Hawthorn captain James Sicily has been cleared to play after successfully downgrading his one-game suspension for kicking.

The superstar defender kicked out at Essendon’s Andrew McGrath after the Bombers backman ran at him during the early stages of their Round 1 clash at the MCG.

The Hawks only moved to contest the impact grading – which was medium, along with intentional conduct and body contact – and successfully argued the kick was not strong enough to warrant that. It was reduced to low, meaning Sicily has been fined $2500 but can play against Melbourne.

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The club asked to call Andrew McGrath for evidence, which Tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson questioned, because of what the Hawks’ lawyer called the “players code”.

“There is a inevitable human motivation to not say anything or do anything that would negatively impact the prospects of a fellow player playing the next week’s game of football,” Gleeson said.

McGrath said on SEN on Monday morning he felt the impact was “pretty innocuous” and he “didn’t even really realise that he put his foot into the back of me, which sort of suggests how severe the kick was”, and the Hawks believed his answers to the Tribunal would be similar.

The AFL argued leave should not be granted to permit the “victim player” to be called, with Gleeson pointing out when the victim is called there is often “pressure” on them to defend the player charged.

The Hawks were not allowed to call McGrath, nor to put the transcript of McGrath’s SEN interview into evidence.

Representing the AFL, Sally Flynn said: “Kicking another player is an inherently dangerous act that has no place in football.

“That has the potential to cause a much more serious injury, particularly in the case where the victim player should not be reasonably expecting or be reasonably prepared for contract.”

Tribunal chair Gleeson questioned how vulnerable McGrath was in the situation.

Gleeson: “Here it seems to me that they were involved in a tussle. McGrath knew he was tangling with Sicily, didn’t he?”

Flynn: “Yes.”

Gleeson: “The vulnerability issue would certainly be a very prominent issue if the contact was itself very forceful, but in a sense, it’s difficult to add up the vulnerability and the potential for injury … he was vulnerable and if the finding is the contact was relatively light … in a sense the submission amounts to saying he was vulnerable to receiving light impact. The essence of the case is really about potential to cause injury – what is the potential injury?”

Flynn: “It could potentially be bruising or a fracture.”

But Myles Tehan, for the Hawks, argued against that suggestion.

“He (Sicily) accepts this action is one that ought not be seen in the game of football,” Tehan said.

“But the Tribunal’s task tonight is a much narower one than that – it’s about impact, and whether it was medium or less than that. The nature of the action doesn’t effect that assessment of impact.

“There’s no evidence of the possibility of a fracture from the evidence of this type. That’s inherently improbable.

“To use a golf analogy – there’s no long backswing into the kick, the foot just comes back a tiny bit, more in the way of a balance and then is swung through, but not hard.

“If that had been a kick of a football it probably wouldn’t have gone 10 metres. It’s not a forceful kick at all.”

The Hawks compared the incident to Tom Atkins’ kick on Jimmy Webster in Round 23 last year, which was also cited as medium impact but they argued was much worse than Sicily’s action.

Tehan pointed to McGrath “getting up clapping and laughing” as compared to Webster writhing on the ground in pain after being kicked.

The AFL responded Webster was more likely to be expecting the impact because it was during play, with Atkins trying to kick the ball, whereas Sicily’s kick was off the ball and clearly intentional.