But the Giants wanted their star available to play Richmond in the crucial round 22 clash on Friday and so went to the AFL Appeals Board to have Greene completely cleared. They were not successful.
In an extraordinary,marathon three-hour appeal hearing on Thursday the Giants - represented by barrister and former AFL football operations boss Adrian Anderson - argued a technical legal case to try and prove that the tribunal applied the wrong legal test for carelessness,or part of the guideline,to find Greene guilty on Tuesday.
“We are disappointed with the outcome today,” Giants football boss Jason McCartney said.
“We felt there was a clear case that Toby’s action wasn’t careless based on the split second nature of the incident. It was a football action and in our view high contact resulted from his opponent slipping.”
Anderson spoke at length about this “wrong legal test” - and even referred to case law involving Australia’s immigration minister and Chinese refugees from 1996,and a NSW Children’s Court matter from 2008 - to show how it can result in wrong decisions.
GWS were appealing on the basis that “an error of law occurred” and not on the basis that “the decision of the tribunal is so unreasonable that no tribunal acting reasonably” could have made such a decision. These are the only two avenues to appeal a tribunal decision.
Anderson essentially said that it was wrong for the tribunal jury,in its published reasons from Tuesday,to say there was a “realistic probability” that Greene’s actions could have ended in a reportable offence.