Fremantle coach Ross Lyon has drawn an extremely long bow in claiming Gold Coast lacked respect for the Dockers, according to Suns counterpart Guy McKenna.

McKenna on Friday dismissed Lyon’s criticism of the fledgling club following Twitter posts by captain Gary Ablett and Trent McKenzie aimed at antagonistic Dockers Ryan Crowley and Hayden Ballantyne this season.

Lyon added extra heat to Saturday’s twilight match between the clubs at Metricon Stadium by this week saying the tweets showed the Suns didn’t respect his club.

McKenna disagreed, saying last year’s wooden-spooners had complete respect for all their opponents.

“We’ve won three games (all last year), (and only) three quarters this year,” he said. “As far as respect goes, we totally respect the competition, and we’re thankful to the other clubs for letting us in the competition to be the 17th club.

“And we totally respect Fremantle, they beat us by 10 goals last year so I think it’s a long bow to draw that’s for sure.”

Ablett called tagger Crowley “a joke” during the Dockers loss to Carlton last Friday night for his hard-core stifling efforts on Chris Judd while McKenzie applauded Geelong defender Matthew Scarlett for punching serial pest Ballantyne in round one.

McKenna said the Suns had addressed the issue in-house and constantly told players not to give ammunition to their rivals.

But he played down the episode and felt Lyon – who quoted his mother by saying ‘civility costs nothing’ – should also apply some different motherly advice of “sticks and stones”.

“Heaven forbid if they had tweeting in my day or when Ross was out there playing himself,” McKenna said.

“It’s just the modern age and we have to learn to deal with it.”