Monday, August 4, 2014: Sorry mate, there you go...

Another week, another Richmond player doing something stupid. Reece Conca's Saturday afternoon brain-fade, in which he pursued Devon Smith toward the interchange bench to fell him with an elbow to the back of the head, will be assessed by the Match Review Panel shortly. Depending on their opinion of the impact, predicted to be low or medium, Conca will face a ban of 1-2 weeks.

Conca was contrite on the Sunday Footy Show, conceding that chasing and elbowing Smith was "not the smartest move", when asked to apologise to Smith - as Tyrone Vickery did to Dean Cox last week - Conca was succinct, if not very sincere. "Sorry mate... there you go".

For Richmond, now only 2 games away from another amusing ninth place finish, the loss of two key players for mind-numbingly stupid, not to mention cowardly, acts, will not help. For Essendon, who play Richmond on Friday night, it is a pertinent reminder of the important of vigilance, particularly with Richmond players behind them.

In the news...
Port Adelaide's John Butcher and Jarrad Redden are in hospital with suspected meningitis. Whether or not this is related to the teams on-field choking is yet to be confirmed.

The MCG is confident in it's back-up system after a power outage caused two light towers to fail on Saturday evening. "Pleasingly, the system worked as it should.... the game was not interrupted" said MCC spokesman Shane Brown.

Scott Gumbleton is injured again.