Andy Maher has slammed players for pushing other players into the fence, blasting it as a "coward's act".

Maher believes whether it is intentional or not, it doesn't change the poor intent of the incident.

These comments were triggered after young North midfielder Cameron Zurhaar was reported on Sunday for bumping Hawthorn's David Mirra into the fence and Melbourne defender Sam Frost was fined last week for bumping Hawk Isaac Smith into the interchange bench.

“This is not a comment on young Zurhaar who clearly has got an upside and plays footy the right way,” he said on SEN Afternoons.

“I’m not saying this about Cameron Zurhaar, it’s about the incident.

“I hate that incident. That is as weak an incident as you can see in footy.

“We don’t see king hits, we don’t see coward’s punches anymore, which were the domain of the coward in footy.

“When you are tracking a player across a boundary line and you decide to give them a decent shove towards the fence, it is a coward’s act, it is a weak thing to do.

 

“He has been reported, and hopefully Brad Scott and the senior boys at North have a word to Cameron Zurhaar about this.”

Maher added that he believes Zurhaar deserves to cop at least a week in order to send a message to the rest of the competition.