Luke Hodge has explained the role he played in former Brisbane teammate Jarrod Berry’s defence on Tuesday night.
Lions midfielder Berry fronted the AFL Tribunal for “unreasonable or unnecessary contact” for putting his hands in the face of Melbourne’s Clayton Oliver last weekend.
Berry was successful in having his initial one-match ban overturned, freeing him to play in this Friday Night’s Preliminary Final against Geelong.
Former Lion Hodge was asked to act as a character reference for Berry and admits he wasn’t too sure about it at the beginning, given his own unenviable record at the AFL judiciary.
“Let’s be honest, it was a bit of a shock when they rang and said ‘can you be a character reference for ‘Bez’?,” Hodge said on SENQ Breakfast.
“As far as I can sit back and talk about Jarrod Berry, I’ve known him for five years as a teammate, a coach and obviously watching him.
“(Brisbane footy manager) Danny Daly rang me and I was like, ‘Danny, I don’t have a great record at the Tribunal’. Whenever I’ve sat down there, normally it comes back ‘you’re guilty’.
“I was nervous because we’re packing our house up at the moment and I had boxes everywhere, and the tape was screeching on the boxes and I logged onto a Zoom and the camera wouldn’t work. I was sitting there pretty much in a suit top - a shirt, jacket, tie - but I had shorts on below so if they asked me to get up I would have been in all trouble.”
Hodge gave further insight into what he said about Berry and the case he helped the Lions put forward.
He explained what he knows of the 24-year-old who was only a teenager when Hodge himself arrived at the club from Hawthorn in late 2017.
“They asked, ‘what was he like as a player?’, and my first opinion when I got to the Lions was there was two people who stood out - Bez and Hugh McCluggage,” Hodge added.
“I was there to try and mentor young guys coming through. It was more so through the fact that their work ethic was outstanding and they were so competitive as well. They were just as invested to try and make their teammates better.
“The amount of times that I saw Bez and Hughie win a race or a time trial by that much and then you’d watch them finish a lap with blokes who aren’t as fit as them.
“I’d seen 30-year-old blokes do that, I hadn’t seen 19-year-old blokes go and do that. So that was the first thing that I pointed across that caught me as a 33-year-old. These blokes are good people.
“The next part was that I’d done some leadership stuff with him over the years. Two years as a player, two years as a coach and a mentor. They went through our relationship.
“(Nick) Pane (QC) said, ‘Do you reckon people can cross the line at times?’. I was sitting there thinking I know where this is going. I paused for a second and said, ‘No, not Jarrod, I don’t think Jarrod could, I haven’t see that in five years’.
“I’m not sure if I was any help at all, but it was a good result in the end.”
Overall, Hodge felt Berry getting off was the right result for all involved.
“In the big scheme of things, the AFL had to be seen to be doing something just for the look of it,” he said further.
“I think they went down the right pathway there and I think it was always in favour of Bez getting off.
“I think it was the right outcome and I think it was the outcome that the AFL wanted as well.”
The Lions take on the Cats at the MCG this Friday night with the winner through to the 2022 AFL Grand Final.