Van Rooyen wrapped up Kemp and brought him to the turf, but the umpire deemed it was a dangerous tackle because Kemp\u2019s head made contact with the ground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kemp was given the ball and Melbourne were denied a shot on goal and a chance to trim the deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jacob Van Rooyen was penalised for this tackle on Brodie Kemp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AFL is intent on protecting the heads of players at all costs, but the shift has had a ripple effect with widespread suggestions players are taking dives and ducking their heads to accentuate contact to the head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similar head-high tackles have divided the footy world this year and the reaction to van Rooyen\u2019s tackle has been heated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kemp\u2019s action was described as \u201cdisgraceful\u201d and \u201cpiss poor\u201d by former footballers on Thursday night, but Collingwood legend Nathan Buckley went against the trend with comments shared on X, formerly known as Twitter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKemp didn\u2019t stage. Don\u2019t fall for the sensationalism in the call,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShould have been a free kick to the Dees though. Good tackle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Very few appeared to agree with Buckley\u2019s viewpoint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nathan Buckley has called for calm. Photo: Fox Footy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brian Taylor on Channel 7 said the 23-year-old\u2019s forward motion was \u201ca classic example of a player deliberately putting his head into the ground\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n West Coast premiership player Will Schofield wrote on X: \u201cThat dangerous tackle call is absolutely disgraceful!!! How are we encouraging blokes to throw their heads to the ground?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Swans champion Jude Bolton posted with a facepalm emoji: \u201cDangerous tackle? Yep – We\u2019re incentivising flopping & hamming up the severity of the tackle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bombers great Dustin Fletcher also wrote: \u201cPlayers throwing head towards ground when tackled. #pisspoor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n SEN\u2019s Nic Negrepontis said: \u201cThat dangerous tackle call for Kemp might be the worst umpire decision of the year lmao.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Footy journalist Brayden May said: \u201cThat is comical umpiring and has just ruined the end of this game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christian Petracca was epic for the Demons. (Photo by Robert Cianflone\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Veteran football reporter Peter Ryan posted: \u201cThe boy who cried wolf free kick for dangerous tackle has quickly become a blight on the game\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other footy commentators simply showed sympathy for umpires in trying to make such difficult calls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fox Footy\u2019s Max Laughton countered: \u201cThe problem with umpire\/free kick discourse is that it was pretty reasonable to think this was dangerous in real time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNeed to do something about the player exaggerating but that\u2019s a MRO thing not an umpiring thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Herald Sun\u2019s Jon Ralph wrote on X: \u201cNew umpires boss Stephen McBurney spoke today on the challenges of umpiring in this era when players try so hard to win free kicks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat Van Rooyen tackle was perfect but how does the umpire know when Kemp pitched forward so he could win the free kick?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe AFL hasn\u2019t fined players for staging this year. Hard to fine Kemp when other players haven\u2019t been cited for that type of incident. It has to be \u2018excessive exaggeration\u2019 and affect an umpire\u2019s decision making.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cardiac Carlton did it again. Pic: Michael Klein<\/p>\n\n\n\n Melbourne\u2019s Christian Petracca went full beast mode in the second half, finished with five goals and 21 disposals to nearly drag his side across the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Max Gawn wasted no time, kicking a set shot bomb from 50 metres to make it a one point game with 40 seconds remaining. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Melbourne got the ball forward from the ensuing centre bounce but Patrick Cripps and Nic Newman tackled Petracca \u2014 giving Carlton possession and sealing the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A week after he was criticised for not sticking with Nick Daicos as he kicked the matchwinning goal for Collingwood, Sam Walsh was best on ground and set the tone in the first half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The one-point result continues a run of close games between Melbourne and Carlton, and Fox Footy\u2019s David King dubbed the Blues \u201ccardiac Carlton\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carlton will play the Sydney Swans in a blockbuster clash next Friday at the SCG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n News.com.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The AFL has a crisis on its hands with legends of the sport caught up in a frenzied reaction to a controversial incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":40044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,1387],"tags":[9024,472,8469,993,9025,8470,8],"class_list":["post-40043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-sport","tag-afl","tag-australian","tag-mcg","tag-melbourne","tag-melbournefc","tag-sport","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40048,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40043\/revisions\/40048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/image-48-1024x577.jpeg\")
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