'Incredibly unlucky': Adelaide captain Rory Sloane defends ex-teammate Patrick Dangerfield over brutal bump
Adelaide captain Rory Sloane has gone in to bat for ex-teammate Patrick Dangerfield after he was referred directly to the AFL Tribunal for a bump on Jake Kelly.
Dangerfield is facing a suspension of at least three weeks as he awaits the Tribunal's verdict, due to the fact that Kelly was left with a broken nose and a concussion from an inadvertent head clash.
MORE: Dangerfield defends bump ahead of AFL Tribunal date
Despite the fact that his own teammate came off second best in the collision, Sloane refused to be drawn into whether Dangerfield should be suspended in an attempt to eradicate the bump from the game.
"I think you're making too much of this, really," Sloane said in response a question regarding the incident on 3AW's Sportsday.
"That one was just completely unlucky. You could see Danger was hardly going for a bump. In the end, it was just a head clash really.
Sloane checks in on his injured teammate before he is carted off the Adelaide Oval following the bump Getty
"It was a head clash and it was completely accidental and something that is just a part of footy. You can't control those, that's something I certainly feel for Paddy for."
Sloane shared a locker room with Dangerfield between 2009 and 2015, and said he was no stranger to heavy collisions with the bulldozing 2016 Brownlow Medallist.
"He doesn't mean to headbutt Jake in the head and unfortunately for Jake, Paddy has got quite a stiff head," he said.
"He ran into someone with a rock-hard melon and I've ran into that bloke a couple of times and you do certainly come off second-best normally."
Dangerfield will front the AFL Tribunal on Tuesday night, as he looks to avoid a major suspension to start the season.
