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Former match review panel member Nathan Burke says he had to fight tooth and nail to free Trent Cotchin for the 2017 grand final despite the league’s intention to suspend the Richmond captain.
In one of this century’s most contentious MRO decisions Cotchin was eventually cleared to play despite concussing GWS star Dylan Shiel after collecting him with a shoulder to the head as he won the ball.
The match review panel role for Burke is part of an extraordinary career that saw him as the St Kilda games record holder, the Dogs AFLW coach, a long-time St Kilda board member and an Australian Rules Hall of Fame member.
Burke told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast he was able to show a precedent that proved it was a technique from Cotchin he had used often without being suspended.
But he says an MRP that included current match review officer Michael Christian was intent on rubbing Cotchin out.
“We were all equal at that stage. We didn’t have a chairman. And yeah, that was probably the reason why Michael Christian is doing it now, and I’m not, because he was much more in tune with the AFL’s way of thinking than I was, yes, and I was probably the dissenter on quite a few occasions,” he told Sacked.
Trent Cotchin wouldn’t have been able to lift the premiership cup in 2017 without the intervention of MRP member Nathan Burke. Picture: Phil Hillyard
“Probably one that I got my own way on was the Trent Cotchin preliminary final decision.
“He dived into the football shoulder first and collected Dylan. There was a groundswell to say that he carelessly knocked the guy out so he shouldn’t play in the grand final. I was able to pull up two or three other examples of him doing exactly the same thing.
It became a bit of a technique of his. At the time the rules were different. I said if we are saying that’s a legitimate action it is overly careless because we are not giving a free kick for doing that action?
“Nowadays the rules say yes but then the rules said no. It wasn’t against the rules to do that particular action. And so I fought long and hard for him to play in the grand final and that was probably my demise as a panel member.
“The AFL was heading down the path of accidental head contact being reportable. And they were heading down that path, and I was sort of resisting that path to a degree.”
Trent Cotchin speaks to the media after he was cleared of any penalty for his bump on Dylan Shiel just days before the 2017 grand final. Picture: Michael Dodge/Getty Images
The match review panel statement ahead of the grand final stated that it “was the view of the panel that Cotchin was seeking to win possession as his line of direction was always towards the ball and not his opponent. The panel determined that Cotchin was seeking to contest the ball and therefore contact was not unreasonable in the circumstances. No further action was taken.”
As match review officer Christian has often been strong in his own views about the legality of actions and had pitched battles with the AFL hierarchy about suspensions.
Cotchin was handed at least 10 fines and handed over $11,000 to the AFL across his career but was several times lucky not to be suspended for borderline incidents.
He went on to play a key role in the drought-breaking 2017 grand final victory over Adelaide as the Tigers won their first premiership since 1980.
