Sydney Swans General Manger - Football, Dean Moore said the Club was disappointed with the interchange infringement penalty awarded against the Swans during the third quarter of Friday night’s match against Carlton.
The AFL issued a statement today admitting an interchange steward error led to the penalty incorrectly being paid against the Swans.
“We knew at the time it was incorrect and subsequently the AFL has confirmed that to be the case,” Moore told 1116SEN’s Harf Time this afternoon.
“It’s disappointing that a decision was made on the night at a crucial time of the game, that cost us a goal.”
Moore admitted that as there was no avenue for recourse, the Club would move on, concentrating on this weekend’s important match against the Western Bulldogs.
“There’s no recourse as far as we can see. We don’t get the goal back so we just move on,” he said.
“We don’t sit here and say it’s (interchange steward) an easy job, there’s often a lot of rotations at a particular time. In this instance…it was pretty clear to see that we had five on the interchange bench at the time and we were anxious to get Dan Hannbery back on the field.
“We would have thought it would have been possible for the interchange steward to simply count the guys on the bench at the time, but that didn’t happen.
With such a tough penalty for interchange infringements, Moore called for greater diligence from the sideline judges.
“I suppose the one thing we’d say is that we’d think the interchange steward should err on the side of caution. if they’re going to indicate there’s been an infringement and a penalty awarded, I reckon you have to be absolutely one hundred per cent sure that is the case,” Moore said.
“It’s such a big penalty, particularly in a tight game.”
Speaking to the media this afternoon, Sydney Swans coach John Longmire agreed with Moore, arguing that greater awareness of the situation could have avoided the need to award the penalty.
"My point immediately after the game was that it is such a big penalty, you need to make sure the decision is correct, and there was plenty of time in my view to make sure the decision was correct," Longmire said.
"If the (interchange) steward had of gotten out of his chair and looked to the right, he would have made a quick count that there were enough numbers on the interchange bench, and we could have got the message to the central umpire and no damage done.
"We knew at the time we were right, we were proved right, now we get on with trying to beat the Bulldogs this week."
Longmire said he was pleased to see the league admit its error.
"I think we've done pretty well to get out of the AFL what we've got out of them. I just want to make sure that going forward those things shouldn't have occurred," he said.
"If there was a level of discussion it would have prevented it. It's pretty simple and I hope that happens from now on."
