TOM JONAS has expressed remorse for the hit that sidelined West Coast forward Andrew Gaff on Saturday night.
Fronting the media at lunchtime on Monday, Jonas said he contacted Gaff after the game to apologise for the late hit that resulted in the Eagle being stretchered from the field.
Jonas awaits the verdict of the AFL's Match Review Panel this afternoon, but in the meantime was contrite about his part in Saturday's incident.
"I grabbed his [Gaff's] number off Brad Ebert, as a former teammate, and just sent him a text," Jonas said.
"I thought he probably wouldn't be in the mood for a call from me and we had a bit of a message conversation, that was good of him.
"It's a game that's played at a very high pace and I'm not making any excuses for what happened, but you do need to make decisions.
"In this instance I made the wrong one."
With the Match Review Panel's statement due later on Monday evening, Jonas has already moved his focus to repaying his teammates for the incident.
"I don't think I'm a dirty player, but obviously I've opened that up to speculation ... I try and play tough, but fair," Jonas said.
"At the end of the day I did the crime, so I'll do the time, they'll come up with an appropriate sanction.
"I'll try and make sure it's not too much about me, obviously I'm part of a team and I've let them down, so hopefully it stops there and it'll be back to doing the team thing and making up for what I've done for the boys."
Robbie Gray was also reported for tripping Mark LeCras during the game.
Jonas's apology
"Firstly, I just wanted to say how extremely remorseful and disappointed I am with the incident that occurred on Saturday night.
You never like to injure or see another player injured in our game, that's not in the spirit of the game.
I contacted Andrew straight after the game and he was good enough to accept my apology.
I think the way his teammates flew the flag for him is something he'd be proud of.
So obviously I'll receive a sanction and I'll cop whatever comes my way and learn from it.
I'm also really disappointed in the way I've let my club down, my teammates down.
They have a lot of trust in me, and if I'm not out there for the next few weeks it'll hurt them.
I'll be doing my best to earn back my respect from them."
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