Sydney successful in challenging Lance Franklin's one-match suspension for elbow

Kieran Francis

Sydney successful in challenging Lance Franklin's one-match suspension for elbow image

Sydney have successfully challenged the one-match suspension handed to star forward Lance Franklin for his elbow on Luke Ryan.

The 34-year-old was offered the ban after the round 19 incident on Ryan was assessed as careless conduct, medium impact with high contact.

A suspension would have ruled Franklin out of the round 20 clash with Essendon, but Sydney headed to the tribunal, via video link, on Tuesday evening and successfully had the impact downgraded to low.

As expected, they used the example of Luke Shuey's elbow on Callum Mills earlier in the year as part of their defence, as well as incidents involving David Astbury and Joe Daniher.

All those incidents were graded as low impact.

Franklin's clash with Ryan occurred during the second quarter of the Swans' 40-point win against the Dockers at Metricon Stadium on Sunday.

With the Swans trailing throughout most of the first half, a frustrated Franklin thrust his elbow back and struck Ryan in the head after being tackled by the Dockers stopper.

Ryan was able to continue playing in the match after the incident, and wasn't forced to undergo a concussion test.

That incident followed another in the first quarter in which the key forward cleaned up Nathan Wilson with a late hit in a marking contest.

Franklin has already been fined once in 2021, for a hit on Port Adelaide's Jarrod Lienert, while he avoided sanction for a similar incident with Carlton's Nic Newman.

A suspension to Franklin, who sits on 983 career goals, would have made it difficult for the superstar forward to achieve the 1000 goal mark this season, with only four matches and finals left for him to kick the 17 majors required required.

Sydney have all but sewn up a spot in the 2021 finals series, needing an incredible collapse to drop out of the eight, and they sit in sixth position, one win and a small amount of percentage behind fourth-placed Port Adelaide.

The Swans have matches against Essendon, North Melbourne, Gold Coast and St Kilda remaining.

Kieran Francis

Kieran Francis Photo

Kieran Francis is a senior editor at The Sporting News based in Melbourne, Australia. He started at Sportal.com.au before being a part of the transition to Sporting News in 2015. Just prior to the 2018 World Cup, he was appointed chief editor of Goal.com in Australia. He has now returned to The Sporting News where his passions lay in football, AFL, poker and cricket - when he is not on holiday.