Isaac Heeney appears in grave danger of losing his Brownlow Medal eligibility after an “unfortunate” incident on Sunday afternoon.
In the third quarter of Sydney’s meeting with St Kilda at Marvel Stadium, Heeney initiated a high, swinging fend-off to Saints defender Jimmy Webster — who was left bleeding from his nose — as he attempted to gain separation in a lead to the ball.
Heeney is presently one of the leading candidates to win this year’s league best-and-fairest, with Bronlow betting unsurprisingly already suspended.
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“Yeah, he’s in a bit of trouble, unfortunately,” Fox Footy’s Cameron Mooney declared, going on to explain the circumstances of the incident.
“So, what you’re doing as a forward here, he’s run off and trying to push away from his opponent.
“Unfortunately, he already had a little bit of separation, and you can see Webster’s head is probably just down a little bit and he’s clocked him in the head.
“He’s going to serve time, unfortunately, and we have a Brownlow Medal now with an asterisk at Round 17.
“Unfortunately, what we’re seeing right there is a backhand to the face — probably a broken nose, he’s going to have to serve time.”
Speaking on Fox Footy, Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph was convinced Heeney would receive a suspension due to changed regulations in the off-season around intentional fend-offs.
“There is a big development — it looks almost certain that Isaac Heeney is out of the Bronlow race,” Ralph said.
“Last year, this would very much have been a careless impact hit. It drew blood, it was clearly high. This summer, the AFL changed their rules about high fends behind play — for instance, like this.
“As it says in the rules, players trying to gain separation for the purpose of contesting the ball, even if it results in a strike — that’s exactly what Heeney was trying to do … That rule change is so significant.
“The rules say it will usually be graded as intentional, so there’s your little bit of grey area that we’ll discuss for the next 48 hours.”
Swans coach John Longmire said he didn’t see the incident.
Meanwhile Saints coach Ross Lyon commended his side for not getting “caught up” in little moments in the game including a period late in the third quarter when Heeney ‘clipped’ Webster and kicked two goals.
“Heeney got two interesting ones. He certainly didn’t mean to clock Webster, but accidentally clips him in the head and goes down and takes an uncontested mark,” Lyon said.
“Then there’s an interesting free kick and he kicks two (goals) to put the gap out. We didn’t get distracted by that.”
Lyon said Webster was “OK” and reiterated he didn’t think there was any malice in Heeney’s act.
“(Heneey’s) a great player and certainly there was no intention of (hurting him). What I’m saying is, when you’re in the game, a couple of things happen,” he said.
“I was probably more distracted than the players.”
Michael Christian will release any findings from Sunday’s action on Monday evening.