As Peter Wright’s case a few weeks ago showed, and Greene’s reaffirmed, it does not matter if a player’s initial aim had been to contest the ball or if the player bumped, in this instance Boyd, got up to take their kick and showed no adverse effects from the collision.

In an argument that will many in the football public will sympathise with, the Giants argued that a player should not be ruled to have made an unreasonable attempt to mark the ball even if they choose to brace for impact in the final milliseconds.

“The practical reality is the two things were happening at once,” Anais d’Arville, for the Giants, told the tribunal.

“It does not make sense to talk about here as a contest and here is a separate decision, and it moves into a totally different category.”

Greene, the Giants said, had his eyes on the ball and his arms tucked in, instead of having his hands out as he was attempting a chest mark.

There is some irony that in an era when the league wants to protect the head, Greene would have been better served by attacking the contest at greater speed front on with his arms and hands out, possibly leaving himself and his opponent more vulnerable to an ugly hit. The alternative, the Giants said, was for Greene to pull out of the contest entirely.

As cogently as Gleeson said the Giants had pleaded their case, the tribunal chair stood by his direction to co-panelists Darren Gaspar and Jason Johnson that “a player bracing for impact is not contesting the ball”.

“That only leaves the question of whether Greene had ceased to attempt to mark prior to impact and was instead bracing for impact,” Gleeson said in the tribunal’s judgment.

“The evidence was this is what he was doing. It is also a finding that we could and do make by closely viewing the video footage. Prior to impact, Greene had abandoned his attempt to mark the ball and turned his body to brace for impact.”

By saying Greene had braced for impact, the Giants had nowhere to run.

Hogan cleared after striking charge deemed ‘negligible’

Greater Western Sydney forward Jesse Hogan is free to play this week after the Giants overturned his suspension at the AFL tribunal in a case that drew comparisons to Patrick Cripps’ Brownlow-saving appeal in 2022.

The Giants used the league’s conflicting tribunal guidelines regarding strikes to clear the Coleman Medal leader to face Brisbane on Thursday night, despite the spearhead admitting he had made contact to the face of Carlton defender Lewis Young during Saturday’s game.

Hogan’s challenge was at risk of being sunk under changes made this year regarding accidental head-high contact from fends being deemed as intentional, but he needed to have committed a reportable offence for this to apply.

The case dramatically swung in Hogan’s favour after a direction from tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson to his co-panellists Darren Gaspar and Scott Stevens that a strike needed to be of more than negligible force to be deemed a reportable offence, and the potential to cause injury cannot result in negligible impact being upgraded.

The AFL’s appeals board sensationally cleared Carlton skipper Cripps of rough conduct in 2022 after the Blues mounted a legalistic argument that the directions provided to the tribunal panel were not procedurally fair.

It paved the way for Cripps to poll the maximum three votes in the final round to clinch the league’s highest individual honour.

Hogan told the tribunal he had been perplexed when told by Young moments after their clash he would be suspended for making head-high contact.

The Giants, represented by Anais d’Arville, said Hogan had brushed Young’s face with a “slight bit of palm”, a view the tribunal shared.

The AFL, through Andrew Woods, said Young should not have been expecting contact in the goal square from Hogan for a boundary throw-in about 30 metres from goal.

He said Young’s “clear head turn” was proof contact had been made with sufficient force for the ban to stand.

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In ruling in Hogan’s favour, the tribunal praised the Giant for his “impressively candid evidence”.

“But Hogan gave evidence his palm only brushed Young’s face and the video evidence is consistent with that,” Gleeson found.

“Young’s head moves with the contact but not to any marked degree. Young does not rub his face or even touch it after the contact. We are not clearly satisfied there was anything more than negligible impact here.”

A star junior, Hogan has been a revelation for the Giants since arriving at the club for the 2021 season with his career at the crossroads after troubled stints with Melbourne and Fremantle.

Hogan booted 49 goals last year as the Giants shocked many with a barnstorming run to climb from 16th in 2022 to fall agonisingly close to a grand final appearance.