The North Melbourne-Kane Cornes saga has continued into late Thursday night, with coach Alastair Clarkson again forced to address the situation in his post-game press conference after back-and-forth barbs.
After dropping five consecutive matches, the under-fire Roos fought back from a four-goal deficit to level the scores against Essendon on at Marvel Stadium before falling agonisingly, 9.11 (65) to 9.8 (62).
Plenty of the attention pre-game was on how Cornes would respond to his blacklisting from the Roos earlier in the week.
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The Kangaroos made the extraordinary move of announcing they would refuse to engage with Cornes after the club accused the media figure of “bullying behaviour” and “vindictive attacks” on North Melbourne and its players.
Kangaroos football boss Todd Viney criticised Cornes’ media commentary at a press conference on Wednesday, revealing the club had declined a request for Cornes to be part of an interview with Clarkson for Thursday night’s game against Essendon.
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There was naturally interest in how Cornes and his network, Channel 7, would handle their coverage of the game.
Pre-game, Cornes, from outside Marvel Stadium, said: “We’re outside. We can’t get inside, which is disappointing.
“I was looking forward to asking Alastair Clarkson some tough questions; I think the club needs to answer those.
“But unfortunately they’ve gone down this route.”
The station then showed a series of clips showing Cornes’ strong North criticism, including that Clarkson was the wrong fit to coach the club, that it had overpaid players, and his demand to see progress and improvement from it.
He has also been particularly critical of 20-year-old Roos star Harry Sheezel.
After the montage, Cornes was asked if he had any regrets about his comments.
“Not really. I think that was all reasonably strong criticism, but I think it was fair,” he said.
“This is a club that’s won nine games in the last four seasons, so they would understand that with this game and with underperformance, comes some strong scrutiny.
“That’s what they’ve received and it’s a little bit disappointing that they’ve taken this route because I think as a club, they need to stand up and answer some hard questions.
“It’s very easy to run away so I’m disappointed and I think they’ve been poorly advised in this.”
Cornes went on to say he didn’t feel he had any reason to be concerned about his critique of the players, but did concede he would back off if he became aware a player had been “mentally affected” by his commentary.
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The network played an interview between former Hawthorn champion Luke Hodge and Clarkson that took place around an hour before the opening bounce.
Without going into the details behind his attack, the four-time premiership winning coach had a stinging rebuke for Cornes.
“They say those that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, so I know a little bit about Kane’s history,” Clarkson told Channel 7.
“Some of the things he was saying about Jy (Simpkin) and ‘Sheez’, I just think – especially from the host broadcaster and who is covering this game tonight – this isn’t shared across the football world, but I’ve got a view there should be a relatively good balance.
“Particularly when you’re talking about the players — they’re the product of the game — they’re the guys on the field and in the trenches with their mates trying to fight for their side.
“When the line gets crossed, we know that there’s critique in the game, we’ve been copping it for 20 years.
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“You know, especially as a coach, when these things happen we just have to cop it on the chin.
“I think it’s a good indication of our stability as a football club. This was a club decision from the board right through to the football department that we need to look after our people and we just think it was untoward.”
Asked if he felt Cornes would back off or just be further motivated to continue clipping the club, Clarko said: “That’ll be up to Kane to work out how he goes about it.”
Post-game, Clarkson was asked whether he used the outside attention as motivation for his troops.
“Just play footy and (be) consistent with your application. We don’t need outside things to try and motivate us to play, because that’s short-lived — you can’t manufacture that every week to try and get yourself up,” he told reporters late Thursday night.
“You’ve got to find a way to play consistently and … apply yourself consistently to games of footy with your mental application, so that was good after quarter-time — it wasn’t good enough early for us, unfortunately.”
Asked when he informed the players Cornes wouldn’t be allowed in the rooms, Clarkson said: “I didn’t tell them.
“Don’t know (how they found out). It didn’t come from me.”
On the field, the Bombers looked like they were cruising in the second term before the Kangas sprung to life, kicking five goals to one in the third to trail by just one point heading into the final quarter.
In a tight final term, the two teams managed just one goal apiece as Essendon hung on by three points.
North debutant Finnbar Marley took a strong mark and had a shot on goal in the dying stages, but sprayed his set shot to the left.
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