‘Keep your tongue in your mouth’: Demons star who started fight with teammate ‘deserved a clip’

More details are emerging of the fight between Melbourne teammates and the brutal personal insults that triggered the “brawl”.

Steven May has been suspended for one game.

More details have emerged of the fight that broke out between Melbourne teammates Steven May and Jake Melksham and the personal insults that reportedly sparked the brawl.

May and Melksham got into an altercation at Melbourne restaurant Entrecote on Sunday night and while the incident was initially reported as a “scuffle”, AFL 360 co-host Mark Robinson said it was a “fight” witnessed by at least five other teammates.

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The Herald Sun reported May told Melksham: “If you had have played in the granny (grand final) we would have lost.”

Melksham was an emergency in last year’s Grand Final, which Melbourne won by 74 points over the Western Bulldogs.

May, who flouted the AFL’s concussion protocols by drinking, has been handed a club-imposed one-game suspension. He and Melksham will also have to complete community service.

Melksham has since had surgery on his hand, which is believed to have become infected from punching May in the mouth.

“It’s a brawl, it’s a fight where players and teammates have got in,” Robinson told AFL 360 on Wednesday.

“I think Melbourne supporters have every right to think they’ve underplayed this.

“So (Melksham’s) punched someone in the mouth and (May’s) tooth has opened up his hand. “It’s not ideal.

Melbourne Demons star Steven May. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Jake Melksham has since had surgery on his hand. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

“Community service shouldn’t be a penalty – that should be part of what you do as an AFL player.

“Maybe the AFL didn’t step in strong enough on this.”

The Herald Sun also reports May was “having a crack at almost every one of his teammates” and “one of the things that upset Melksham clearly, as the insults went around the table, was a bake which Joel Smith copped”.

Smith, a defender on the fringe of Melbourne’s team, was cruelly ruled out of the Demons’ preliminary final win last year when he tweaked his hamstring at training.

Meanwhile May was praised for playing through injury in the Grand Final win despite suffering a serious hamstring tear in the preliminary final.

Hawthorn legend and former Melbourne player Jordan Lewis said the fight suggests there is a clear divide at the Demons between those who won premiership medals and those who didn’t.

“As soon as you win a premiership, there is an automatic divide in the football club – whether you like it or not,” he said on AFL 360.

“Being involved in a club and being one of those players that was lucky enough to have success, it would have been a line that I would never have said to another teammate.

“That’s going to be pretty tough for Mayzie to get over.

“If it’s stuff where a player was out drinking and he’s mucked up, you forgive that player and forget. But those personal attacks that would have happened at the dinner are hard to get over.”

Steven May has a history with getting into fights with teammates. (Photo by James Elsby/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

“You’re going to hate this but he deserved a clip,” Robinson said of May.

“Violence is not the answer but my god, Steven May by all reports is a really, really good bloke. But when he gets on the juice, he opens his mouth.

“Maybe stop getting on the juice and opening your mouth and getting yourself in trouble.

“Steven May, you owe the club. You go out and give everything you’ve got. Knuckle back down.

“Get your priorities right and keep your tongue in your mouth.”

It’s not the first time May has been hit by a teammate in an alcohol-fuelled incident.

The 30-year-old broke his jaw when then-Gold Coast Suns teammate Campbell Brown punched May during a trip to Los Angeles in 2013.

Brown was sacked by the Suns shortly after the incident, which effectively ended his AFL career.

“It takes some doing to be hit by two teammates at two different clubs in your AFL career,” veteran footy journalist Damian Barrett said of May on the AFL Daily podcast.

“That takes some doing to anger and rile teammates to the point where the best action for those teammates is to put a punch on a head.

“I don’t know how Steven May can walk back into that club and just think it’s all going to be OK.”

The Demons will have to contend without the All-Australian defender when they take on Collingwood in the Queen’s Birthday clash at the MCG on Monday.