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St Kilda‘s Jimmy Webster has been suspended for seven matches for his massive bump on North Melbourne’s Jy Simpkin in a practice match on Sunday.
And his return game will almost certainly be a fiery affair – he will not be available until the Saints’ round eight clash against the Kangaroos.
After more than an hour of deliberations, tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson said Webster’s bump on Simpkin was a “classic case of avoidable head-high contact”.
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“Simpkin was wide open, vulnerable to contact, and had no reason to anticipate being bumped after disposing of the football,” he said.
Gleeson said the bump was “extremely careless” and Simpkin was in a “relatively defenceless” position.
He said the bump was at the highest end of the definition of careless in the charging guide, but the panel accepted Webster’s remorse as genuine.
The hit inflicted Simpkin’s third concussion in nine months. The Kangaroos ruled Simpkin out of its round one clash against the Giants only hours before the hearing began.
Earlier, Webster pleaded guilty and asked for a fair but firm punishment for his action.
He repeated several times he had no excuse for the bump, or why he left the ground in the first place.
“I’m really sorry about what happened on Sunday. It’s something I’m not proud of, I’ve let a lot of people down,” he said.
“I don’t really have an excuse as to why. It’s such a quick decision and clearly I got it wrong.”
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Andrew Woods for the AFL had asked for an eight-week suspension, which would have been the equal longest since Andrew Gaff was rubbed out for eight weeks in 2018 for striking Andrew Brayshaw.
But lawyer Adrian Anderson for St Kilda said such a long stint on the sidelines would have been “out of proportion”, and compared this bump to Sam Powell-Pepper’s on Mark Keane. that earned a four-week ban.
In delivering his verdict, Gleeson rejected that argument, stating this hit was “considerably worse”.
In a statement confirming Simpkin had been pulled from the Giants clash, North Melbourne football general manager Todd Viney said: “Jy’s health and well-being is our number one priority”.
He also suggested Simpkin could miss more than just this match.
“Given Jy’s concussion history, our medical team will take a conservative approach to his management and recovery as per the AFL’s Concussion Protocols,” he said.
“Jy came into the club [on Tuesday], he’s doing well and is in good spirits but his official return-to-play timeline is unclear at this point as it depends on his progress.”
