St Kilda has successfully reduced the monster ban handed to West Australian forward Lance Collard for his homophobic slur, with the AFL Appeals Board finding his nine-week ban as “crippling.”

The latest turn in the saga saw the Saints successfully argue the punishment imposed by the tribunal was excessive and not in line with previous incidents.

The Appeals Board agreed, handing out a reduced four-week sanction, with two weeks suspended for this year and next year.

It means Collard could be available as soon as their round nine clash against Gold Coast Suns.

“Firstly, his previous misconduct in 2024 was more serious and probably far more serious than the present affairs,” Will Houghton KC said in his verdict.

“We describe it as crippling because there was evidence before the Tribunal in the sanction in both hearings that a penalty of this extent would finish him off as a player of professional football.”

The AFL said they accept the Appeals Board ruling.

“The AFL reiterates that it has no tolerance for the use of homophobic language in our game and its expectations have been made extremely clear to all of our players, including by education that all AFL and VFL players receive,” they said in a statement.

“We thank all parties involved for their cooperation in this process. This matter is otherwise at a close.”

St Kilda argued Collard should not have been found guilty under rule 2.3a, which was reserved for “conduct of the most serious kind of conduct with an inherently public dimension”.

Saints’ legal counsel Michael Borsky argued that a comment made in a VFL game was not heard in public until the AFL made it so by proceeding under this rule.

Borsky said Collard should have been investigated under rule 35, The Peek Rule, the AFL’s anti-vilification code, which would have been a confidential process.

“The AFL, for reasons which have still not been explained, decided to proceed under rule 2.3(a),” Borsky said.

Borsky also argued that the second witness to Collard’s alleged slur toward Darby Hipwell in Frankston, teammate Bailey Lambert, was unreliable.

“Mr Lambert couldn’t remember what quarter the incident happened in, couldn’t remember the teammate Mr Collard had struck, couldn’t remember which of his teammates were struck, which gave rise to the melee in which this word was allegedly uttered.

“He also couldn’t remember when he spoke to Mr Hipwell about the incident.”

The Saints argued that Collard’s ban should be reduced to a substantial fine or four weeks, calling his nine-week sanction too excessive.

However, the AFL said the Saints were “clutching at straws” saying they had no basis to challenge the tribunal’s ruling.

“They don’t support there having been an error of law, failures in small insignificant failures in memory don’t really have any serious [impact] on what these gentlemen heard,” legal counsel Andrew Woods SC said.

“We say it was, as I say a very considered and appropriate sanction in those circumstances.”

The appeals board sided with the tribunal on the first point, saying Collard’s language was disgraceful and fell under the purview of rule 2.3(a) but not with the second.

“There is no doubt in the appeal board’s view that the offending comment was conduct unbecoming.”