Brent Harvey has criticised Richmond utility Matthew White for an incident immediately after the North Melbourne captain suffered his elbow injury last Saturday night.

Harvey said White went too far in giving him a slight bump as he was leaving the ground during the AFL match at Etihad Stadium.

The All-Australian is out of action for up to three months after needing surgery on the joint.

"He probably could have seen I was in a lot of pain, I put my arm in my jumper as a sling and I said `aw mate, just watch my arm while I'm running off'," Harvey said on Channel Nine's The Footy Show.

"He came over and gave me a little bit of a bump - in a not-so-friendly way, I told him if he (did) it again ... I don't know what I would have done, I couldn't move.

"But I gave him a few nasty words."

Harvey compared it to some treatment St Kilda key forward Nick Riewoldt received from Brisbane opponents in round one, 2005.

Lions players bumped Riewoldt soon after he had broken his collarbone.

"It's going a little bit too far ... you go back to the Nick Riewoldt one, if you can see someone's in genuine pain, you probably don't need to go over and do anything," Harvey said.

"He certainly didn't come over and bump me hard, he probably thought I was joking, I was going to run off and get the footy, I'm not too sure what he thought - there wasn't too much in it."

Harvey said he had no problems with Daniel Jackson, whose tackle caused the injury.

But the Kangaroos star said the AFL should keep an eye on how players execute tackles.

"I don't think there was any malice in (Jackson's) tackle ... I don't think he intended to grab one arm and slam me into the ground or anything like that," Harvey said.

"But knowing the pain you can go through and seeing the consequences of things that could happen, I think they need to probably have a quick peek at it, nothing too big."

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