The match review panel may look into what happened earlier between Howat and Hartlett as well as Hartlett's behind the play hit on Cam.Blue in spotlight was felled earlier
Samantha Lane | March 22, 2008
AN off-the-ball clash between Carlton's Adam Hartlett and Richmond's Cam Howat appears to have been the precursor to a second incident involving the pair, which left the young Tiger in the arms of trainers on Friday night and Hartlett almost certainly in the sights of the AFL match review panel early next week.
But while Hartlett was initially painted as the villain and Howat appeared to be his unsuspecting victim, there is footage of a run-in between the duo that left the Blues player on the deck minutes earlier.
Spokesmen for both clubs yesterday were reluctant to comment on the final minutes of Friday's third quarter in which a groggy Howat limped from the field and his Tiger teammates remonstrated with the apparent aggressor.
Both players returned to the ground in the final term, although only Hartlett was listed as a casualty — he was pronounced "concussed" by Carlton after the game — and the circumstances of his malaise will surely surface next week should he become the subject of a match review panel investigation.
"All those things we just let the AFL make an assessment on," Richmond's football manager Paul Armstrong said yesterday.
With 2½ minutes remaining in the third term, Hartlett appeared to crudely dispose of Howat in the centre square.
Expert commentator and Age correspondent Robert Walls was damning in his assessment on the television broadcast. "I just saw something that was very, very ugly out there — a Carlton player, Adam Hartlett, who unnecessarily put a Richmond player down," Walls said on Channel Ten.
Asked by a co-commentator whether it was just a hip and shoulder, Walls said: "I reckon it might be a bit more sinister than that … that young Carlton player is in strife."
Walls said yesterday that the footage replayed by Ten was inconclusive.
"He certainly made contact and the kid (Howat) went down. But as to how vicious it was and to how nasty it was, I don't know.
"I was shocked because it was such a long way off the ball … but I saw the replay twice and to me, it was inconclusive as to whether he (Hartlett) put a shoulder into Howat or whether he's used his forearm and struck him with a forearm."
Walls said he was unaware of a lead-up incident, but with 4½ minutes to go in the third term, Howat appeared to put Hartlett to ground after the Carlton player had laid a fair tackle on him.
Hartlett attended Carlton's recovery session yesterday morning, and while a club spokesman forecast that he would be fine to play in round two, he would not comment on the circumstances surrounding the player's post-match condition.
Any charges from the long weekend of matches will be announced only after round one concludes, when the match review panel sits on Monday.
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