By Nick Creely
Berwick has reviewed an ugly incident at half-time that marred Saturday’s clash with Cranbourne at Edwin Flack Reserve.
The Wickers recorded a strong 38-point victory over their great rivals, but a half-time melee in the home side’s forward pocket erupted after Harry Money kicked the ball into the man on the mark, sparking all 36 players on the ground to fight in front of shocked onlookers.
Video footage appears to show Cranbourne legend Marc Holt lash out at Wickers ruckman Matthew Young while being restrained by several players, before being ushered away by his team-mates towards the race.
There was no report by the umpires at the time, the Gazette has confirmed.
However, the Wickers were weighing up whether to launch a formal investigation over the weekend – similar to past incidents between the two clubs – president Glenn Gambetta confirmed to the Gazette, and took their full five days examining the footage before making a decision on Monday night over the phone.
“We’re not (launching an investigation) – what happened happened – the clubs have too many things on the go at the moment to worry about launching an investigation,” he said.
“Footy’s an emotional game, and things do happen on the field every now and then.“
Gambetta said that Young appeared to pull up okay after the incident, and hadn’t sustained any injuries.
“He seemed alright, but they were coming off a high with a great win – he seems alright, he didn’t have any visible injuries after it, but it was a pretty good whack.”
But Gambetta said he was disappointed that a terrific game of footy was marred by an “unnecessary” incident.
“We didn’t want to distract our club and players by heading down that path,” he said.
“There would have been no incident if he (Holt) didn’t get involved, and we still don’t know what his motivations were.”
It could have added an intriguing layer to Holt’s 1000-goal build-up, with the legendary sharpshooter currently sitting on 992 goals ahead of games against Tooradin and Officer in the coming weeks.
If the Wickers had launched an investigation into the incident, it could have added uncertainty around when Holt would reach the milestone.
AFL South East was aware of the incident.
