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Brisbane captain Dayne Zorko says teammate Jarrod Berry “deserves” to play in Friday night’s AFL preliminary final, and he’s found support from a rival skipper.
Berry was handed a one-match ban for making contact to the face of Melbourne opponent Clayton Oliver last Friday night in an apparent eye gouge action.
But Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury said the alleged eye contact would not be intentional, as the Lions attempt to clear Berry’s name to face Geelong at the MCG.
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“I feel for him. Because when someone’s got their elbow in your head pushing you into the ground, I know if I was in his shoes, you’re trying grab or do whatever you can,” Pendlebury said on Triple M Radio.
“It’s almost like when you’re a little kid and you’re trying to pull him over you and get him in a headlock.
“I just thought he was trying to grab like jumper, hair, whatever you can. I’ve heard people say, he knew exactly what (he) was doing there.
“I’m like ‘Let me put my forearm in your cheekbone, drive it into the ground and then see how calculated (you are)’. It’s like the little kid when you get pinned by the older brother. It’s like a rage fit – whatever you can to get him off me.
“I thought he was just doing whatever he can, trying to reach for the neck of the jumper and got him near the eye.”
Berry was superb in the second half of Brisbane’s 13-point win over Melbourne, with his on-ball performance and tagging job on Oliver swinging last Friday’s contest in the Lions’ favour.
However, Berry has been slapped with a one-week ban by the match review officer for making contact to Oliver’s face.
The Lions are challenging Berry’s charge on Tuesday night, in the hope of having the midfielder available to take on the Cats.
Zorko told SENQ’s Pat and Heals show on Monday that it was “hard” for him to comment but “you’d like to think he’ll play”.
“You’d love to see him take his spot – he thoroughly deserves it,” the Lions skipper said.
“It didn’t look like there was anything in it for mine, but everyone sees it differently.”
Zorko was lavish in his praise for Berry.
“I haven’t seen a Lions player play a better half,” he said. “He didn’t over-complicate things.”
Zorko was proud of the “spirit” Brisbane showed against the Demons and said another fighting display would be needed against Geelong if the Lions were to reach a grand final for the first time since losing the 2004 decider to Port Adelaide.
“(The Cats) are in (an) incredible vein of form. All of their players are at the absolute top of their games at the moment, and no doubt they’re are going to be refreshed,” he said.
“We just need to bring what we brought (last) Friday night and if we can do that, we’re certainly going to be in the game.
“If you hang in there long enough, you just don’t know what can happen. That’s the spirit we’ll be going down with, and hopefully we can get the job done.”
Zorko intends to lead by example in terms of applying “pressure” to Geelong.
“If we bring that pressure … if I can set the tone or have an impact in that area. hopefully that can spur another bloke to do the same thing and we can get a similar result to what we did (last) Friday night,” he said.
“We’ve got so many fantastic, young emerging players coming through. For me it’s just about guiding them around the park, and filling in when I need to and understanding the moments, and what I need to do at any given time.
“At times I’ve probably got that wrong this year, but I thought especially (against Melbourne) I was able to get those moments right, and I’ll be looking for a similar performance this Friday night.”
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