Josh Daicos Brayden Maynard racing the clock to face Essendon; Umpiring standard is as good as ever, says AFL boss – MASHAHER

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Though Lachie Schultz, who returns after recovering from gastro, shapes as a like-for-like replacement for McCreery, the Pies team will be significantly weaker on paper if Maynard and Josh Daicos cannot overcome six-day breaks.

The Pies already have six premiership players unavailable, including the retired Nathan Murphy and the traded Jack Ginnivan, plus Noble, who has become a regular this year.

The setbacks come a week after Scott Pendlebury, Brody Mihocek and Jordan De Goey all returned from injury.
Though expected by many to be the main danger to Sydney and Carlton, the Pies will almost certainly fall out of the eight if they lose to the Bombers.

Sicily has avoided surgery for now after dislocating his right shoulder for the second time this season.

Though he needs to pass a fitness test to take on the Cats at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday, he can expect to be available for a decent chunk of the Hawks’ run home, in a major boost to the club’s hopes of securing an unlikely finals berth.

He missed two games after hurting his shoulder against the Western Bulldogs but had not been hampered by the issue until re-injuring the joint in a marking contest against the West Coast.

Kennedy is also a chance to line up for the Blues after being cleared of damage to the medial collateral ligament in his right knee.

There had been fears on Sunday night the in-form Kennedy was set for an extended stint on the sidelines but scans cleared him of structural damage.

Kennedy will need to pass a fitness test to face the Giants but is considered only an outside chance to recover with only a six-day break.

Running machine Matthew Cottrell will also have to undergo a test, though may have to return via the VFL after Orazio Fantasia’s four-goal haul in the defensive-forward role he vacated.

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The Giants’ spluttering season hit another major hurdle with Kelly injuring a calf muscle for the second time this season. The silky-skilled left-footer underwent scans on Tuesday, which revealed a strain to the calf on his other leg. Kelly was in his third game back from injury, which had ruled him out for four weeks earlier in the season.

The Giants say he faces four to five weeks out, during which they have testing assignments against finals contenders Carlton, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Hawthorn. Kelly is the club’s most prolific goalkicking midfielder with 15 goals this year.

Gun defender Sam Taylor will sit out a further two games as he recovers from surgery to repair a ruptured testicle.

Taylor, who resumed running this week, requires further scans before he is cleared for a return, which will not come earlier than round 19.

The Giants would dearly love for Taylor, an All-Australian in 2022, to be available this week to take on either of Carlton’s twin towers Charlie Curnow or Harry McKay. The Coleman Medal-winning pair destroyed the Giants in a powerful 10-minute burst in round seven.

Marathon hearing: Boyd free to play after suspension downgraded to fine

Carlton defender Jordan Boyd can play against GWS after the Blues had his penalty downgraded at a marathon AFL tribunal hearing.

After the tribunal panel deliberated for two hours, they reduced the grading of his forceful front-on contact charge from medium to low.

That means instead of a one-game suspension, Boyd is fined and is free to play against the Giants in Sydney on Saturday night.

The tribunal found Boyd committed the offence when he collided with Richmond forward Rhyan Mansell during last Sunday’s game.

It rejected Carlton’s submission during the hearing Mansell had deliberately ducked to milk a free kick, contributing to the incident.

AFL advocate Sam Bird said Carlton’s argument went close to victim-blaming, which Blues counterpart Peter O’Farrell denied.

Tribunal chair Renee Enbom said in the findings that Boyd had slowed down immediately before his contact with Mansell and this “significantly reduced” the impact.

“But for Mr Boyd taking several steps immediately before contact to reduce the impact, we would have upheld the medium grading,” she said.

She added Boyd tried to cradle Mansell and also moved to stop the Richmond player from falling backwards.

“These actions helped to minimise the actual impact of the contact, which was low. Importantly, they also helped to reduce the potential for injury – for these reasons, we find the impact to be low,” she said

Boyd did not give evidence in the hearing, which went for nearly four hours.

Umpiring standard is as good as ever, says AFL boss

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The standard of umpiring is as good as ever despite widespread outcry, AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon says.

Dillon is staunchly defending new umpires chief Steve McBurney and his cohort amid criticism of decisions influencing the outcome of several games this season.

“I spend a lot of time with the umpires, talking to Steve McBurney who’s heading it up, but also individual umpires,” Dillon said in Adelaide on Tuesday.

“Our umpires, it’s an incredibly tough game to umpire, but we’ve got elite decision-makers, they’re elite athletes, but they continue to work their craft.

“All sports are really difficult to officiate, but I think our sport is one of the hardest ones.

“What our focus on is actually just preparing our umpires and making sure we get the processes right and continue to umpire as well as we can.

“It’s as good as it’s ever been, the umpiring.

“We’re in the second year on the four-umpire system as well, so we’re on a journey with the four-umpire system.”

Dillon said the recent focus on umpiring decisions was a by-product of the closeness of the league.

“The competition is so tight,” he said.

“I don’t understand why, but there’s always been a focus on umpiring – I’m pretty old and it has been around for as long as I’ve been around and will continue to be.

“But I think because the competition is so tight that maybe there is an increased focus on the umpires.”

The AFL hierarchy has in some instances this season publicly admitted mistakes in days following contentious calls.

“But we don’t want to be up every Monday talking about umpiring decisions,” Dillon said.

Essendon coach Brad Scott, a former AFL general manager of football, said the league’s Monday explanations “can make a bit of a rod for your own back”.

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“I understand the fans’ frustration,” Scott said.

“And I think the concern for the game more broadly is that there are people who have been involved in the game all their lives who didn’t have a clear understanding of how the rules are adjudicated.

“If that’s the case, what hope has the fan who’s sitting up in the bleachers or watching at home on TV got?

“The more we can be transparent and explain things, probably the better, without going down the rabbit hole of just nitpicking every single decision through every game.”

Recent criticism has followed a mid-season interpretation change to the holding-the-ball rule after an early backlash from clubs and fans.