Tribunal upholds van Rooyen three-match ban, rejects Melbourne appeal

The AFL Tribunal has upheld Jacob van Rooyen's three-match suspension for a striking incident that rendered Port Adelaide's Aliir Aliir unable to continue playing, according to ESPN's reporting. Tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson rejected Melbourne's appeal and the club's submitted biomechanist evidence, calling it "not sufficiently probative, or really probative at all" due to concerns with its accuracy.

Van Rooyen, 23, struck Aliir Aliir high with a swinging arm while attempting to spoil during the second term at Adelaide Oval. Aliir Aliir failed his Head Injury Assessment test and spent the remainder of his 200th AFL game on the bench. The tribunal classified the incident as careless conduct with high contact and severe impact, the threshold for a three-match ban.

Gleeson found that van Rooyen's action was a strike, it was careless, and that his evidence was inconsistent. Melbourne's defense, which argued the strike was van Rooyen's normal marking style, worked against the forward in the tribunal's decision. The Demons' appeal also drew scrutiny for the reliability of its expert evidence.

The suspension removes van Rooyen from Saturday's game against the Western Bulldogs, then the Demons' first two finals, or an elimination final followed by round one next year depending on where they finish. Van Rooyen had kicked two goals in the match where the incident occurred and has managed 42 goals and averaged 4.7 marks in his best season to date, per ESPN.

Melbourne, currently in fifth place, can still make the top four if they beat the Bulldogs and have other results fall their way. The Demons are already without veteran recruit Brody Mihocek (neck) for the remainder of the campaign. Van Rooyen's unavailability during the finals series creates a further strain on Melbourne's forward line depth as they approach the postseason.

The tribunal's rejection of Melbourne's biomechanist evidence sets a high bar for overturning suspensions through expert analysis. Gleeson's findings that the submitted evidence lacked probative value and was inconsistent signal that clubs cannot easily overturn Match Review Officer decisions through technical counter-argument alone.