- Melbourne player under fire for post-match dressing room act
Dressing room footage has emerged of Melbourne Demons veteran Steven May appearing to ignore skipper Max Gawn’s emotinal post-match speech following the team’s loss to Collingwood last Friday.
The six-point defeat by the Magpies, who kicked the last four goals on Friday night to steamroll their opponents, summed up the Demons’ dismal 2025 campaign.
Video from the sheds after the match shows Gawn giving a speech to the side, with May talking to a teammate and ignoring the captain as he tried to motivate the team to do better in 2026.
‘Is that unusual for a captain who is addressing the team for the last time after a game to have one of your leaders just sitting there chatting away with (Blake Howes) as he is?’ journalist Caroline Wilson said on Channel Seven’s The Agenda Setters.
‘To me, that was a really poor look. I thought that was poor, speaking over Max Gawn.’
May, who has been linked to an exit from the club, was involved in an on-field clash with Gawn earlier in the year that made headlines.
Footage has emerged of Demons veteran Steven May appearing to ignore skipper Max Gawn’s (pictured with wife Jessica) post-match speech to the team
May (pictured with partner Sachi Dade) appeared to be talking to a teammate and ignoring the captain during his speech
The Demons defender and skipper were seen arguing moments after the siren sounded in their loss to Collingwood at the MCG.
Wilson also brought up May’s altercation with teammate Jack Melksham in 2022.
‘This is after we know that players in June went to the coach and made the point that in a year where it was meant to be all about love and all about looking after each other, they felt that Steven May was not being held to account for some of his behavioural stuff with teammates that they were being held to,’ Wilson said.
‘We know that. It’s been reported. We know that there was frustration there. We know that May got suspended a few weeks ago. Very frustrating for a lot of his teammates.
‘I don’t want to go back into the past, but it was in 2022, after that incredible run of 10 wins following the flag, that it all fell apart.
‘And it didn’t all fall apart because of a punch-up outside Entrecote Restaurant in Prahran. But the timing was appalling, and the comments that were made that led to the punch-up were pretty unimpressive.’
Speaking after last week’s match, Gawn said Melbourne threw away more than a dozen winnable games throughout their AFL season from hell, which saw coach Simon Goodwin get sacked.
‘The overarching theme that I can’t get out of my head is we lose winnable games,’ an emotional Gawn said after Melbourne’s 11.16 (82) to 11.10 (76) defeat.
Gawn (right) and May (left) clashed earlier in the year following a narrow loss
Gawn counted just three matches – against North Melbourne, Gold Coast and Hawthorn – in which the Demons weren’t in the hunt this season.
And with seven wins on the board, the skipper felt another 13 went begging.
‘Which is pretty flattening. We’ve got to learn how to win again,’ Gawn said.
‘Obviously we’ll get some new people in, but this group has to learn how to win.’
