AFL news 2023: Were Adelaide Crows robbed by non score review call? Dermott Brereton passionate plea

Five-time premiership Hawk Dermott Brereton believes the controversial ending to Sydney’s win over Adelaide is the AFL’s “worst nightmare”, claiming the non-goal decision is a “real injustice” that has cost the Crows a finals berth.

Adelaide’s finals dreams ended on Saturday night after the Swans withstood a furious late rally that dumped the Crows out of the race to September with a stunning one-point win.

The Crows looked to have turned a 44-point deficit into a season-saving come-from-behind win when Ben Keays appeared to slot a goal from the boundary line with just over a minute remaining.

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But with Keays and the crowd still celebrating, the goal umpire signalled the ball had touched the post. And crucially, no score review was called.

That was to be Adelaide’s last chance, the visitors taking the ball down field to hold on for a famous win.

Post-game replays suggested the ball cleared the padding of the post and that there was a gap between the upright and the footy, which could’ve led to an ARC reviewer overturning the soft call.

Speaking passionately about the issue on Fox Footy post-game, Brereton said he believed the evidence was “definitive” and that a goal should’ve been awarded – and that it’d leave the AFL in a tricky position from a PR perspective.

“I don’t know where the AFL go with this, because it’s definitive with what we see now that it was a goal,” Brereton told Fox Footy.

“This is their worst nightmare, because every time we see a bung decision, people say: ‘You wouldn’t want to miss a Grand Final on that. You wouldn’t want to miss the finals on that.’ Well, a team is missing the finals on a bung decision when we assume that the technology is there to get the absolute and correct decision. The true decision, the right decision has not been found here.

“I feel there’s a real injustice here. You play by the league’s rules, the league introduces technology so that the right result is found, they have the technology. Clearly if there was something ‘down’ on the night, those two pieces of footage – marry them together and you can make a decision straight away, within 10 seconds.

Ben Keays of the Crows with Matthew Nicks after the loss. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images

“That is definitive. There is no grey area there. The league cannot say ‘it was grey’. They have to say ‘we got it wrong’ and it is costing a team a berth in the finals.

“You get some players who try and stooge an umpire into making a decision in their favour. Keays wasn’t stooging. He knew from his angle watching the ball go away from him – even though this ball would have a bit of curve on it – he knows ‘that’s the kick of my career’ … otherwise he wouldn’t celebrate like that.”

Asked how the AFL would handle the issue on Sunday, Brereton said: “I think the AFL will come out and admit some responsibility, but I don’t know how they get through this. I don’t know how they sell it.

“We have a sport where each team needs to turn over $50-plus million a year and we have 18 teams – that’s a huge industry – and we can’t get that right? That’s kids stuff. That just shouldn’t happen.

“If you’ve got an industry seeking the ultimate success and you’re doing everything to get it and you clearly play by the league’s rules and you achieve that and their technology doesn’t allow for it or they make a mistake … we’ve got something wrong.”

Adelaide Crows Press Conference | 07:38

Brereton said considering the time left on the clock when the incident happened (around 78 seconds), it’d unlikely any party would seek to have the result overturned, but added the likely AFL acknowledgment of error would be “a really icy consolation” for Adelaide.

“It’s a classic case of injustice and nothing will change.”

Triple premiership forward Cameron Mooney said he couldn’t believe a score review wasn’t called for.

“We generally see anything remotely close that might be touched, they always go to the score review,” he told Fox Footy.

“I think this is human error, more than anything, because we didn’t even get a chance to go to the cameras and the angles. Unfortunately this is just a human error.

“Nothing good is going to come out of this from an Adelaide point of view. I don’t believe you can turn it (the result).”

— with NCA NewsWire