AFL Round 19: Live coverage of Hawthorn v Sydney from the MCG

SWAN Jarrad McVeigh has slammed Will Langford for planting a kiss on his cheek during Friday night’s spiteful clash but it’s not the worst act in footy according to Leigh Matthews. WATCH THE VIDEO

AFL LEGEND Leigh Matthews says while he doesn’t want to see players kissing opposition players to put them off their game every week it is a tactic players can “laugh off”.

Incredibly there is an act players can employ that Matthews, who is widely recognised as one of the toughest players to ever play the game, finds much worse and doesn’t want to see creep into the game — and it’s not spitting. PUCKER UP: FOOTY’S BEST AND MEMORABLE KISSES “I’m bigger on the ruffling of the hair, like (Cale) Hooker did last week after he kicked a couple of goals, he ruffled the hair of his opponent,” Matthews said on 3AW. “That’s what you do to little kids. “Fair dinkum if someone ruffled my hair, I haven’t got any (hair) now but when I had hair, if it was ruffled I’d feel like turning around and belting him one. “It’s worse than spitting. “I can accept being spat on. OK, they get suspended for that and that’s fine. “But the ruffling of the hair, these are little bits and pieces that you think yeah they happen rarely but they should happen rarely. “But the kissing on the cheek thing is a lesser issue — I think that is (something) you can just laugh it off. “But the ruffling of the hair, you wouldn’t want that to happen to you every second week otherwise you are going to have some melees.” TOO GOOD: HODGE WINS BATTLE OF HEAVYWEIGHT MATES ROUND 23: HODGE TO GET FRIDAY NIGHT FAREWELL AGAINST DOGS MASTER OF REINVENTION: HOW CLARKO ORCHESTRATED WIN Kissing is on the agenda after Hawk Will Langford planted one on Swan Jarrad McVeigh in Hawthorn’s six-point win over Sydney at the MCG last night. Langford was playing a negating role on the Swans playmaker and there was plenty of niggle between the pair for most of the night, before it got even more heated in the second half. In a tight final term McVeigh managed to sneak clear of the Langford tag and kick a vital goal for the Swans and he let Langford know all about it, but the Hawk didn’t take a backwards step and took the unusual path of planting a kiss on his opponent. But McVeigh didn’t see the funny side. “He did it beforehand as well, earlier on, and I probably reacted too much and gave away a free kick,” he said. “I’m not going to stand there and take that. “I thought it was pretty disrespectful. But that’s the way it is.” Langford, who was one of Hawthorn’s best in the six-point win, played down the incident after the match. “I’m always just talking to ‘oppo’ players and try and keep it nice and lighthearted and have a bit of fun out there,” he told Channel 7. Hawthorn captain Jarryd Roughead didn’t see any issue with Langford’s tactics to put McVeigh off his game. “You’ve got players to try and get under the skin of opposition players all the time and if that’s Langers’s way about it then his is a little bit different,” he said. “That’s his (McVeigh’s) opinion (that is was disrespectful). It’s Langers’s way of trying to get under the skin of an opposition player. “It’s a little bit different to what a lot of us would do if we were in that position.” Teammate Jack Gunston also defended Langford’s actions. “He obviously didn’t mean any disrespect by it,” Gunston said on Fox Sports. “There was just a lot of passion in the game. “It was a bit of an odd thing to do I would have thought but I’m sure he meant nothing wrong by it. “Will’s a great fella. We call him ‘The Philosopher’ around the club because he’s a bit of a book worm. “He’s playing some hard-line footy at the moment and we love him playing on the edge and want to keep him doing that.” Emerging Sydney star Callum Mills backed teammate McVeigh in the aftermath of the loss declaring the former captain is entitled to his opinion that the kiss was “disrespectful”. “I haven’t seen the incident but I don’t know id I’d like anyone kissing me,” he told Fox Sports. “That’s what Jarrad thought and he’s completely (allowed) his own opinions on that.” Sydney coach John Longmire isn’t bothered by the incident and hasn’t even seen the vision. “When I was asked about it last night I genuinely didn’t even know about it. I haven’t seen it again today. It would be fair to say I’ve got my mind in other things today,” he told SEN. Port Adelaide champion Kane Cornes clearly wasn’t impressed with Langford, taking to Twitter after the incident was captured by television cameras. “Embarrassing from Langford,” he wrote. The kiss brought back memories of Luke Hodge’s famous one on Lance Franklin during the 2014 Grand Final. The Swans and Hawks faced off in the decider that year after Franklin departed Hawthorn for Sydney at the end of 2013. It wasn’t the only controversial moment of the match, with a goal review in the critical final quarter also raising eyebrows after Liam Shiels was awarded a goal to put Hawthorn back in front. Coach John Longmire backed the goal review system but has called on the league to splash some cash to sharpen the tool after a controversial moment in the final term. A score review with 10 minutes remaining saw Hawk Liam Shiels awarded a goal, though Longmire said he believed the ball had been punched through by his charge Lewis Melican. RE-CAP ALL THE ACTION IN THE BLOG BELOW And he says a better system is desperately needed. “I really like the concept of the goal review, but unless we get better cameras, it sort of almost defeats the purpose of it,” Longmire said. “I really like the idea that we try and get the right score — and the right score is what it’s all about. But surely there’s better vision that we can achieve and there’s better cameras and better views in world sport, somewhere, that can actually determine and slow the ball down so it’s not as blurry and you can actually work out what it is.” The Sydney coach rejected the suggestion that the review system is a waste of time, but said it must be improved. “I think it’s a good concept, a sound concept,” he affirmed. “But we need to spend some money on … I’m not up there with the technical camerawork, but hopefully we can actually invest and get some quality cameras that can actually determine what’s actually happened rather than just seeing the blurred vision that we see now.”

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