Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes has further questions about how the scuffle between Steven May and Jake Melksham broke out and how the latter avoided sanction.
May was given a one-match ban by the club for drinking while in concussion protocols, however, Melksham was not suspended despite punching a teammate in those conditions.
“Something doesn’t quite add up for me,” Cornes told SEN SA Breakfast.
“Firstly, the guy that has whacked him didn’t get a sanction. Steven May, I understand, he’s in concussion protocol and he’s out drinking when he shouldn’t be. He’s put himself in a position that he shouldn’t be in.
“Now, did any of the seven other teammates go to him ‘hey Steven, you got knocked out by Jake Lever six days ago, why are you drinking?’.
“I don’t understand that. If you’re a really strong club, which I believe Melbourne to be … you’d think one of the players would have said ‘hey mate you’re in concussion protocols, go home before you put yourself in that situation’.
“Melksham has floored him, according to the reports. With all the evidence around coward punches and one-punches and all the damage they can do, he’s floored him, punched him, he’s already in concussion protocols, and we know how serious that is, so he’s potentially suffered two concussions in the space of a week, and Melksham has got nothing.
“Work that out for me.”
Former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon meanwhile is confident the brawl won’t derail their season, but knows the club will now have to answer a number of questions.
Tim Watson is on the same page, saying on SEN Breakfast: “On the evidence of what we’ve seen for the last 18 months, I’m prepared to say that this won’t derail Melbourne’s season at all.”
Lyon added: “I’m very confident in that as well, but all it does is bring on all the questions.
“Like, ‘have they got ahead of themselves’, ‘the wheels are falling off’, ‘they’re thinking of a dynasty’. That is understandable. That has to be part of what they’re going to have to deal with.
“You go to your environment and internally the Melbourne people would be saying ‘that’s alright, we are strong enough to absorb this as a group. We will deal with this in the manner that we have the last two years, we’ll deal with Steven’.
“‘What Steven brings, 90 per cent of it is fantastic and we accept that the 10 per cent is what we’ve got to work on. It’s not going to fracture us or tear us apart and we will respond and react to it’.
“That will be the sign of a good footy club. If the backside falls out of the joint and they lose, then you’ll go back and say you’re not as good a footy club as you thought you were.”
Watson believes May’s behaviour can’t simply be excused: “It is irresponsible for anyone who is out of football at the moment in concussion protocol to be out there drinking. That is irresponsible.”
The Demons will be without May for Queen’s Birthday’s clash with the in-form Collingwood as they look to break a two-game losing streak.