Max Gawn reveals Collingwood coach Craig McRae is a repeat sledger from the bench

One of the AFL’s biggest names has detailed another sledging incident involving Collingwood coach Craig McRae that was ‘a bit much’.

Collingwood coach Craig McRae has been revealed as a repeat sledger from the bench, with Melbourne skipper Max Gawn detailing how he went after a Dees tagger last year.

McRae was hit with a warning from AFL House following a gibe directed a GWS tagger Toby Bedford on Sunday.

The league said that McRae directed a comment of “well done” towards Bedford after he gave away a 50m penalty in the first half of Collingwood’s Opening Round loss.

Giants coach Adam Kingsley returned serve by telling McRae he was “better than that”.

The AFL reminded McRae of expected behaviour for coaches in the interchange bench.

Bedford was clamping Pies superstar Nick Daicos effectively during Sunday’s match and Gawn revealed the Collingwood coach had gone after Daicos taggers before.

Adam Kingsley and Craig McRae exchange words post game. Picture: Getty Images

“Craig has form. Craig went hard at Alex Neal-Bullen last year, who was tagging Nick Daicos for us,” Gawn told Triple M.

“When you’re on the other end of it and you see Craig have a go at Alex Neal-Bullen last year, you are like ‘that is a bit much’.”

Gawn said his coach, Simon Goodwin, hadn’t gone after opposition players to his knowledge and he was “on the fence” about whether it was the right thing to do.

“Craig certainly had some choice words last time we tagged Daicos,” he said.

“When your best players get tagged – and sometimes it is a ferocious tag – if I was getting tagged I wouldn’t mind Goody standing up for me.”

Gawn also said that he had copped words from Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley.

Hinkley was fined $20,000 after he mimicked a plane in the direction of Hawthorn forward Jack Ginnivan following last year’s semi-final, an incident that led to Hawks captain James Sicily verbally responding.

“I was the target player a couple of times in the Port games and Ken every now and then would say some choice words to me,” Gawn said.

The Dees skipper backed star teammate Christian Petracca, after he left management company Connor’s Sports to be managed by Anna Scullie.

The Petracca camp has been adamant that move has nothing to do with his future at Melbourne and he had joined Scullie so she could better manage his growing off-field endorsement empire.

Originally published as Max Gawn reveals Collingwood coach Craig McRae is a repeat sledger from the bench