Ugly incident exposes key AFL flaw after ‘stupid action’

Brisbane defender Ty Gallop will face match review officer (MRO) scrutiny over an off-ball incident where he slammed Port Adelaide forward Mitch Georgiades’ head into the turf on Sunday, but Jimmy Bartel has warned the AFL the incident has exposed a flaw in the game’s ability to rule on such incidents.

After aggressively tackling the Power star to ground with a sling motion, narrowly avoiding his head hitting turf, Gallop then picked Georgiades up by the back of his jumper and slammed him face-first into the ground.

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Port Adelaide received a free kick for the incident, which will likely face MRO scrutiny on Monday.

Geelong great Bartel believes Gallop should be fined for the dangerous action, but called out the AFL for not reforming the MRO to be able to handle these kinds of incidents.

MRO Michael Christian, who will make the decision, must follow the match review matrix to institute a fine or a suspension, which means it will need to be graded careless or intentional and deemed low, medium or high impact.

A grading of intentional conduct, with low impact to the head would see Gallop cop a one-game ban, though this doesn’t take into account the fact that the incident occurred away from the play and was a non-football act.

“This is the problem, he picks him up, rag dolls him, and shoves his head into the ground,” Bartel told Nine’s Footy Furnace.

“It will be up to Michael Christian if he wants to suspend him it’ll depend on how he puts it into his matrix.

“If they’d listened to anyone over the last five years, they would have put that into the matrix, but they have no want or desire to fix the MRO.

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“Fix the MRO or just tell us that it’s perfect.”

Brisbane great Alastair Lynch questioned Gallop in the moment during the broadcast, particularly given Georgiades’ ongoing battles with previous concussions.

“That’s just a stupid action. Mitch has had his issues with concussion. We don’t need to see it,” Lynch told Fox Footy.

Port Adelaide coach Josh Carr called out Gallop himself after the match.

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“I didn’t like (it),” Carr told reporters.

“It wasn’t a great look, but I’m on the other side of it.

“They’re a team that plays tough and probably pushes the limits, and we got the free kick, so we got rewarded. Probably not much more to say.”

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Brisbane coach Chris Fagan hit back at Carr, defending his players’ physicality.

“That’s his opinion. He’s allowed to have it,” Fagan said of Carr.

“You don’t be one of the better teams in the competition if you don’t play a hard, physical brand.

“So, I think that’s what we do. I don’t think we do it unfairly. I think we brought good pressure today.”

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Outside of the MRO’s matrix, the AFL could step in itself and deem Gallop’s action “serious misconduct” and send him straight to the Tribunal if they deem it worthy of a significant suspension.

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