RUCKMAN Max Gawn says his side needs to be careful about pushing the boundaries, which could lead to further suspensions or fines via the match review panel.

Speaking on Triple M, the injured big man acknowledged Melbourne wanted to play on the edge, but had to make sure it didn’t go over the top.

“We always want to play tough – most teams do. But there are times when we do step over the line, like we saw with Jordan [Lewis] – although that’s not tough what Jordan did. But we saw it with Jesse [Hogan] and Bernie [Vince], so we’ve already had some suspensions to key players,” he said.

“We’ve got to tone that down a little bit, but there were some brawls on the weekend [against Richmond], and Jonesy (Nathan Jones) and Vines (Jack Viney) got fined for their melee involvement.

“Again, we were in trouble with the tribunal, so we’ve got to be careful there.”

Gawn, who will miss roughly another 10 weeks with a hamstring injury, said he was slowly making progression.

“It’s good for the injury it is. I’m two weeks since [having had] surgery now,” he said.

“I walked out of hospital and I’m going all right.

“It’s better now, but it was sore for a good week.”

With Jake Spencer also set to miss six or seven weeks with an injured AC joint, Gawn backed Cam Pedersen to come in and play a ruck role.

“The two No.1 rucks have gone down, so there is not many there,” he said.

“There is a 20-year-old (Mitch King) and an 18-year-old (Lochie Filipovic), so there aren’t many there, and they’ll need a bit more time.

“Cameron Pedersen is the one [to come in] I think, so I think Cam Pedersen will come in. He’s done it before and actually his best game of football was when he played for North Melbourne against [Fremantle’s Aaron] Sandilands, so hopefully he can do the same for us.”