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Review QF: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly vs. Collingwood

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The booing - this is a long post but hopefully one worth reading if people want to give this issue more thought than just to be outraged in one direction or the other.

This is an topic that has a level of nuance that goes beyond what anyone who speaks publicly about it (coaches, media) etc will be willing and maybe even able to understand.

The thing is, fans may have animosity towards an opposing player for any number of reasons.

Quaynor

To take Quaynor as an example, it seems to have got out such that it is generally accepted public knowledge (whether it is actually true or not) that he was the subject of Rankine's slur. So there may be - and these things overlap to a large extent:
  • genuine homophobia and a perception about his sexuality. I would assume this is rare if it exists at all.
  • a perception that he snitched.
  • a perception that he overplayed the offence taken to any comment for a sporting advantage in finals.
  • a perception that he played a material role in the events that led to Rankine's loss of control.
  • anger that Rankine is not playing and scapegoating.
  • victim blaming.
  • generalised dislike of Collingwood in the current heightened atmosphere between the two teams.
  • unthinking joining in of booing by others.
  • just a visceral reaction to the whole thing.
And any combination of those things in unknown proportions. I think most sane people would think that booing for these reasons is not a very tasteful thing to do. Right minds might differ on whether that should stop them. I didn't boo him. I would have preferred if nobody else did but I am not judging anyone for it... I get it.

I reckon it's probably the case that if all the people who boo'd Quaynor last night were really honest, they actually could probably not articulate why they did it. They just did.

Houston

To take Houston as a different example, it's a bit clearer:
  • he knocked Rankine out in the first place.
  • the media has reported that he taunted Rankine about it.
  • the perception is that he played a central role in the events that led to Rankine's loss of control, and in a way most people think is unacceptable.
  • the perception (rightly or wrongly) of injustice that Rankine is suspended for what he said but Houston got away with saying something that was actually nastier and more personal.
I think most sane people would think that booing for these reasons is perfectly fine and all part of the game.

Fan reaction

The thing is, from a fan perspective, there is really only one way to tell a player you don't like them. BOOOOO.

So then everyone who does that one singular action is taken - in the public discourse - to have the same motivation in booing a player. Which, and particularly in the case of Quaynor where there are so many different things at play, is just not right.

And then suddenly everyone who does that one singular action is taken - in the public discourse - to have the same motivation in booing various different players. Which, and particularly here in the case of Quaynor v Houston v Frampton v Daicos is really obviously not right.

And suddenly, the whole city of Adelaide is homophobic.

It's reductive and ignores nuance that is so obviously present that you have to question (I would go further - assume) whether the ignorance of that nuance is deliberate.

The AFL's role in this

One thing that is central in all of this is that the only reason any of the above information is in the public domain is that the AFL leaked like an absolute f-ing sieve throughout the whole Rankine process.

Have the recipients of Finlayson, Powell, Collard, Graham or Andrew's slurs been booed or otherwise treated badly by anyone? You only have to ask the question to realise the answer - we don't even know who they are. Just as it should be.

The AFL runs a "confidential" process which in 5 cases, worked just fine. Press release. Player X has been suspended. Fans of that team will be annoyed, fans of teams that play them next week will be happy, the lefties will say how important it is to denounce homophobia in the strongest terms, the righties will say it's woke and the AFL shouldn't impose its moral agenda on the world. That's all fine, people are allowed their opinions and feelings.

But the story doesn't become about the "victim", and it doesn't become about why it happened.

Here, the AFL could not keep its house in order. By the Sunday night, everyone "knew" Quaynor was the victim. By the Tuesday, the media had reported on Houston's comments.

I have some inside info - not about the details - but enough to be confident the Crows did not want anything about Houston becoming public. They did not want him cited or punished. Their position was that it was just an important part of the context to be taken into account when assessing a proportionate punishment for Rankine.

The outcome: a semi-informed public and an inability to correct

I'm also pretty confident that the media reports had bits that were true, bits that were not true, and bits that were somewhere in the middle.

You end up with two fan bases at an absolute fever pitch, coming into a game that was super important anyway, who think they know what went on but actually don't really. It would be better, for obvious reasons, if the whole thing really was confidential.

But the problem is because it is "confidential", the Crows can't really come out and say anything about it. So when Nicks is asked in a pre-match presser what he would say to the fans, he's pretty neutered. He gave a bit of "Come and enjoy the game" nothingness.

