Collingwood legend Nathan Buckley believes Melbourne defender Steven May should’ve been suspended for staging in Saturday night’s win over North Melbourne.
May copped a $1,250 fine with an early guilty plea for exaggerating contact after a spinning tackle from Eddie Ford, which May received a free kick for, during the third quarter of the MCG contest.
The incident has been widely scrutinised in the aftermath including former Hawthorn sharpshooter Ben Dixon on Fox Footy’s The First Crack saying May would be left “so embarrassed.”
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Buckley on SEN radio on Monday morning, though conceding May isn’t the first player to milk a free kick, thinks the star backman’s act “sits on the worse level” given increased focus around protecting the head — of which he accentuated contact to.
The former Magpies coach also pointed out how close to home the protection of concussion is to Melbourne following Angus Brayshaw’s retirement earlier this year.
“Staging has been a part of the game. I reckon I’ve got two (bad ones) I can remember. I can only imagine how Steven May is feeling right now, but that doesn’t escape the reality of what he chose to do,” Buckley told SEN Breakfast.
“I actually think it sits on the worse level of staging for me because of what this rule is there to do. This rule is there to protect players and protect the head, it’s come in as a medico legal reason ... it’s for the protection of players.
“The fact that a teammate of Steven May’s in Angus Brayshaw has left the game because of concussive effects and they hand out an award at the end of every game out of respect to Brayshaw — and that would be about courage, teamsmanship and playing the game with the right demeanour.
“Whatever the opposite of that is, I think that’s what Steven May did. I know he wouldn’t feel great about it and in 24 hours it will be gone.
“But I think anyone who accentuates head contact in a tackle and does it so blatantly like that, I think it should be a week. It should be elevated beyond a normal staging free kick or fine.”
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Port Adelaide 300-gamer Kane Cornes agreed with Buckley and called for the Demons to put May up for a press conference this week.
“This one was different, it wasn’t an exaggeration of contact, he’s just made this up. He’s faked that his head hit the ground. This was just creating something out of thin air, which sucked the umpire in to making that call,” Cornes added on SEN.
“I think May should speak today. I think Melbourne should put him up and that’s really important. Because I reckon there was one with Caleb Windsor that wasn’t as blatant as this late in the game where he also did something similar.
“If you’ve got a senior player doing that and then a first-year player doing the same thing, I think it’s important that the Melbourne Football Club stamps this out and May should speak today and be asked questions about that and I hope Melbourne put him up at some stage early this week.”
