CARLTON captain Patrick Cripps says he doesn’t understand what Melbourne defender Steven May was expected to do differently in the contest that left Cripps’ Blues teammate Francis Evans concussed on Saturday night.
Evans also sustained a broken nose and lost a tooth after he and May contested a loose ball in Carlton’s forward line during the Blues’ eight-point win on Saturday night.
Evans took possession of the ball a split-second before May arrived, with the Demons’ right shoulder collecting the Carlton forward in the head.
May will face the Tribunal on Tuesday night after the Match Review Officer assessed the incident as careless conduct, high contact and severe impact. He faces a ban of at least three matches and potentially more.
Cripps told AFL.com.au‘s On The Inside vodcast that he thought both players found themselves in a “a really tough situation” by attacking the contest in the way they’d been taught throughout their careers.
“As a young guy or a young kid coming in, you’re always taught (to) bodyline the ball and when the ball’s in dispute, you want to go and win the ball,” Cripps told fellow Brownlow medallists Tom Mitchell and Lachie Neale on the full episode that will go live on Tuesday.
“If you take Carlton versus Melbourne out of it, I feel like both of them were trying to contest the ball.
“Obviously you never want to see a player get injured – obviously Frankie was courageous in what he did, you never want to see a player get injured – but I just reckon it’s so tough. I don’t understand what we want May to do there.
“If that’s a Grand Final and he hesitates, and let’s say Frankie gets the ball… what do you do? I never want to see people go off in the game with with head knocks but I just think it’s a really tough situation.”
Neale echoed Cripps’ thoughts, saying it was hard for players to ignore the see-ball, get-ball mentality they had developed throughout their careers.
“Growing up, you’re taught to win the ball first. I’m always trying to win the ball first, rather than tackle or bump or whatever, but sometimes if you’re a split-second late or whatever, your body just reacts in a way that you try to protect yourself,” he said.
“A lot of times that is looking like a bump motion so you can look worse than what it is, especially when you slow everything down so much now as well
“It’s a tough one but yeah unfortunately with concussion a huge topic now it puts it under the microscope even more now.”
