WESTERN Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has hit out at the staging fine handed to Will Lewis, saying the AFL "thumbed their nose" at the club's medical report that said the forward couldn't breathe.
Lewis was fined $1000 for staging after an altercation with Sydney's Nick Blakey last Friday night.
The club challenged the sanction at the Tribunal this week, but the charge was upheld.
Beveridge criticised the decision on Thursday, saying it sets a precedent that medical reports from clubs will be ignored by the AFL.
"In this one, he’s actually copped one in the solar plexus, it's knocked the wind out of him," Beveridge said.
"He's hit the deck and then he’s obviously been charged with staging ... what the AFL are saying to us is if you get hit, regardless if you do or don't, if you stay down, you can still be charged with staging.
"We submitted a medical appraisal and assessment that he couldn't breathe, he wouldn't stay down otherwise.
"The AFL has obviously thumbed their nose at it and said, 'We just think you’ve staged'. It must be caught up in the fact he's been on the ground for a while.
"It's changed now to what staging is, it's totally contingent on how long you stay down, not whether or not you actually got hit because he got hit.
"I feel for him because I don't want him to be tarred with a brush that he's put on an act, because he hasn't.
"It just means now that if doctors from the football clubs, if they put forward submissions that a player is in discomfort, has been hit, the AFL will now ignore that and base it on what they see."
Tim English is in doubt for Sunday's match against West Coast, with Beveridge conceding the ruck shouldn't have played against Sydney last week.
English will need to get through training on Thursday in order to be declared fit, with Beveridge admitting the club's "stocks are low" when it comes to ruck options.
"In hindsight, maybe he wasn't totally ready to play last week," Beveridge said of English.
"We'd like to have Rory (Lobb) play forward a bit as well as ruck. Whether we can achieve that, especially if Tim doesn't play, will be a pretty big challenge."
