No More Solly…For Now (Media Street)

Mark Harvey would never get rid of Solly…he loves the bloke! Just look at them – they are like a pair of slightly vacuous twins!

It is season over for Freo’s Dean Solomon after the AFL tribunal handed down an eight week suspension last night for his nasty clash with Geelong Mayor Cameron Ling. The sentence is not only greater than that handed down to Barry Brainfade earlier this year but it’s actually the heaviest handed down by the tribunal since Carlton’s Greg Williams shoved an umpire in round one 1997.

With Solomon out of contract as season’s end, there was talk that his career could be over but there is no way he won’t be back at Fremantle in 2009. The guy is only 28 years old, a premiership defender and, most importantly for the Dockers, a former Essendon player. So Mark Harvey will ensure Solly sticks around – along with Mark Johnson, Kepler Bradley…heck, don’t be surprised if Harvs recruits Jason Johnson and Damien Peverill to join them!

In fact, the Dockers were reportedly seeking legal advice over the severity of the penalty…perhaps they will argue that continuing to play every week alongside Jeff Farmer, Josh Carr and friends is a far greater punishment? They are probably right…

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The Solly case ends a frantic couple of days for the League’s match review panel:

• Amon Buchanan had a five-match sanction reduced to four with an early guilty plea…for hitting Luke Hodge in the head. Hodgey must have been falling because there is no other way this shortarse could physically hit anybody that high!
• Daniel Kerr doesn’t even look like he wants to play now anyway so the tribunal probably did him a favour with the three-match ban. But there could be more trouble on the way for Kerr! Not that he seems to care…
• The tribunal members cleared Ryan Crowley and Daniel Pratt last night…they must have been feeling a little fatigued after deliberating on the Solomon case for a while. Or maybe they needed to rush home to watch Ladette to Lady…

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In other news:

• No bionic knee for Brett Burton! It could be a long while before he’s back taking screamers and spraying set shots…if he gets back at all!
• Essendon do their own suspension work…and it is a repeat offender too!
• So why did Shannon Grant really get dropped by the Kangas last week? Something smells funny here…
• Dean Cox is pissed off! Well, they just got flogged by Richmond…at home…and that just shouldn’t happen. Ever!
• Brendan Fevola still copping flak from Nathan Buckley and now some of the AFL’s best are weighing in on the Fev story. Will he just sign this new contract with Carlton so we can forget about him for a bit?
• Gold Coast Cappers not catchy enough? The new GC17 club narrow down the choice of team name to five boring-arse options!