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FWC on Sport Nation guideKing and Cornes heatedly debate “ridiculous” Maynard decision
SEN • July 6th, 2026 10:58 am
David King and Kane Cornes have debated the outcome for Collingwood’s Brayden Maynard who made contact with an umpire in a heated clash with Gold Coast on Saturday.
It happened after Maynard was the recipient of a cheap shot from Ben Long with the Magpies hard man remonstrating in the aftermath.
King called for a four-week ban for Maynard but instead he will receive a $5,000 fine, as will Suns midfielder Touk Miller, for making contact with umpire Nick Brown during the half-time melee at People First Stadium.
King vehemently believes that Maynard should have been banned from playing rather than fined, referencing the Greg Williams incident back in 1997 which saw the Carlton champion suspended for nine matches.
“My opinion for forever and a day is that the umpires have to be 100% protected. And this goes way back, way back to when Greg Williams wasn't even looking at the umpire, looking past the umpire and put a hand out to protect his own space - he got two months,” King said on SEN’s Fireball.
“Brent Harvey turned an umpire around and said, ‘Have a look at it’, he got two weeks. You touch an umpire, it's a no-go zone.
“You've got to protect the umpires, you've got to support them. This is something that's not just for AFL level. He (Maynard) came running in from 30 metres away. Now, I know the umpire got in his way at the end, but I just think it's ridiculous.
“I think that to fine players is useless. The fines don't work. Fines have never worked. We've got players that are up over 50 grand worth of fines.
“If you start taking games off players, behaviours change straight away. There's not one person making a change for a fine. So that is just ridiculous.
“This will happen again, this umpire stuff, before the year's out, at a lower level, and you'll all just say, ‘Oh no, we can't accept that, this is no good, this is unfortunate’. It's not unfortunate. You've got to set the tone for every league in the nation.
“This catch-all misconduct rubbish, it just got too hard for the AFL. It just got too hard. How do we manufacture an outcome here that's not so soft? ‘It's 1500 bucks, but we can appease you. Let's just go with misconduct. Make it five grand and it'll go away’.
“Support the umpires.”
It prompted Kane Cornes to ask: “Do you have that thought for Touk Miller as well? Is it both? Or is it just Maynard?”
Which sparked a heated debate.
King: “Well, probably both.”
Cornes: “So four weeks for both is how you would have…”
King: “Hang on. The instigator of it is Maynard. If Maynard's not charging in, Touk’s not charging in. So I can understand.
“And then I think you've got to accept that there is some provocation there. You've got to accept the fact that he had his ribs speared into a minute before. And all these things are taken into consideration.
“You can lessen the punishment or you can suspend the punishment. I'm a big believer in suspending weeks. ‘This is a four-weeker, we're giving you two and we're hanging two over. If there's anything like this, that gets elevated next time’.
“I’m big on those sorts of things. But I think that when you charge 30 metres in a rage, you just can't say, ‘Oh, it's an inconvenient misconduct charge. No way.”
Cornes: “ I just believe in common sense. That's just a common sense finding.
“His eyes weren't set on the umpire. The umpire just got himself in…”
King: “He put his hands on an umpire.”
Cornes: “Only because he was off balance, you could argue he was pushed in, there was people going everywhere.
“You can't have four weeks for that. They've handled this perfectly.
“The guy has been king hit in his ribs off the ball. There's emotions everywhere. There's spot fires going on left, right and centre. The umpire got himself in a shocking position. He's been pushed into him by Touk Miller and his sights are set on Long. Not the umpire and he's inadvertently (made contact)…”
King: “But you can't just take all before you because your sights are set on Long.”
Cornes: “But it wasn't all before you. He just placed his hand on an umpire.”
King: “‘I don't care who's in front of me, I’m going straight for that guy’. You can't do that.”
Cornes: “They're not like this sort of figure above.”
King: “Have you seen the Greg Williams incident?”
Cones: “Yeah, that's years and years and years ago.”
Kind: “That's my point. What would you give that?”
Cornes: “Not much. Well, he's pushed an umpire, so it's slightly different. One on one, he's pushed an umpire.
“Maynard, this is just inconsequential contact.”
King: “He did no more than Maynard?”
Cornes: “I haven't seen it for years and years. I was a kid when I saw it last.”
King: “This has always been the case in AFL footy. You just do not touch an umpire. And I know the umpire shouldn't be there. I get all that, right.
“But if you're running at that speed, out of control, you're saying losing balance, all this sort of rubbish - you just can't touch them.
“It's always been a severe penalty.”
Cornes: “Four weeks for that? I don't know if that's right just because it's always been severe.
“Toby Greene shouldn't have got what he got when when that happened, that was out of control, that was ridiculous.”
King: “But once he did you set a bar.”
Cornes: “It happens once every two years. Just because Maynard hasn't been suspended for four weeks doesn't mean this is gonna happen anymore.
“Or it doesn't mean that umpires are now at risk.”
King: “So does what Long did to Maynard, It happens once every two years, but we've got to stamp it out.”
Cornes: “Yeah, I just think common sense. I think there's just inadvertent contact. It's not severe at all.
“He hasn't gone in and pushed an umpire the umpire. He's just almost placed a hand on him. He's got in the wrong position and four weeks is is a complete overreaction for me.’
King: “It's always been a severe penalty when you touch an umpire.”
Cornes: “It doesn't make that right though.”
King: “It is right. It is right.”
Cornes: “They've they've absolutely adjudicated this perfectly with common sense.”
King: “Never touch an umpire.”
Cornes: “But it happens in play all the time. Umpires get cleaned up every week. We don't suspend players. They just get fined.”
King: “We've just been through a whole process of the protected area behind them backing out.”
Cornes: “They don't get suspended.”
King: “They've found a convenient way of watering this down so that these clubs don't cop a $50,000 fine because they're over the limit already for these umpire contacts you're talking about. They're in-game. I'm not worried about the in-game way. After the siren, a whole different kettle of fish.”
Listen to the full debate below:
