Cornes has taken aim at Craig McRae and his troops for not respecting the Swans midfielders.
Collingwood coach Craig McRae and his team have come under fire for showing disdain for their AFL rivals after their Friday night loss to the Swans in the fourth quarter. At the SCG, the Magpies led by as much as 27 points in the fourth quarter until Sydney’s Isaac Heeney and Chad Warner took the game by storm, winning it thrillingly by three points.
Furthermore, Kane Cornes has attributed the fourth-quarter fade-out on McRae and his team’s disrespect for the best players of rival teams. Cornes suggests that McRae should address the lack of accountability within his team, especially the midfielders who were overwhelmed by the Swans brigade, rather than talking about contentious umpiring decisions.
“Collingwood have, I think, the most unaccountable midfield running around,” Cornes said on SEN’s Sportsday. “That’s their system, and they back their players in, and largely they show no respect to the opposition’s best players.
“Go back and look at how often the best opposition midfielder against Collingwood gets ridiculous numbers. You would love to play against Collingwood as a midfielder because they show you no respect. 14 (disposals) each for Warner and Heeney, and a goal each when the game was on the line, essentially cost Collingwood their season.”
Was Dan McStay unlucky to miss out on a late 50m penalty here?
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Following Friday’s narrow defeat, McRae voiced his anger at Dan McStay not being paid a 50m free kick after Swans star Tom McCartin appeared to encroach on the mark taken by the Pies player just inside the centre square. McCartin took several extra steps forward before McStay decided to play on but the Pies weren’t awarded a free kick that would have given them an easy set shot to win the game.
And the Collingwood coach couldn’t help but voice his displeasure with the non-call from the umpire, with McRae suggesting things would have been much different if the match was plated in Melbourne. “I reckon if it was at the MCG it would have been paid,” McRae said in a post-match press conference.
Discussing the incident on SEN radio, Cornes said while in his opinion it should have been a 50m free kick to Collingwood it was “a bit rich” for the Collingwood coach to harp on about favourable home team calls when the Magpies play so many games in front of their fans at the MCG – including last year’s grand final. “I’m not sure Craig McRae needed to go down this path,” Cornes said.
“C’mon Craig. 14 (games) at the MCG, 17 in Melbourne, you get to play the grand final on your home ground. So 14 times you get the rub of the green and one time you have to go and play in Sydney on a Friday night you’re complaining about that. It was the wrong time. I thought he was out of line.”
Kane Cornes advises Craig McRae to move off the bench
Cornes also believes McRae should consider moving up to the coaches box rather than looking like a spectator on the interchange bench. “Rather than standing on the interchange bench and looking like a spectator, get up to the coaches box and make some moves, if you need to, like John Longmire did with his assistant coaches,” Cornes said.
“Impact the game, rather than just standing there with your headset on looking bemused as your side gets run over again. The mystique of winning close games is now gone, and sides have worked out Collingwood.”
The Bombers sat in the top four just six weeks ago, but Friday night’s 39-point defeat to Sydney – their sixth loss in their last eight games – means they will miss finals for a third straight season.
In 2023 – Scott’s first season in charge – the Bombers looked poised to finish inside the top eight, only to lose seven of their last 10 matches, including their final two by a combined margin of 196 points.
Scott said he “got the correlation” between this season and last but believed Essendon had made strides this year.
“The foundation of what we’re doing is is really solid,” he said.
“We were incapable of of competing against the best when it mattered last year, if you want the comparison right now.
“It’s a bit of polish, a bit of system, a bit of class, that is the difference between us and the best. It’s not the effort in the contest.”
Essendon’s infamous drought without winning a final will extend into a 21st year, having last tasted success in a post-season match back on September 4, 2004.
Premiership great Matthew Lloyd lamented the Bombers’ demise after the loss against the Swans.
“I walked into the club and it was just so powerful and demanding of each other,” Lloyd told 3AW.
“We were such a proud club, now it’s so far from that. It’s lost so much respect.”
Still one of the AFL’s biggest clubs, despite their lack of success for the last 20 years, Essendon’s final home game of the season attracted 33,830 fans – well down on the corresponding match against Sydney last year.
When asked about the turnout, Scott simply said the fans would return if Essendon “focused on playing good footy”.
The Bombers crowd watched former captain Dyson Heppell, one of the most popular players in Essendon history, receive a pre-game farewell after earlier in the week announcing his retirement at season’s end.
Heppell was overlooked for selection, but could be considered for a final game when the Bombers travel to the Gabba to play the Brisbane Lions next Saturday night.
“Dyson has been very, very clear that his decision to retire, a big part of it was he talked to me about when someone has come through and is ready to take his spot and performed that he would know it was time,” he said.
“He is, as strong as I am, we were still in the contention, we pick our best team, and that’s what we did.
“That’s what everyone would expect us to do.”
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