MELBOURNE coach Simon Goodwin says forward Jake Melksham was contesting the ball and executing a football act when he nudged West Coast star Jeremy McGovern into a contest that ended with two players suffering concussion.
McGovern and Demons forward Harrison Petty were both sidelined after half-time and placed in concussion protocols as a result of the incident in the second quarter, which will likely draw Match Review scrutiny.
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The AFL has cracked down on players pushing opponents into traffic, but Goodwin said Melksham was protecting the drop of the ball and the resulting injuries were an unfortunate part of the game.
"I watched it a few times, and I'm pretty clear that Melksham’s contesting the ball," Goodwin said after an impressive 32-point win at Optus Stadium on Saturday night.
"If you watch the concussion of Petty pretty closely, how he got into that contest will be scrutinised as well, I'm sure.
"We hope Jeremy is OK. You certainly don't want to see concussed players in the game, but it wasn't a push in the back, a push into a contest. He was contesting the ball, and the rules say you’re allowed to contest the ball.
"I'd argue that it wasn't even a free kick, and it was a mark, and he should have been having a shot at goal.
"There might be some debate around it, but these are the types of things in footy that are going to happen at time to time. We don't want them to happen, but they're going to happen."
Goodwin described Saturday night's win as a mature performance, with his team responding in the second half after being challenged by West Coast and falling six points behind at half-time.
Max Gawn produced one of his great performances to drive the victory with a career-best 35 disposals, nine clearances and 12 score involvements, leading the Demons to a third consecutive win.
After a 0-5 start to the year, Goodwin said the recent turnaround had been built on a shift to valuing what they do without the ball and being hard to play against while scoring in multiple ways.
"It's credit to the players and their mindset shift and what they value," the coach said.
"It's a long season, so we're just working our way back into some of the best form possible, and we're not in a position where we can look far ahead at all.
"We've had three positive weeks, but we know the challenges are just around the corner with Hawthorn next week."
While full of praise for Gawn's performance, West Coast coach Andrew McQualter said there was more to him team's clearance losses on Saturday night as the ground-level midfielders struggled to impact.
The Eagles experimented through the midfield and turned to forwards Liam Ryan and Tyler Bockman at different stages, while defender Brady Hough continued as an onballer.
The coach said West Coast was finding a balance between experimenting in games to learn versus keeping their structures and roles settled week to week.
"The more levers you pull, the more things are out of whack for what you plan for all week and potentially the more confusion comes into the game," he said.
"So it's a fine line as a coach and a coaching group to how many levers you try and pull at one time to fix an area.
"But we are learning what works for us and we'll learn more about what it will look like and how we need to look to get the game looking the way we need it and want it to."
Hurting the Eagles this season has been the absence of star midfielder Elliot Yeo, with McQualter confirming on Saturday that the dual club champion would undergo surgery next week after pre-season knee and ankle injuries.
"Yeo is going to have some surgery just to remove some hardware from his ankle. He'll have a couple of weeks off legs and then build," the coach said.
"We're really confident Yeo is going to play a fair chunk of football towards the end of the season.
"He was obviously having challenges to progress his rehab prior to this, so I think at least he's got an answer now of what needs to happen for the next steps."
