.

“They even talked about Tom Hickey’s hair. Don’t be distracted by the size of Tom Hickey’s hair which gave the impression there was more whiplash than what there actually was.

“Luke Parker not as lucky. He in the same game tackled Sam Walsh to the ground and that ban stands.”

Watson tried to make sense of the current Tribunal climate, leading to a back and forth with Edmund and Lyon.

They discussed the Cerra tackle and how his liberation came to be, with Lyon pondering how a tackler is expected to read the mind of the player he is tackling.

Watson: “Just to try and clear this up and put some clarity around it for people who are trying to work out how does one get off and another stand.

“To me, the way that it was explained last night, if you lock an arm in that tackle and that arm is locked all the way to the ground, then you will not be successful at the tribunal.”

Edmund: “The explanation for Adam Cerra was this - ‘Cerra only has a light grip on Hickey’s arms. They are not truly pinned. A reasonable player in Cerra’s circumstances would know that Hickey could use one or both of these arms to break his fall. As a result, we find that this was not a dangerous tackle’.”

Lyon: “So now, in the process of tackling, you need to read the mind (of the player you’re tackling).

“He (Cerra) needs to work out, in this instance, that it was light because, what, Tom Hickey has got bigger muscles?”

Edmund: “They say they were not truly pinned, Hickey’s arms, and a reasonable player in Cerra’s circumstances would know that Hickey could use one or both of these arms to break his fall.”

Lyon: “There you go. So in that split second, he has to make that decision on what Tom Hickey can do.

“That’s what he’s got to sum up.”

Watson: “You’re saying that you’re none the wiser?”

Lyon: “Tim, I’m going to tackle you and halfway to the ground I’ve got to work out whether you, not what I can do, whether you can break my tackle.

“If you can reasonably break my tackle, then I’ll go on with it.”

Watson: “Let’s reverse it then, so Hickey is tackling Cerra and he’s a bigger guy and obviously it would be looked and deemed a little bit different than what it was last night.

“Because he’s a bigger guy and he’s got a stronger grip than Cerra may have being a smaller guy on a bigger guy.”

Lyon: “It’s so complex that we can only discuss it in the manner that we can and you can make up your own minds.”

In Laird’s case, he was cleared of any wrongdoing for his tackle on Brisbane star Lachie Neale, while Parker was suspended for one match for tackling Carlton’s Sam Walsh.

Listen to the full Tribunal chat below:

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