Gold Coast rookie Jed Walter has been offered a two-game suspension for striking by the VFL's Match Review Panel, placing the start of his 2025 season in doubt.
A third-term hit on Frankston's Seb Quirk during Saturday's Wildcard Round clash in Queensland has seen the teenager hit with a ban, with his actions graded as intentional conduct, low impact and high contact.
Walter can lodge an early guilty plea and have the penalty reduced to a one-game suspension, which would see him become unavailable for the first game at either AFL or VFL level to start next season.
The Suns and their Pick 3 draftee can opt to challenge the ban, with an unsuccessful plea meaning the two-game suspension would stand.
Gold Coast will make a decision on whether to lodge a challenge and head to the VFL Tribunal as early as Tuesday morning.
The suspension sours the end of a promising first year for the Suns Academy graduate, who played 14 games at AFL level this year for a return of 11 goals and an average of 5.712 disposals per appearance.
The weekend's narrow loss to the Dolphins was Walter's sixth VFL game for 2024, with the Palm Beach Currumbin product kicking eight goals at the state league level - including two in Saturday's season-ending defeat.
Gold Coast's VFL side, the reigning VFL premiers, held a 27-point lead over Frankston early in the final quarter before conceding five unanswered goals before the final siren, with Tyson Milne's long-range major in the 30th minute capping off a successful comeback for the standalone side.
The win for Frankston has seen them book a place in week one of the VFL Finals series, with a meeting against Southport back in Queensland to come on Saturday afternoon.
