“It was trying to say that it was disappointing that we got as far as we did and we had the team that we have and the coaching staff that we had and for usto go out in straight sets again was disappointing,” May recalled of his speech,last October,when he said Melbourne “should have smoked” Collingwood and were “so much better” than the premiers.
“I wasn’t,I didn’t mean to say that Collingwood didn’t deserve to win because they did. They won a lot of big games.
“It was more I was trying to talk to our supporters and my teammates and say,‘Hey our team is good enough to do it,if we play the right way and win critical contests when we need to,we have what it takes to go all the way’.
“But we didn’t. We lost and Collingwood did[win the flag]. And I think it got taken out of context,you know I wasn’t having a press conference ... and I wish I didn’t say some of the things.
“But I was strong and I don’t back down on that I do believe in the group that we have and that’s what I was trying to get across and,you know[laughed],I probably could have chosen my words a little better and in no way did I mean to offend Collingwood.
“Because what they did last year and they were so inspirational,the way they won games when they probably shouldn’t have – we’re trying to do that. We’re trying to win games we should win,and we’re trying to win games[they shouldn’t win].”