MATCH Review Officer Michael Christian says Kysaiah Pickett "did everything we would ask a player" to minimise impact with Jake Waterman after the Melbourne superstar was cleared to play after Sunday's bump on the West Coast forward.

In the first 15 seconds of the Marvel Stadium clash on Sunday, Pickett caught Waterman with a bump as the Eagles goalkicker went to gather the ball at ground level.

It was a contentious decision for the MRO, given Pickett collected Waterman's head in the action, but Christian said the Demons dynamo had used the correct technique in this instance.

"When I break it down, Kozzy was charging into the forward 50 and there's a good angle there that showed his eyes were firmly fixed on the ball and as he got to a point, he realised that Jake Waterman was to his right," told AFL.com.au's AFL Daily on Monday.

"He took his eyes off the ball when he realised. But then from that moment, did everything we would ask a player to do to try and minimise any impact. He tried to stop. He tried to decelerate, he tried to get low.

"He dropped his hand and his arm to try and skirt around Jake Waterman, so those are the things that we're looking for in terms of trying to exercise a duty of care, which in this particular case we thought he did."

Christian said the decision to clear Pickett, who has had a history of bumps led to suspensions across his career, was not impacted by Waterman being able to play on during the game because the decision had been made that it was not a careless action.

"When I first saw it live, I thought, 'Oh, that looks interesting'. But once I was able to break it down ... the beauty that I have that others don't is that I get ten different angles. And I've got the capacity to play at normal speed, which I think is invaluable, but also to be able to break it down frame by frame to make sure that anything we're doing is in the best interests of the club and the player," he said.

"(Waterman not being concussed wasn't a factor) because what the first decision to be made is whether this was a careless conduct or not. So once we came to the decision that it was not careless, then it wouldn't have mattered what the impact was to Waterman. Had he been concussed, the decision would have been the same."

Fellow Brownlow Medal contender Zak Butters was also cleared over the weekend after his heavy bump on Western Bulldogs midfielder Joel Freijah. The MRO said on Saturday the high contact was 'negligible' and did not constitute a reportable offence.

"In these situations, I also rely heavily on the medical report because if there was any reference in the medical report to forceful high contact, then that may have been and caused a different decision. But that wasn't the case in this particular situation. The vision was backed up by the medical report that it was predominantly body contact, and there was negligible, if any, high contact so there was there's no charge for Zak Butters," Christian said. 

Watch Match Review Officer Michael Christian's full interview on AFL Daily, including discussions on a crackdown on instigators of melees, dangerous tackles, 'gut punches' and a reduction in player fines.