The AFL has ruled out any further action over the afl hawthorn collingwood interchange error that came to light after the sides drew 93-93 in Round 8 on April 30. The league said on Tuesday afternoon it would not take the matter any further, despite the fact Hawthorn made 76 changes in a game where clubs are allowed only 75 rotations.
The issue turned on a late sequence in which Jack Gunston came onto the ground for Hawthorn’s 76th rotation just seconds before Dylan Moore kicked a goal after the siren. Under AFL rules, an interchange infringement should bring a free kick and a 50m penalty for the other team, which is why the counting mistake quickly became the focus of a dispute over whether Collingwood should be awarded the result.
Xander McGuire said the infringement should have resulted in a free kick to Collingwood, while Kane Cornes went further and said the Magpies should protest and that the result should be their win. Those calls gathered pace because the draw was settled by four points and two points at different stages of the late scramble, leaving fans arguing that a single interchange error could have altered the result.
Greg Swann, who addressed the matter after the AFL’s review, said the interchange official had Hawthorn on 74 rotations rather than 75 when the late change was made. He also said Gunston did not enter the field of play before the siren sounded. The league said clubs are required to go by the count of the AFL’s interchange official, and it said Hawthorn were entitled to switch James Sicily with Gunston in the game’s last moments in any case.
The complication came from an earlier mistake in the first quarter, when Hawthorn made four rotations but the interchange official only logged three. That meant the official’s running count was already off by one when the final moments arrived, and the result was a counting blunder that changed the shape of the argument even if it did not change the scoreline.
The underlying debate was always about the same thing: whether a breach of the 75-rotation limit should have changed the 93-93 draw. Collingwood supporters had pushed for the result to be overturned and for full points to be awarded to the Pies. For now, the AFL has drawn its line and left the result standing, even as the dispute over the afl hawthorn collingwood interchange error lingers as one of the season’s strangest controversies.
