'How can you defend this': Controversy over AFL side's team song
AFL greats Nick Riewioldt and Jonathan Brown have hit out at Melbourne for singing the team song, after a victory, without teammates present.
Captain Max Gawn was conducting an on-field interview following Melbourne’s narrow 54-53 win over Carlton.
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But during this time, the players in the Marvel Stadium locker room started singing the team song without their captain and two new recruits - Adam Tomlinson and Ed Langdon - who had never won a game with the club before.
The team were able to laugh it off when the group returned and repeated the song.
However, Brisbane Lions champion Jonathan Brown raised the issue and couldn’t work out how anyone could defend them.
“It’s interesting, hey. Singing the song with 18 players. There’s 22 the last time I looked,” he said.
“And Max Gawn’s first win as captain, and he’s not even there, along with three other teammates.
“Garry (Lyon), you’re a staunch Melbourne man and you’ll defend them to the hilt, it’s been a difficult last 18 months listening to you and Roosy defend them. How can you defend this?”
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This prompted legend Nick Riewoldt to slam the incident as a ‘complete lack of awareness’.
“It’s not just Max Gawn. It’s Adam Tomlinson who’s (won) his first game, (Ed) Langdon’s first game for the club,” Riewoldt said on the Fox Footy Couch.
“I know they’ve run in and laughed it off, but that screams of a lack of maturity and a complete lack of awareness of anything outside your immediate thought process.
“There are some probably some players within that group going, ‘jeez I’m glad we got across the line, we just scraped in’ or ‘gee I played well today’, as opposed to thinking more broadly. We’re missing four of our players here.
“It’s a little thing but it’s a big thing.”
But former Demons star Gerard Healy wasn’t as fazed by the ‘one-off’ incident.
“These things happen, don’t they? Isn’t this a one-off?” he asked.
But Brown wasn’t having it, claiming it was something a team would do in the U-13s.
