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Welsh banned for ‘intentional’ kneeing

By Mr Dandalooa

He hasn’t been able to look teammates in the eye since, but Essendon vice-captain Andrew Welsh’s bid to halve a four-match suspension for kneeing Hawthorn’s Xavier Ellis in the groin backfired, when the tribunal last night ruled the Bomber must serve the full penalty.

The Match Review Panel charged Welsh with a level four misconduct offence for kneeing Xavier Ellis during the third quarter of the club’s Round 6 match against Hawthorn last weekend.

The Bombers midfielder testified that did not intentionally knee the Hawks midfielder in the groin and said the match-day report was an embarrassment to him and the team.

Welsh testified he would never deliberately inflict such an injury on a player and that it was “one of the worst things you can do”.

He pleaded guilty, but tried to use his character to downgrade the charge from “intentional conduct” to “reckless”.

Essendon general manager of football operations Paul Hamilton said the Bombers had appealed to get Welsh’s charge reduced from intentional to reckless conduct.

“We contested the charge on the basis that it was never Andrew’s intent to knee Ellis in the groin and we strongly believe that,” Hamilton said.

“Unfortunately the tribunal didn’t agree with that view tonight and we have to accept the outcome.

“We think Andrew is a person of great character and we are obviously disappointed because Andrew is an important player for us and to have him missing for that period of time is disappointing.”

The incident was assessed as intentional conduct (three points), medium impact (two points) and groin contact (two points). 

This is a total of seven activation points, resulting in a classification of a Level Four offence, drawing 425 demerit points and a four-match sanction.