“[Essendon coach] Brad Scott came out and said it’s the Essendon way, but … anyway I won’t go into it,” he added.

“You can pretend to be tough, but you’ve still got to win the ball and win the game.

“It’s all a facade, I think, but anyway.”

Scott spoke earlier in the week about wanting his side to play with an “Essendon edge”. He defended Wright on Saturday night.

“I can’t comment on issues that might be before the MRO,” Scott said.

“I’m not going to talk about the incident, but the only thing I can say is Peter Wright is a well-known ball player – always has been, since he was a kid.

“Sydney have dominated the last few weeks, they’ve got a lot of players who are very slick, very good with ball in hand, their ball movement is very solid at the moment.

“If we just sat back and watched them do that, it was going to be a long, difficult night. We needed to combat that with some physicality in the contest.”

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Swans players also remonstrated after Essendon ruckman Sam Draper cannoned into Jake Lloyd and conceded a 50-metre penalty.

Sydney coach John Longmire wasn’t happy about losing Cunningham, who was carried off on a stretcher.

“I look at it from, obviously, our point of view, it’s going be disappointing to lose Harry for a bit now. I’m not sure how long, but I’m disappointed in that,” Longmire said.

“They (Essendon) clearly came out with an intent in the physical space, they talked about that during the week.

“They were very clear about the edge that they wanted to play with, so we knew that they’d be coming with that.”

The MRO findings from Saturday’s matches will be released on Sunday evening.

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