Updated May 11, 2011 19:13:00 North Melbourne coach Brad Scott believes the Jack Trengove suspension Melbourne is appealing is for exactly the type of tackle the AFL wants to wipe out.
Melbourne will front the appeals board on Thursday in an attempt to have the 19-year-old's three-game ban overturned.
The Demons are arguing that Trengove laid a textbook tackle on Adelaide's Patrick Dangerfield.
Dangerfield had to be subbed off with concussion after Trengove pinned his arm and threw him down, causing his head to hit the ground.
Trengove's team-mates have used Twitter to publicly lambaste the Tribunal's decision and Demons football manager Craig Notman labelled the tackle "as close to perfect as we could want".
The Demons have been contacted by the AFL, asking them to explain why their players breached rules banning excessive criticism of tribunal decisions.
But Scott, whose Kangaroos face Melbourne at Docklands on Saturday, said it was the type of incident the AFL had targeted when it tightened its rules governing dangerous tackles.
The league updated tribunal guidelines for rough conduct before the 2007 season and again before the 2010 season, to detail the kinds of tackles it wanted outlawed.
"I don't think there's confusion at all, I think the AFL made their stance," Scott said on Wednesday.
"They made a rule change for this particular incident and they made their stance very clear.
"So our players are absolutely clear as to what the rule is."
Scott added that any frustration should be reserved for the rule, not the Trengove verdict.
"The AFL made things really clear as to how they would deal with those particular incidents," he said.
"You can agree with the rule or not, but they've adjudicated the rule as they said they would."
Scott said he did not want to see aggression driven out of the game, but did not want to see players concussed either.
His view is completely at odds with the Demons' thinking.
Melbourne is fighting the charge on the grounds the decision was so unreasonable that no tribunal could have made it with regard to the evidence.
The club also says both the classification of the level of offence and the sanction imposed were manifestly excessive.
"We deem it as a tackle that, from what we teach our players, was completed to a tee," Notman told Melbourne's SEN radio.
"It's unfortunate that Patty Dangerfield was hurt, but part of his actions actually contributed to the force he hit the ground."
AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson defended the tribunal's decision.
"It's one of those ones that's very much debatable over where the line should be drawn, but where we do, we make no apologies for reducing neck and head injuries in the game," Anderson told Triple M radio.
"We don't want to see players concussed and we ask that you show some care towards your opponent when the arm is pinned."
Thursday night's appeals board hearing will be the first since Carlton skipper Chris Judd unsuccessfully fought a misconduct charge at the end of the 2009 season.
The incident was memorable for Judd, who was charged for placing his hand near the eye of then-Brisbane midfielder Michael Rischitelli, claiming he had been searching for a "pressure point", which he later said was a joke.
- AAP
Tags: sport, australian-football-league, australia, nsw, sydney-2000, vic, melbourne-3000 First posted May 11, 2011 19:02:00
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