COACH Paul Roos says he was disappointed with key forward Chris Dawes’ actions in the final term of Melbourne’s 30-point loss to North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night.
Dawes collected North Melbourne skipper Andrew Swallow high, giving away a free kick. Although Roos said he didn’t see the incident at the time, he took Dawes off for giving away the free kick.
“I took him off to say ‘listen, you start giving away free kicks … you can’t let your frustration [get the better of you]’. We want to be known as a disciplined footy team – not a scrappy footy team,” he said.
“I thought for five minutes in that last quarter we lost it a bit from a discipline point of view – [we gave away] silly free kicks and a 50-metre penality.
“I didn’t see the specific incident [involving Dawes], but I noticed he gave away a couple of down field free kicks and I spoke to him and he knows that’s unacceptable.”
Roos said he would be “absolutely” ropable if Dawes was suspended for the incident.
“You know there’s so many cameras out there and I don’t know exactly what he did or if he will [get suspended], but in a general sense, every coach, when they lose a player through suspension would get frustrated now,” he said.