Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has apologised to Wayne Carey for his personal attack on the North Melbourne champion, during a face-to-face meeting between the former teammates on Tuesday morning.
Carey told Fairfax Media he had accepted Clarkson's apology, which followed an angry outburst from the Hawks coach over Carey's suggestion on radio that Cyril Rioli had been homesick and wanted to return to the Tiwi Islands.
Carey said there was no feud between the pair, who played together at North Melbourne for seven years.
"He was sincere and apologetic and basically said 'sorry'," Carey told Fairfax Media.
"He talked about the things that have been said over the last year or so??? He said he'll always defend his club but he went right over [the top] and was out of line in what he said.
"The lesson I took out of it all is ??? I'm in the game to talk about footy and I guess rumour and innuendo is not what I'm in the media to discuss, so I should leave that to news people.
"There's no rift between Clarko and I. We were teammates and we've got very good mutual friends," Carey added.
"It was very positive and I had no problem in accepting his apology and we move forward and that's it."
Carey's comments, on Triple M, outraged Clarkson, who lashed out after Hawthorn's first win of the season on Sunday, a 51-point thrashing of West Coast at the MCG.
"Cyril is going back to the Tiwi, I heard Wayne Carey make that great announcement," Clarkson said after the match.
"What a load of rubbish. Once again, no account, no account by a bloke who should know better than throw up bullshit about our players.
"Carey, of all people ??? he shouldn't make too many comments about stories about other players because we could just go to town on him."
