Kangaroos coach Dean Laidley said after the match that there had been improper “conversations and body language and sounds from umpires” when dealing with his players.
His comments arose from a discussion with a senior player, reportedly Rawlings.
Laidley later withdrew his comments in a statement from the club, saying that they were “completely unfounded and unwarranted,” and apologised to field umpires Todd Keating, Martin Ellis and Matthew Head.
This followed Kangaroos football operations general manager Donald McDonald’s review of the match and umpires audio with umpires’ boss Jeff Gieschen.
While North Melbourne said in its statement that no further public comment would be made on the matter, at training on Tuesday morning Rawlings said he was certain of what he had seen and heard against the Hawks.
“I know what happened in my mind and I’m just going to leave it at that and no-one else will probably know about it,” he said.
“The coach has spoken and I want to make no comment about it and it’s as simple as that.”
When asked whether the weekend’s alleged incidents had purely been a case of misunderstanding, Rawlings replied: “No it wasn’t.”
