O'Connor gets one-match ban

SUNBURY'S Alan O'Connor was handed a one-match ban at a marathon two-hour Ballarat Football League tribunal hearing last night.
The 20-year-old defender accepted the suspension but was upset the misconduct report for kneeing Melton's Dane Grenfell had cost his team dearly on grand final day, September 17.
Emergency umpire Steve McConville reported O'Connor in the opening term of Sunbury's shock loss and banished him to the bench on a red card for the rest of the match.
McConville had entered the field to show the card as Grenfell was bunched up on the ground holding his waist.
Emergency goal umpire Barry Eppingstall also booked the star defender.
The Bloods stormed over the Lions late in the fourth quarter with an extra man on the field. "I reckon the red card rule has to be looked at," said a dejected O'Connor, as he left the tribunal.
"It influenced the outcome of the game so much. The damage had already been done before tonight.
"I'm not going to say we would have won if I had of played the whole game, but we would have had a better chance."
O'Connor predicted he would be suspended on his arrival at Saxon House with club officials, captain Daryl Griffin, and AFL player advocate Iain Findlay.
He was upbeat and relaxed before the hearing began.
Findlay produced a slow-motion video clip of the incident, edited by Channel Seven.
The footage showed a central umpire within five metres of O'Connor and Grenfell when the offence occurred after their bone-crunching marking contest.
No officiating umpire made a report.
Findlay argued the matter should have been thrown out on the back of this and O'Connor's clean record.
The interleague centre half back had played 12 years of junior and senior football without being reported or sent off.
However, the independent tribunal found the evidence of the emergency umpires was enough to sustain the charge.
McConville told the tribunal O'Connor dropped both knees into Grenfell as the forward struggled to pick himself off the ground.
O'Connor said he had merely brushed him with his shin.
Grenfell said he was unsure how the contact was made as he was winded and gasping for air after the initial marking contest.
"I was out of breath and was on my hands and knees," he said.
"I was already tender because of the initial contact. I felt a jab from the second incident and it didn't feel like someone had pushed me, but it felt solid."
O'Connor could miss either the lightning premiership or the first round of the 2006 home-and-away season.
He said his teammates had been supportive, helping to ease the pain of the club's grand final disappointment.
"I was shattered because I felt like I had let the team down.
"I was speechless and I didn't know what to say to my team-mates, but the guys have been really good for me," he said.