Brisbane’s Ty Gallop has pled guilty to serious misconduct but defended his behaviour at the AFL Tribunal. Live updates below!
The league asked for a three-week suspension after Gallop slammed Port Adelaide forward Mitch Georgiades’ head face-first into the Gabba turf on Sunday. Brisbane wants two weeks.
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Fox Footy experts Nathan Buckley and Jonathan Brown were among the ex-players who’ve called for Gallop to be suspended for only one match, given Georgiades wasn’t concussed.
Gallop told the Tribunal he felt at the time Georgiades intentionally went after his injured thumb, before he retaliated with the incident he was charged for.
The Lions are about to enter a critical final month of the season as they try and clinch a top-four spot, with games against Carlton, Hawthorn, Gold Coast and Collingwood.
Follow David Zita’s Tribunal updates in our live blog below!
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Tribunal hearing
The case was heard in front of Tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson and jurors Darren Gaspar and Scott Stevens, with Nick Pane representing the AFL, and Adrian Anderson representing Brisbane.
The Lions pled guilty.
“He’s a young man who’s made a serious mistake in the heat of the moment, after his opponent’s grabbed his broken thumb,” Anderson said.
Gallop said he had never previously been charged with an offence during his junior or senior footy career.
“The week prior against West Coast, I was chasing a player and went for a spoil, and tripped and got my thumb stuck in the dirt, and I fractured my thumb,” he explained.
Gallop said he wore a thumb guard during the game, showing a photo where it was taped all the way down to his wrist.
“After I laid a tackle, I saw advantage was paid and I’ve gone to stand up, and Mitch has grabbed my thumb as I’ve gone to stand up,” he explained.
“Then as an act of retaliation I’ve grabbed the back of his jersey and picked him up and pushed him back into the ground.
“It was an immediate reaction.
“I wasn’t entirely sure but to grab my thumb the way he did, I believed it was intentional.”
Gallop said he felt a “sharp pain in his left thumb, and then he’s held me down, and that’s caused my reaction”.
He has since apologised to Georgiades on the phone.
“Looking back now, and watching the footage I understand the retaliation to what happened wasn’t fair,” Gallop said.
“I’ve gone out of my way to push him down which I’m sorry for and I do regret, and yes I’d like to have that time over again … there’s no room for it in footy.”
”Disappointing act of the season” | 00:56
Asked by the AFL whether he knew what he was doing, Gallop conceded he did, repeating it was “purely retaliation”.
The Lions’ medical report said Gallop was given the option of having surgery on his thumb, or continuing to play with a splint, choosing the latter.
“Georgiades’ head made forceful contact with the ground … the action had a significant potential to cause serious injury including a concussion. More importantly, the action is not part of the game. The tackle had already been completed, the ball had moved on, and there was no justification whatsoever for Gallop’s subsequent action.
“The conduct was deliberate and amounted to Gallop treating another player with contempt. His conduct was totally inappropriate.”
The AFL said a suspension of three weeks was warranted, “as to send a strong message that this type of behaviour is unacceptable.
“The conduct had the potentional to prejudice the reputation of the AFL and to bring the game of football into disrepute.”
Tribunal chair Gleeson asked whether Gallop was trying to claim self-defence or provocation, an argument which needs to be submitted as a defence to the Tribunal before 11am on the day of the hearing, so the other player (Georgiades in this case) can potentially speak during the hearing.
The Lions said they did alert the AFL and Georgiades to the defence being used before 11am, but clarified Gallop no longer believes the action was deliberate as he did in the moment.
The AFL said while Gallop was playing with an injury, because he was passed fit to play, it couldn’t be seen as exceptional or compelling circumstances.
“It looks like one of those typical examples where someone’s humiliating an opponent after laying a tackle or getting a holding the ball, but it’s not in that category,” Anderson said for the Lions, pointing to the thumb contact as the “proper context”.
Anderson’s five reasons in defence were:
1 – It was a “spur of the moment” reaction and it’s “not as offensive as it looks when you see the vision the first time”
2 – Gallop expresses remorse and agrees it was totally unacceptable
3 – Georgiades was not hurt and the incident “has a lot less potential (to cause serious injury) than those ones where you see the head bounce on the ground”
4 – Gallop is a young man who’s “not one of those pests who rubs player’s heads into the ground” and “this was an out-of-character incident”
5 – A two-week sanction was “proportionate”, given that if someone intentionally punches someone in the head with medium impact under the Match Review matrix that results in a two-week ban.
The Lions also said by comparison Tristan Xerri wiping blood on Andrew McGrath, which saw him banned three weeks, was a worse case of serious misconduct.
As similar cases they pointed to Liam Baker pushing James Peatling’s head into the ground last year, which saw him fined after a misconduct charge, and Jack Ginnivan’s jumper punch which pushed the back of Zeke Uwland’s head into the ground from earlier this year, which saw him fined after a striking charge.
The AFL said neither of those incidents were serious misconduct charges and “it doesn’t help not bring the game into disrepute to understand that the player had a sore thumb”.
In response Anderson said for the Lions: “AFL fans, they follow the outcome of these matters, and when someone understands the context of something – that someone had not just a sore thumb, a broken thumb that was grabbed and they reacted immediately to that, it does affect the perception of and the understanding.”
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