Kane Cornes says AFL player power has gone too far in wake of Melbourne’s scrapped camp

PORT Adelaide great Kane Cornes says AFL players have too much time off and player power has gone too far while questioning Melbourne players’ mentality after scrapping a pre-season training camp.

Nathan Jones leads the pack at Melbourne.

PORT ADELAIDE great Kane Cornes believes AFL players now have too much time off and player power has gone too far.

In the wake of Melbourne players scrapping a proposed pre-season training camp, Cornes questioned the Demons squad’s mentality as they look to make finals for the first time in 11 years.

Melbourne ruckman Max Gawn revealed on SEN the Demons’ leadership group had player welfare concerns after Christian Salem and Dom Tyson were injured in a similar camp last year.

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Cornes said he understood Gawn’s reasoning but with the amount of holidays AFL players received, to knock a training camp on the head could prove a “defining moment”.

“The spotlight will be on them pretty heavily and if things don’t go well, in the media, we are going to refer back to his defining moment in the pre-season,” he told SEN.

“These players now ... are getting far too much time off.

Max Gawn at Melbourne training.

Kane Cornes at the 5AA studios in Adelaide. Pictures Sarah Reed

“Coaches at the level are really frustrated by how little access they have to their players.

“Just to explain further, they get 8-10 weeks off depending on how long they’ve been in the system for, they get a further 2-3 weeks off at Christmas, there’s three mandatory four-day breaks throughout the season, they have a dedicated day off and afternoon off during the week.

“You add it up and its 14-15 weeks off and I know fans get frustrated by missing easy shots and skill level errors.

“You look at the Australian Open tennis on right now, do you reckon Rafael Nadal is not hitting a tennis ball for 14 weeks of the year. It’s crazy.”

Cornes said player power had now gone too far after the AFL Players’ Association got involved in the Demons’ camp decision.

After Melbourne’s heart-breaking finals failure in 2017, the Power premiership midfielder thought the playing group would be doing everything in its power to make 2018 count.

Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin directs traffic at training.

“Then you get players refusing to go on a camp, I think it’s a stretch. Soft is not the right word because AFL players are not soft but player power has gone too far,” he said.

“I just reckon the Melbourne players have erred on this occasion.

“One of Max’s reasons was player injury, can you imagine Simon Goodwin sitting around with his assistant coaches and high performance staff and thinking we’re going to take these players on a camp to get them hurt, it just wouldn’t happen.

“Some of their players are as tough as any ... (but) mentally, perhaps they’re just not willing to go that extra 1 or 2 per cent that they’re going to need to, to play finals this year.

Originally published as Kane Cornes says AFL player power has gone too far in wake of Melbourne’s scrapped camp