KEY forward Chris Dawes says he takes full responsibility for missing last round’s 20-point loss to Port Adelaide at TIO Traeger Park Oval, due to a one-match suspension.

Dawes missed the Alice Springs clash after he was rubbed out for striking Richmond defender Alex Rance at the MCG in round nine.

“I’ve only got myself to blame, really, because I put myself in a position where I could be suspended, regardless of what you think of the match review panel’s findings,” he said.

“I got ranked high, so I had to sit out for a week for that, so it was my own fault and I’ve got to move on from that pretty quickly.

“I owe it to the team to put in a good performance this week.”

Still, Dawes believed it was too risky to challenge the one-match ban, which he conceded was frustrating.   

“I think the system was designed to give a more uniform approach to incidents that happen on the field, but I’m loathe to criticise it too much, because I don’t have a better solution myself,” he said.

“I also have personal bias, given that I fell foul of the match review panel, but my biggest concern is that it’s a system where I couldn’t defend myself and I couldn’t risk a second week on top of the one that I ended up taking with the early plea.

“That’s my biggest concern – it’s a system where I couldn’t risk trying to defend myself, because it would’ve meant a second week on the sidelines.

“It’s hard when they’re trying to classify things – is it low or medium impact? Well, that still ends up being a judgement call, because the system was brought in to remove that need for judgement calls and to give it a more uniform framework to work in and I think it needs reviewing – and it will be reviewed.

“I don’t want to criticise too much, because it was brought in with the right intentions and I’m sure they will come up with a more workable system towards the end of the year.”