Dual All-Australian Kane Cornes believes Kysaiah Pickett’s late hit on Bailey Smith was “one of the most dangerous things I’ve seen on a footy field in a while,” calling for the Demons star to be banned for as long as four weeks.
Pickett is set to come under scrutiny from the Match Review Officer for the incident in Saturday night’s contest at the MCG that saw him leap at Smith and appear to make high contact after the Bulldogs gun disposed of the ball, prompting a scuffle between to the two teams.
Smith got straight back up and played out the game, however Pickett was instantly placed on report by the field umpire.
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If Pickett’s bump was assessed as careless, low impact and high contact, he’d escape with a fine, however incidents that have the potential to cause injury can be upgraded by the MRO to medium impact.
Given Smith avoided injury, Fox Footy pundits suggested it was a tricky incident to grade, and even if the incident is upgraded to intentional, Pickett could still only be suspended a maximum two weeks.
However Cornes believes the MRO should come down harder as the action itself “had to be stamped out”.
“It absolutely warrants more than two weeks, it’s a three or four week incident,” the Port Adelaide great said on AFL Media’s The Round So Far.
It came in a dominant performance from Pickett, who booted four goals from 19 disposals, seven marks and eight tackles.
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But pending he MRO verdict, the Dees – already missing the likes of Steven May, Jack Viney, Bauley Fritsch and Christian Salem – now face the prospect of missing another one of their key stars.
“It’s a shame because his game tonight was one of the better games he’s ever played for Melbourne. He started in the centre bounce and had maximum centre bounce minutes and opportunities,” Cornes added.
“But then goes forward, he plays a little bit like Shai Bolton – starting at centre bounce and get a matchup you like, then lose your matchup in transition and speed to get out the back … he was huge.
“But with the players Melbourne is already missing, to miss him next week – which he should because that was dangerous – is a real blow.”
Story Credit: foxsports.com.au