Brisbane Lions star Charlie Cameron and GWS tagger Toby Bedford have sensationally had their respective three-match suspensions for rough conduct overturned on appeal.
In separate Appeal Board hearings on Thursday night, both players successfully argued the league's Tribunal had made an error of law when upholding their bans two days earlier.
Cameron, who was initially charged over the tackle which left West Coast's Liam Duggan concussed, is now free to play in the Lions' clash with ladder-leaders Sydney on Sunday.
Brisbane argued the Tribunal "put the cart before the horse" during Cameron's initial hearing by focusing on the Tribunal guidelines before determining whether the player had actually committed a reportable offence when tackling Duggan.
"The Tribunal reasoned backward from the conduct to conclude the conduct had a certain character to it," Lions lawyer Chris Winneke said.
"We say it should've started by considering for itself what amounted to rough conduct."
Winneke described Cameron's actions as a "lawful tackle" according to the laws of the game, disputing the Tribunal's assertion Cameron had driven Duggan back with "excessive force".
Winneke said Cameron didn't drive Duggan backwards at all, and it's "simply wrong" Cameron's actions turned a legal tackle into a dangerous one.
AFL lawyer Lisa Hannon disputed Brisbane's grounds for appeal, but the Appeal Board sided with the Lions.
Appeal Board chair Will Houghton said it is important the laws of the game have primacy over the Tribunal guidelines if there is any contradiction or inconsistency.
He ruled the Tribunal did not fully consider Law 18.7 when upholding Cameron's ban.
"The Tribunal made a finding that the conduct of Cameron was unreasonable in the circumstances, however, what the Tribunal did not do was deal with the elements of the charge which is set out in the laws of Australian football," Houghton said.
"Whilst we accept that the Tribunal found the conduct to be unreasonable, which is one element of the offence, it completely failed to consider the second critical element of the offence: that is, whether the conduct was likely to cause injury.
"Absent that consideration ... we consider that the Tribunal did fall into an error of law that had a material impact on its decision."
In appealing Bedford's suspension, GWS argued the tackle which left Richmond's Tim Taranto concussed was not "careless conduct" under the Tribunal guidelines.
The Giants also took issue with the "severe" grading of the impact and disputed the AFL's argument that there was an alternative way to tackle.
GWS lawyer Anais d'Arville did not originally plan to piggyback the Cameron decision but was able to use the same issue around Law 18.7 - specifically the "likely to cause injury" element - to his advantage.
"We accept that the Tribunal found unreasonable conduct, however, it made no finding about whether or not the conduct of player Bedford was likely to cause injury," Houghton said.
Bedford is free to play in the Giants' home clash with Gold Coast on Saturday.
The two cases caused what Brisbane coach Chris Fagan referred to earlier on Thursday as a "shock wave" for the competition.
But Fagan defiantly declared he won't be telling his players to change their technique for the time being.
"You can see by the reaction over the last 48-72 hours that there's a lot of confusion within playing ranks and coaching ranks," he told reporters on Thursday morning.
"Coaches, we don't necessarily know how to coach tackling now.
"Things like the sling tackle and driving guys into the ground, we clearly know that's out.
"We know you can't bump (high) - if you hit them in the head that's a problem.
"But what happened on the weekend was a little bit more of a shock wave."
Richmond coach Adem Yze is thinking outside the box, looking to get help from NRL side Melbourne Storm in a bid to avoid his players falling victim to the AFL's tackle crackdown.
The first-year Tigers boss has also consulted the club's boxing coach, who has a martial arts background, on tackling technique.
"We've got to look at all those avenues because we've got habits that we've had as kids," Yze said.
"It was always around pinning the arms and then taking them to ground."
