West Coast tagger Brady Hough has avoided suspension for his hard tackle on Port Adelaide superstar Zak Butters, instead being handed a fine by the match review officer.

In the third term of the Eagles’ eventual six-point loss at Optus Stadium on Saturday night, Hough slammed Butters into the turf after pinning both arms of the Power’s prime midfielder.

The MRO has graded the incident as high contact but careless conduct and low impact, meaning he can escape with a $3000 fine, which can be reduced to $2000 with an early guilty plea.

Had the incident instead been deemed as medium impact, Hough would have been handed a one-week suspension.

Butters briefly stayed down and held his head after the incident but was able to quickly take his free kick and see out the rest of the game, defying some close checking from Hough to win 27 disposals.

After establishing himself as a solid small defender at the start of his AFL career, Hough was injected into the midfield in the back half of last season before returning to West Coast’s back-line for the start of their 2026 campaign.

He moved back into the Eagles’ on-ball brigade in round 9 to impress in a tagging role on Melbourne’s Kysaiah Pickett and has also been integral to his side’s pair of wins in recent weeks by shutting down Greater Western Sydney’s Finn Callaghan and Essendon’s Zach Merrett.

Ahead of the game, Hough told The West Australian he was happy to have been given the chance to return to the midfield.

“I am enjoying the role and loving doing the role for the team,” he said.

“Anything I can do to help the team win, I’ll embrace that and do as best as I can.

“I’ll embrace anything. I just do what Mini (coach Andrew McQualter) says.”