Three-time premiership winner Steve ‘Stevie J’ Johnson has issued a brutal critique of footy great Kane Cornes, accusing the former Port Adelaide star of a double standard.
The Channel 7 star has made headlines this week for his controversial take on young North Melbourne star Harry Sheezel’s style of play while also taking aim at Jy Simpkin for his role as the side’s captain.
Cornes accused Sheezel of stat-padding, following his side’s defeat against Port Adelaide, noting that the 20-year-old No 3 draft pick had struggled to pump the ball inside 50 but had amassed a large amount of disposals.
The 42-year-old was subsequently banned from entering North’s rooms during their defeat by Essendon on Thursday night, with the club branding his comments ‘bullying’ and ‘a personal and vindictive attack’ on Sheezel.
Now, Stevie J has taken aim at the former Port star, 42, with the ex-Geelong star claiming Cornes had allegedly tried to bump up his stats during his playing days.
‘Kane-o, it gets easier to play the game once you get up into the media box,’ Johnson said, addressing Cornes directly.
Steve Johnson (pictured) has claimed Kane Cornes was hypocritical to call out Harry Sheezel for stat-padding
Kane Cornes (left) has made headlines this week after he was banned by North Melbourne for his comments regarding Harry Sheezel and Jy Simpkin (right)
Controversial AFL commentator Cornes, though, believes his criticism of Sheezel was fair, despite being accused of ‘bullying’ by the Kangaroos
‘And when you’re looking out from the second tier of the stands, you can’t throw stones when your backyard is not necessarily clean.
‘I reckon Kane-o was the absolute best stat-padder late into games, just to thicken up his numbers late into the games.
‘I used to think it a little bit, he used to play on his man and judged himself based on what his opponent and he’s a tagger – a very good tagger at that and would keep his opponent to around 20 possessions if he’s playing on a Gary Ablett Jnr. But then he’d always like to have more numbers than his opponent.
‘Late in the game, you’d see Kane going back into the back pocket to pick up those little uncontested marks – do a bit of the Joey work, take the kick-ins.’
Noting his performance in the 2007 Grand Final he added that Cornes picked up 37 disposals during the match as a midfielder.
Interestingly though, Johnson, who was awarded the Norm Smith Medal during that year’s final, then asked his co-presenters how many inside 50s Cornes amassed stating: ‘The solitary, just the one.’
In fact, it appears that wasn’t totally accurate, with Cornes producing two inside 50s during the match.
Despite receiving criticism from some around the AFL over the matter, an apology from Cornes doesn’t look like it’s going to be coming any time soon, with the footy great openly mocking North Melbourne during Thursday’s match.
Channel 7 and Cornes came up with this gag to make fun of the North Melbourne media ban on the former Port Adelaide star
Cornes said that he had no regrets in relation to his comments about North Melbourne adding that North’s response to his scrutiny was ‘disappointing’
He donned a goofy fake nose, glasses and moustache disguise as he attempted to make his way into North Melbourne’s rooms, describing himself as ‘Ken Cones’.
Despite being blasted by the Roos’ general manager of football Todd Viney over the matter, Kornes has stood his ground and believes his criticism of Simpkin, Alastair Clarkson, Sonja Hood and Sheezel was all fair.
‘Not really,’ he said when asked if he had any regrets over his comments.
‘I think that was all reasonably strong criticism, but I think it was fair,’ he said.
‘This is a club that’s won nine games in the last four seasons, so they would understand that with this game and with underperformance, comes some strong scrutiny.
‘That’s what they’ve received and it’s a little bit disappointing that they’ve taken this route because I think as a club, they need to stand up and answer some hard questions.
‘It’s very easy to run away so I’m disappointed and I think they’ve been poorly advised in this.’
