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Sport Nation
Cornes calls out MRO over “disgraceful actions”
Andrew Slevison • May 19th, 2025 9:59 am
It’s time for the AFL to penalise players who stage, dive or flop.
Kane Cornes has called on MRO Michael Christian to stamp out these sorts of actions which have become prevalent across the last few weeks.
Cornes had pinpointed a number of staging incidents in last weekend’s Showdown between Adelaide and Port Adelaide, and this week has called out the Western Bulldogs’ Laitham Vandermeer for something similar.
Early in his side’s eventual 91-point win over Essendon at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night, Vandermeer appeared to go down easily when Mason Redman swung his arm back into his stomach after the Dog had initiated the contact.
While it’s hard to know how much impact Redman’s arm actually made, Vandermeer did seem to make the most of it, so much so that he was awarded a free kick which gave the Dogs a double goal.
And Cornes was not happy with the “disgraceful” behaviour of stagers, divers and floppers.
“Laitham Vandermeer is quickly becoming the most unlikeable player in the game,” Cornes said on SEN Fireball.
“The fact that Michael Christian did not sanction him for the flat-out dive that he kicked a goal from on Saturday night is a disgrace.
“‘Chrisso’, I showed you seven examples of players blatantly diving last week. I’m not sure if you’re watching games or what you are doing.
“But if you’re happy for this to continue and you don’t want to sanction these players for doing it, then we’ve got a real issue on our hands.
“It’s an even bigger issue if it’s a tight game and a player sucks an umpire in to give a free kick, he kicks a goal and they lose the game as a result. It didn’t matter (on this occasion) because of the thrashing.
“Vandermeer needs to pull his socks up. He initiated the contact then took a flat-out flop, and Michael Christian needs to pull his socks up for continuing to ignore these disgraceful actions from players.”
