Melbourne captain Max Gawn has admonished Collingwood coach Craig McRae following his latest attempt to stand up for superstar midfielder Nick Daicos.

McRae received a formal warning from the AFL after an investigation into his verbal spat with GWS counterpart — and former Richmond colleague — Adam Kingsley on Sunday.

The Pies premiership coach had targeted Giants tagger Toby Bedford with some choice words before Kingsley fired back at McRae.

While McRae escaped sanction he may find himself needing to hold back as teams continue to target Daicos.

“Craig has form,” Gawn said on Triple M’s Mick in the Morning.

“Craig went hard at Alex Neal-Bullen, who was tagging Daicos last year for us.”

Gawn said he has been “involved in a few” incidents with rival coaches — notably Port Adelaide’s Ken Hinkley on multiple occasions — but had not witnessed his own coach Simon Goodwin target players.

“When I see Chris Scott do it with Geelong, I’m like, jeez it’d be cool to have a coach that backs his players in that much,” Gawn said.

“I’m not saying Goody doesn’t but when you’re on the other end of it and you see Craig have a go at Alex Neal-Bullen last year, you’re like, that’s a bit much.

“I’m not sure, I sort of sit on the fence a bit.

“I would agree that they should be cleared, and most coaches do do it, but Craig certainly had some choice words last time we tagged Daicos.

“When your best player is getting tagged, and sometimes it can be quite a ferocious tag, I’m sure as a coach it can be quite (frustrating).

“If I was getting tagged I wouldn’t mind Goody standing up for me. I don’t know where I sit but (McRae) certainly did it to Nibbler (Neal-Bullen) last year.”

Daicos entered the Giant clash preparing to be tagged and McRae tackled the topic with his players before the game, with his pre-match interview proving prophetic.

“We spoke about it as a group — you come for Nick, you come for all of us,” he told Channel 7.

Kingsley and McRae both played down the boundary-line incident.

But in the wake of Alastair Clarkson and Ken Hinkley being fined for their behaviour toward the opposition last year, Channel 7’s Kane Cornes said players should be “off limits” for coaches.

“You cannot have an opposition coach going at an opposition player,” he said.

“There’s a precedent for this, the AFL hate it, and if this Alastair Clarkson, or if this is Ken Hinkley, who got a $20,000 fine for that final, we know...

“Now this isn’t as demonstrative as what Hinkley was towards (Jack) Ginnivan and those Hawthorn players towards last year, but this is in play, this is during a game.

“And the risk that this really boils over on the interchange bench — this is closer than what Hinkley was to Ginnivan, it’s from a shorter distance, there are players involved — we can’t have Craig McRae going at an opposition player and a senior coach from the other side responding.

“It’s one for the AFL to really go hard on.”