"Taking the you know what": Cornes calls out St Kilda’s King treatment

The severity of Max King's hamstring injury was confirmed by St Kilda earlier this week.

The injury-ravaged key forward will undergo hamstring surgery and will be sidelined for the remainder of the 2026 season, and Kane Cornes is far from impressed with coach Ross Lyon’s suspected cover-up.

Having returned against North Melbourne in Round 20 for his first outing in 757 days, King could only play out 36 minutes of game time, going down to the rooms with reported hamstring tightness.

King failed to return to the game, with reports stating that the 26-year-old left the stadium early following the injury.

Lyon’s post-game press conference sparked much conversation, with the St Kilda head coach revealing that he hadn’t attempted to contact King despite his absence in the club rooms.

It has since been revealed that King’s injury was far more significant than just tightness, sent in for more surgery to repair his hamstring which has ended his year.

And Cornes is far from impressed with the treatment.

“Tight hamstring is a fair way away from hamstring surgery,” Cornes told SEN’s Locked In.

“Hamstring surgery versus a tight hamstring? He (Lyon) is trying to play it down as to the reason he hasn’t spoken to Max, who wasn’t there, had left, hadn’t tried to call him, hadn’t reached out, had just become very defensive to the media who were grilling him on this – and rightly so, one of the biggest injury stories this year.

“He’s tried to bat it away and move on to other questions with a tight hamstring, and we hear that not only is it not a tight hamstring... it’s not a strained hamstring... it’s a hamstring that needed to be surgically repaired!

“I think he knew it was far more serious than a tight hamstring. The guy wasn’t there. Have you ever seen a guy leave the venue, not participate in the song because he has got a tight hamstring?

“How poorly does that age? And he will just get away with it? No worries. This guy has had his hamstring surgically repaired, and he was trying to bat it away as a tight hammy when he is not even in the song.

“He hasn’t even tried to reach out to him, and now he’s had hamstring surgery!”

Sam Edmund stepped in to defend the St Kilda doctors… but Cornes was confident that the club was well aware of the severity of King’s injury.

“They couldn’t have scanned it that quickly. That’s what they thought! You can only deal with the information you’ve got, can’t you?” Edmund said.

Cornes fired back.

“If any doctor can tell the difference between a tight hamstring and a hamstring that has no power in it when you do the three tests – and I’ve had those done on me a million times – if you’ve got a torn hamstring, you’ve got no power," he added.

“You’ve certainly got no power if you’ve hurt your tendon, which is what they usually repair.

“Completely different to, ‘I’ve just got a tight hammy’. Come on, let’s be real. Clubs taking the you-know-what.

“He was far too dismissive of one of the biggest injury stories this year and tried to bat it away as a tight hamstring. This guy – they’ve tried to sweep it under the carpet again – has had his hamstring surgically repaired.

“We should, and the AFL should look into club injury reports – not just at the Saints, but at other clubs. They took 20 minutes to update us after Max went down into the tunnel.

“Ridiculous. What’s going on! Good luck to Max, I hope this is the last surgery that he needs, but that was a joke.”