Several players, including North's Ben Cunnington, could be scrutinised after the spiteful encounter. North won the match at the MCG by 14 points - their 16th consecutive win over the Demons.

Scott said the MRP had made their view clear on jumper punches and minor blows in scuffles, so he believed all players would be OK.

Instead, Scott said it was up to the umpires to stamp out any such incidents during the game.

"I think the MRP have made their stance pretty clear on little things like that so unless they come out publicly and make a public statement that they are not going to tolerate that any more, then they have to tolerate it," Scott said.

"We addressed it at half-time that we wanted to be hard and tough in the contest but that was where we wanted our hardness and toughness.

"It's not a street fight, it's a game of footy. In football you prove your hardness in the contest and we gave away at least one free kick off the ball and we wanted to stamp that out.

"Clearly Shaun Higgins came in for some significant attention early in the game so players have got to be very careful about standing up for their teammates and letting the team down by giving away free kicks.

"There is a fine line there but we certainly are not going to leave one of our own players high and dry but at the same time we have got to focus on where you show your true aggression and hardness.

"A lot of that stuff isn't for the MRP because they use level of force as a guide and I think the level of force is not high enough to warrant an MRP issue. But I think the umpires can make a strong stand early in the game."

Scott said he didn't like jumper punches - players grabbing an opponent's jumper as they short arm punched/shoved them in the face - because they were a "cheap shot" but said not policing it more vigorously prompted players to retaliate.

"I don't like it because it's a cheap shot isn't it? You wouldn't do that if there weren't rules.

"If you cop a jumper punch what are you going to do? If that's OK then I am going to give you one back and it just degenerates from there. A free kick is the answer. It's not an MRP issue in my opinion."

North midfielder Higgins was targeted by the Demons with tagger Bernie Vince paying him close physical attention and other Melbourne players physically

After being targeted, Higgins initiated other physical clashes. The regular scrapping led to more outbreaks of fights and wrestles across the ground particularly in a volatile second term when the game threatened to spiral out of control.

Christian Salem might be in trouble for what appeared to be an elbow to the head of Higgins in a melee early in that quarter. Ben Cunnington punched Vince in the midriff in the same quarter and inexplicably was not penalised by the umpires. Vince stayed down at length and then had to leave the ground for a period. Cunnington would appear likely to be cited.

"It was a good battle," Higgins said.

"Full credit to Bernie he plays it well. There was a little bit from other players but we concentrated on wining the footy. "Definitely the message was don't get sucked in. We feel we go hard at the footy and that is the most important thing and we weren't going to buy into the other sort of rubbish,"

Melbourne coach Simon Godwin said there was no teamwide instruction to target Higgins.

"Bernie had a role to play on Shaun Higgins, he did a good role on Rory Sloan. I thought when Shaun went forward, did a good job and we released the tag," he said.

He said both teams played a fierce style but there was nothing untoward from either team.

The match review panel has been criticised this year for low gradings in a number of incidents. Last week Richmond captain Trent Cotchin escaped with a fine for a "jumper punch" of Lachie Neale last week.

Cotchin punched Neale to the jaw while holding some of the player's jumper prompting the MRP to grade it lower than it might have been, calling the punch a careless rather than intentional act.

Under the tribunal guidelines this year any intentional strike will usually be deemed medium impact regardless of the force used and therefore Cotchin might have been suspended for three weeks, reduced to two with a guilty plea if he was deemed to have intentionally struck Neale. Instead he was penalised only with a fine.

MRP member Jimmy Bartel admitted the panel members had been divided over whether the punch should be careless or intentional.

The MRP has graded a number of incidents lower than they might have been this year - Nat Fyfe and Nankervis were both also guilty of careless acts but not intentional acts for elbows to the faces of opponents behind them.