Kane Cornes offers theory on Footy Show not mentioning Tony Jones' Wimbledon absence
Jones won't be a part of Channel 9's coverage at the All England Club in a controversial move that has raised eyebrows.
The network said the decision has been put down to 'optimising resources' with daily coverage support from the London bureau.
Regular expert commentators Todd Woodbridge, Jelena Dokic and Alicia Molik will be a part of the coverage, but the network have chosen to send Sam McClure from Melbourne instead of Jones.
Jones was involved in a controversial incident at this year's Australian Open that made worldwide headlines.
The veteran newsreader jokingly mocked Serbian fans by singing, 'Novak is overrated ... Novak's a has-been ... Novak kick him out,' in response to their chants.
Novak Djokovic ended up boycotting post-match interviews with the host broadcaster before eventually accepting apologies from Jones and Nine.
That incident would normally be an ideal discussion point for the Sunday Footy Show's hugely popular segment, What Caught My Eye, which features panellists Jones, Nathan Brown, Matthew Lloyd, Rory Sloane and Damian Barrett take the mickey out of each other.
But that and Jones' upcoming absence from Wimbledon wasn't mentioned on Sunday's show.
Cornes, who used to be on the panel up until last year, said the decision must have come from management.
'What about my man, TJ. He's not going to Wimbledon,' Cornes said on SEN on Monday morning.
'TJ has been going for years and he loves it, and does a very good job, no one does it better actually. Works 12-hour days, he does the news, he does everything from over there.
'It's because of the incident at the Australian Open, I believe ... that's not what they are saying (though). Scoop McClure is going, he got the gig.
'I feel for him because I know how much he loves going and I know what a great job he does and there would be a healthy rivalry I would assume between Scoop (McClure) and TJ so that would have stung a bit.
'But that's not really what I'm interested in talking about. It's the fact it wasn't mentioned I don't believe on the Sunday Footy Show yesterday.
'Absolutely (they are prime time Footy Show areas). It couldn't be the crew because I know them. I know that Damo and Browny and Llordo would have fought really hard to come up with something hilarious about this, just to needle and prod about this and get into him for the whole two hours of the show.
'So it must have been a management decision above, like it was last time when they weren't allowed to discuss the Novak incident. They took a few short steps.
'I'm just concerned that they're starting to take the odd short step over there.'
Cornes then speculated the different ways he would have gone about it had he still been on the show.
'You have to go there,'' Cornes continued.
'There's many ways you could do it. You could start a GoFundMe for TJ to go to Wimbledon. You could go through the history of how it's got to this and all the little maybe gaffes that have led to this point.
'You could have shown the (Bec Judd) kiss again and linked that, there's so many things you could have done … I just worry.
'I would like to get to the bottom of why there's been a few short steps taken because that was the show.'
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