Channel 7 commentator Kane Cornes has taken aim at Fremantle star Caleb Serong for a “bizarre” decision to travel with the team to Brisbane over the weekend.
Serong is nursing a calf injury and din’t play in the club’s 11th-straight win, but was an interested onlooker in the stands at the Gabba.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Caleb Serong’s 7,000km trip sparks debate
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The Dockers are flying at the top of the ladder with their only loss coming way back in Round 1 against Geelong.
Serong has been enjoying another brilliant season until a calf injury sidelined him on the eve of the Round 11 clash against St Kilda.
The star midfielder is hoping to return for this week’s clash against North Melbourne.
But Cornes couldn’t understand why he would go with his teammates on a nine-hour round trip.
“What’s he doing? I like the fact that he’s invested in the group. Great leader. Can’t fault him. But let’s be smart about this,” Cornes said on The Agenda Setters.
“You’ve got a premiership to win. Why are you on a plane for nine hours return, 7,000km over, and going to watch in the stands, Frio beat up on Brisbane? What was the use of that?
“Now, they complain about travel all the time, ‘we travel so much, this is unfair’. They’ve tried to argue to sell some home games so they can have more games at home. And he’s travelling with a calf injury.
“Is that your best preparation?”
Fellow commentator Nick Riewoldt suggested there must have been a reason for it.
“Unless there was a specialist or someone that he saw in Brisbane or that all the fitness staff were leaving,” he said.
“People go to Germany for that sort of stuff all the time.”
But Cornes wasn’t having it, summing up the situation with one word: “Bizarre.”
The Dockers couldn’t be better placed to breakthrough for their maiden premiership at the halfway point of the season.
They are sitting a game clear on top of the ladder with a 11-1 record and could get even better, according to coach Justin Longmuir.
“They haven’t been playing as well as they could, so we knew there was a few chinks in the armour,” Longmuir said after Saturday’s victory.
“The players were able to execute, not for 120 minutes, because it got a bit dicey there in the last quarter when they got on top and threw caution to the wind, but like we do every week, we prepare for the opposition strengths and lay out some opportunities for our boys, and I thought we executed both pretty well.
“I’m really proud of the group, and really proud of where we sit, obviously in the season, and then the type of footy we’re playing.
“I would feel like we’ve got more in us.”
As well as Serong, the Dockers will be hoping to welcome back star midfielder Hayden Young, who has missed the past two matches with concussion.
