The Power might have been a little reluctant to fight the charge given their recent tribunal experience, but Port Adelaide football manager Peter Rohde said the simple belief that their man did nothing wrong drove them to challenge a potential two-week ban.
For the second straight week there was no video footage of a case involving a Power player – following last week’s case in which ruckman Dean Brogan was suspended – and Rohde said his club had to take the punt on the players’ evidence being enough to clear Motlop’s name.
Unlike the Brogan case, Port Adelaide flew a two-man legal team to Melbourne to fight the case while Rohde and the player himself also appeared in person.
“It was a little bit like the old days; there was no video evidence,” he said after the case.
“Unfortunately we’ve had two in a week where there’s been no video evidence to corroborate it.
“You know a lot of people probably think players get the benefit of [having] no video evidence but [with] the rules the way they are it probably disadvantages the player because the rules themselves say players’ evidence can or can not be measured in different ways.”
Rohde said he was disappointed there was no video footage.
“It’s a big ground and play was a long way down the other end,” he said of the Motlop incident with Hunter.
“One day maybe they’ll have a camera all over the ground.”
It was all smiles from the Power entourage following the verdict. Motlop is crucial to Port Adelaide’s forward potency which has been depleted after the injury to Justin Westhoff.
Although Rohde said his club’s decision had nothing to do with Westhoff’s broken foot and expected month-long lay-off.
“We try to keep things very independent,” he said.
“If you let those sort of emotions get in the way you can make some wrong decisions.
“We understood that we were facing two weeks if we came and lost, one week if he took the plea and none if we got him off. So it was a calculated gamble.”
