The player responsible for a dangerous tackle that saw a country football match called off early has been suspended for three games.
Key points:
A Southern Mallee player is given a three-match ban after a dangerous weekend tackleMitchell Smith was left unconscious after the tackle with Billy McNeilly last SaturdayCountry football leagues say they take concussion injuries seriously
A tribunal ruling on Wednesday night found Southern Mallee player Billy McNeilly guilty of the tackle that was graded as careless, high contact, and severe impact in the incident involving Mannum player Mitchell Smith.
It is understood Smith was unconscious for around 20 minutes at Saturday’s game at Lameroo, which forced an early finish.
Smith suffered a severe concussion but was cleared of spinal and neck injuries after the tackle.
He was flown to the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Adelaide for treatment on Saturday night.
Southern Mallee was leading the game at the time it was called and awarded the win, in line with Australian Football League guidelines.
Secretary of the River Murray Football League Shane Snell confirmed McNeilly’s three-match ban but declined to comment further.
South Australian National Football League also declined to comment.
Earlier this week, Mitchell Smith’s father, Craig, said his son had largely recovered from physical injuries but was on light duties at work.
Mr Smith thanked the medical staff and football volunteers involved in caring for his son after the injury.
He said the mood was changing in relation to tackling in football.
“I think where the AFL is going now and their focus on dangerous tackles … they’ve realised they operate as a workplace and they have to provide a safe environment,” he said.
“That line gets a little bit blurred with that duty of care when it comes to just people putting their hand up to play a game of country footy.
“But I think that duty of care has to be on the players, and they need to understand how their actions impact other people.”
The incident comes after a horror year on the country football field, with two deaths in the past three months.
The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics show 83 per cent of hospitalisations for intracranial injuries in 2020–2021 were concussions.
Around 1,300 of these concussions were sustained while playing some form of football.
Push to be proactive
Country football leagues said they were taking the concussion risk seriously, adhering to recently updated AFL and SANFL guidelines to put the safety and long-term health of their players first.
North Eastern Football League (NEFL) president Peter Meyer said he believed a concussion passport, which recorded a player’s concussion history from club to club, was a necessary move.
“It’s a very serious thing and until the player is ready to play again, they should get the correct analysis of it and stay out,” he said.
“We had a player suffer a concussion earlier in the year and he had only just come into one of our clubs … from now on he’ll be treated [with care],” he said.
It’s a move the Barossa Light and Gawler (BLG) Football Association backed, if it were to gain full medical industry support and did not infringe on a player’s privacy.
“The [further] we go to protect people’s heads, the safer people will be in their future lives,” president Mick Brien said.
Yorke Peninsula Football League (YPFL) president Brad Haylock said the adoption of new guidelines had led to a reduction in harsher tackles within his league’s local clubs.
“Country people get concussed as much as AFL players do … going forward, it’s got to be stamped out as much as possible,” he said.
“We have seen a drop in tackles slamming people to the ground, head high tackles and these sorts of things … it’s a step in the right direction.”
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