A collective sigh of relief surely emanated from Sydney Swans HQ after star forward Lance Franklin was cleared to play against Brisbane on Saturday afternoon.
Match Review Officer Michael Christian cleared Franklin of contact made with Fremantle defender Joel Hamling during Sydney's win at the SCG on Saturday night.
Prior to the incident - which occurred during the second quarter - the ball came loose after an attempted handball from Gary Rohan.
Franklin ran towards the ball and took possession with his left hand.
After he was tackled by Ryan Nyhuis and later Hamling, Franklin attempted to fend off Hamling with his right hand before using his left arm - which was still holding the ball - to break the tackle.
From there, high contact was made with Hamling.
Watch the incident in the player below.
Joel Hamling was helped from the field after this incident with Lance Franklin. #AFLSwansFreo pic.twitter.com/dbxEOb9M1P
— AFL (@AFL) May 19, 2018
Hamling briefly stayed down before being helped off the ground and assessed by medical staff.
He subsequently failed a concussion test at half-time and wasn't able to return to the match.
Christian's assessment deemed Franklin was seeking to evade the tackle, and that his actions while in possession of the ball were not unreasonable in the circumstances, and no further action was taken.
Franklin had certainly left his mark on the clash, considering it was his first game back after missing three weeks with a heel injury.
After the game, Swans coach John Longmire was frugal in his assessment of the incident.
"I actually really didn’t see it, it was only when someone said that Hamling was off (that I knew about it), so I actually can't comment because I actually didn’t see it," Longmire told reporters.
Port Adelaide's Sam Powell-Pepper (high contact on Gold Coast's Lachie Weller), St Kilda's David Armitage (high contact on Collingwood's Taylor Adams), Melbourne's Bernie Vince (high contact on Carlton's Dale Thomas) and Richmond's Shane Edwards (high contact with West Coast’s Jack Redden) were also cleared from contact from their respective round nine games.
Other round nine sanctions:
- Jacob Hopper (Greater Western Sydney Giants) can accept two separate $1000 fines for twice making careless contact with umpire Simon Meredith
- Darcy Tucker (Fremantle) can accept a $1000 fine for careless contact made with umpire Brent Wallace
- Dayne Zorko (Brisbane Lions) can accept a $2000 sanction for misconduct against Hawthorn’s James Sicily
- Lochie O’Brien (Carlton) can accept a $2000 fine for rough conduct on Melbourne’s Bayley Fritsch
- Jack Newnes (St Kilda) can accept a $2000 sanction for tripping Collingwood’s Flynn Appleby
