Hall cleared for big oneBy Sam LienertSeptember 20, 2005SYDNEY...

Hall cleared for big one
By Sam Lienert
September 20, 2005

SYDNEY Swans captain Barry Hall is free to play in Saturday's AFL grand final after the tribunal tonight agreed to downgrade a striking charge against him.

Big Bad Barry... grand final-bound

The tribunal's verdict provides an enormous boost to the Swans' premiership hopes, given he has been the club's best player and leading goal-kicker this season.

Hall pleaded guilty to striking St Kilda's Matt Maguire in last Friday night's preliminary final, but successfully argued the incident took place "in play" rather than "behind play".

Hall's defence team used video evidence supplied by the AFL to clubs to explain the definition of behind play.

They successfully argued that the incident clearly fell within the definition provided by the AFL in its video.

That had the effect of downgrading the offence from a level two striking charge, to a level one striking charge, worth 125 activation points.

When combined with a 25 per cent reduction for his early guilty plea, it took the level of points below the 100-point threshold for a suspension.

It meant he received a reprimand, but is clear to play in the premiership decider against West Coast on Saturday.

After a hearing of about an hour, the tribunal jury of former players Emmett Dunne, Richard Loveridge and Wayne Schimmelbusch took just four minutes to bring down its verdict.


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After being cleared to play, Hall thanked the supporters who had rallied behind him during an uncertain past few days.
"All the Sydney supporters, all the Melbourne supporters, there's a couple of people outside who have turned out for me so that's fantastic," Hall said.

"Now I'm just really looking forward to Saturday, I can't wait to get back into it."

Hall's advocate Terry Forrest QC successfully argued that while Hall was about 30 metres away from the ball, he was in play because he was trying to position himself where he thought the ball was about to go.

"We say Barry Hall was trying to put himself into the play, both before, after and during the incident," Mr Forrest said.

"We submit that there was every chance that Barry Hall was going to be involved in the next passage of play."

Tribunal chairman David Jones told the jury to ignore "the huge amount of publicity" surrounding the case and not to have any sympathy for Hall because a grand final berth was at stake.

But he told them that in his opinion from watching the footage of the incident that was played in evidence, Hall did not take his eyes from where the ball or the play was.

He said the question the jury had to answer was whether they were satisfied Hall was not "in proximity of the play or where it could reasonably be anticipated the next passage of play may occur".

The jury answered "no" to that question, and Mr Jones said it followed "as a matter of law that the incident occurred in play".

GO U SWANNIES !!!! $100 on TAB 2morrow......