AFL star Scott Pendlebury sledges Kane Cornes over milestone storm

The AFL legend addressed Channel 7 pundit Kane Cornes directly amid the Pies’ controversial decision to rest him.

Pendlebury, 38, is poised to make his 433rd appearance against West Coast at the MCG on Saturday, surpassing the previous AFL/VFL record of 432 set by North Melbourne icon Brent Harvey.

In order to ensure the milestone culminated in front of an adoring home crowd, the Pies opted to rest Pendlebury for their draw with Hawthorn and defeat to Sydney.

Scott Pendlebury is set to break the AFL/VFL appearance record this weekend (Photo by Craig Dooley/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

The decision to orchestrate when Pendlebury broke the record came after he racked up 43 disposals, two goals and claimed an Anzac Day medal against Essendon.

He also impressed with 27 disposals and a goal in the loss to Geelong.

Given his superb form, Cornes questioned the decision to rest him against Hawthorn in favour of preserving the record, saying: “Pendlebury would’ve been handy.”

On The Agenda Setters on Monday, Cornes urged West Coast to take the move personally, adding: “If they (West Coast) have not circled this as motivation and said, ‘Collingwood have hand-picked you as the team that they know they are going to beat so we can have a great day for Scott Pendlebury’ — it’s the greatest motivating factor that I’ve seen for any team in recent times. Put it up on the whiteboard.

Kane Cornes has been critical of Collingwood choosing to rest Pendlebury (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)

“If I see any West Coast player go and shake hands with Scott Pendlebury before the game, if I see the coach during the week pump up Scott Pendlebury, ‘How good is he? What a champion’.

“No, no, no — they have hand-picked you to beat you to make sure it is Scott Pendlebury’s greatest day of all time.

“Do whatever you want afterwards, but go and win the game of footy, you are good enough to win this game of football, and the disrespect shown to the Eagles, I haven’t seen anything like it.

“They’ve (Collingwood) actually said, ‘You’re our team, we know we can beat you, we know it’s going to be a great day because we’re playing West Coast at the MCG’. If you’re not motivated by that as a player, you are in the wrong game.”

Collingwood coach Craig McRae responded by insisting “we want to make sure we celebrate him (Pendlebury) in the right manner”.

And now Pendlebury has weighed in himself with a short and sharp jab back at Channel 7 colleague Cornes.

He said: “I think that’s just Kane’s nature, isn’t it? Trying to draw himself into headlines. I don’t need to comment on that.

“I’m looking forward to the week and it should be really exciting.”

Collingwood are in a fight to make the AFL finals having won just four of their opening 10 games.

They sit 11th in the table, just six points above West Coast ahead of the clash between the two sides this weekend.

Source: https://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/afl-star-scott-pendlebury-sledges-kane-cornes-over-milestone-storm/news-story/ce9e385a69a19ddc9edd8d47d8bd7f18