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AFL clears Toby Greene over controversial kick at Rampe's groin

AFL clears Toby Greene over controversial kick at Rampe's groin

The Australian7 days ago
Behind-the-goals vision emerged on Monday night showing Greene kicking back his right foot into Sydney defender Dane Rampe's groin region as the ball was bounced to start the game.
The action led to outrage among commentators and former players, who suggested the AFL should come down hard on Greene for the 'intentional' and 'dangerous' action.
Essendon great Matthew Lloyd said the action 'must be looked at by the AFL', while Brisbane champion Jonathon Brown said the action was 'more dangerous' than the forearm to Isaac Heeney's head which already saw Greene receive a one-match suspension from the game.
Former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon said 'that is not what our game wants', adding 'if he got a week, I don't think there'd be too many people upset'.
However, new AFL football boss Greg Swann said on Tuesday morning that the incident had been looked at and cleared by Match Review Officer Michael Christian.
'It has been (looked at). Chrisso did have a look at it,' Swann said on SEN radio.
'We won't be taking any action on it, only on the basis that he actually doesn't connect. Whether we think that we want in the game is a separate thing, which obviously we don't.
'At the moment, the MRO can only, from a penalty perspective, go upwards, it can't come down. So it's sort of zero or three. And there's some of these incidents that should get a one or a two. So you understand that you put the table together to provide consistency, but there's always outliers in footy and sometimes they don't fit in those boxes.
'So we'll have a look at some of those things.
'It was a weird action for sure, but if you look at Rampe, he misses him really, because he doesn't react and they just play on. So that's been looked at.'
Greene was already suspended for one match out of the game after putting a forearm into the back of the head of Sydney's Isaac Heeney as the Swans star lay on the ground.
That ban took Greene's career suspension tally to 16 matches and 30 sanctions.
Greene will miss Thursday night's crunch clash with the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium as the Giants search to lock in a finals spot. Futures market: Has your club dominated or slaughtered trades? AFL
There was plenty of talk about Melbourne's woes on Monday night's footy shows. Plus more on another Toby Greene indiscretion and an on-air blow up between two colleagues. AFL
As North Melbourne sweat on their move to give up this year's first round pick, Jon Ralph looks at every club's success at future trading.
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