If the AFL was going to leak everything to the press, it may as well just be an open process so that then Nicks can come out and say "hey fans, we know you're angry, we know you'll be passionate, but as a club we do not support and do not condone anyone getting stuck into Quaynor - please don't do it".

I think that would have had a serious impact on the booing happened last night. There would have still been some. But what I would describe as the "group think" booing, which I actually suspect is probably most of it, might not have happened.

It also might have been more targeted at Houston, who frankly deserved whatever he got.

TLDR

I think the booing of Quaynor was bad. I wish it didn't happen. But I don't cast any moral judgment.

It's the AFL that needs to have a good hard look at itself here. They knew what they were creating when they fed the media everything about the Rankine investigation from beginning to end.
Excellent post. I booed Houston. Didnt boo the others, but like you, can at least see why some may have booed Quaynor, although I didnt think it was necessary. And absolutely no idea why Frampton was betting booed.

Would be fascinated to know what the information about Houston is.
 
I wonder if Collingwood see Keays as a barometer for us?

He only had 7 touches vs them at the MCG

0.0, 0.0 and 0.1 in the three Pies matches this season
There was talk earlier in the week on 1 of the Fox media outlets (I think) that they planned to tag him

Seems prudent with both Rankine and Rachele out
 

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Surprised no one has mentioned hard tagging Daicos. He set up almost every Collingwood goal. Got away with it a few weeks ago, but he was ridiculous last night and we put almost zero body on him.

We couldn't get near him. Spent too much time pissing around trying to corral or smother his ball use, rather than tackling him directly hard at the body when he had the ball

Collingwood spent all night straight lining our players in tackles
 
With some of the attitudes and comments on here it’s no surprise Quaynor was booed all night.
For whatever reason people chose to or whatever reason they hide behind in doing so it’s a pretty poor look for the club and its supporters, it’s giving many in the media a free hit that they’ll salivate over and write lazy click bait articles.
If you can’t understand how poorly it presents the club then there’s not much to say.

I was sitting next to a mum, she was a passionate, loud and at times swearing, we got on great as I can be just as bad. She was booing Quaynor all night along with many other players, opposition supporters and umpires. Did she fully understand the whole Rankine issue? Did she give a thought of what it looks like if you’re booing a player who was on the back end of a homophobic taunt who really hasn’t done anything wrong?
Is making a choice not to boo him too PC or woke or any other lazy term you want to use to lazily back up your stance? Or is making a choice not to do so just being a bit more aware of how it’s going to look and come across to other people?

I’d suggest if you booed him relentlessly then don’t complain how people are seeing your actions the day after.
I didnt boo Quaynor (but did boo Houston and umpires at times, possibly Pies fans but cant really remember as I was annoyed in general, mostly by how crap we were playing). I did think it was a strange choice to boo IQ though. I definitely dont think anyone was thinking about what it would look like (neither was I), but once it started, it seemed more joined in, and some of those I dont even think knew why it started, they were just booing for the sake of it.
 
We couldn't get near him. Spent too much time pissing around trying to corral or smother his ball use, rather than tackling him directly hard at the body when he had the ball

Collingwood spent all night straight lining our players in tackles
We pretty much allowed collingwood to do whatever they liked. It was an absolutely woeful performance by us, terrible skill, zero application or hardness, no tactics or thought. We were a panicked mess from Nicks all the way down to rookies.
 
He was a good poster before he became a flog after a win.

Last night was proof why some of us were sceptical and why gloating after minor round wins and carrying on like a tool was a flog move.

He’s closed his account now so he’s not here to cop it back. Hope he comes back one day to face up to it.
Once you become a prominent draft commentator, you seem to also become a bit of a w***er.
 
Thats the easy narrative to run with but completely wrong. Im just surprised you didnt just say we did it because we are racist. But well done on such a misread.

He was booed because he and his idiot team mates pushed Rankine to breaking point. They deserved every bit of reprisal by the crowd. He was a victim of a ****ing word, Rankine was the victim of actual physical threats, bullying and actual attempts to hurt him. But gee the poor victim of a word...omg his life is forever gone to shit. Give me a ****ing spell.
It's not just a word, you're just showing your true colours by being obtuse about it.
 
We pretty much allowed collingwood to do whatever they liked. It was an absolutely woeful performance by us, terrible skill, zero application or hardness, no tactics or thought. We were a panicked mess from Nicks all the way down to rookies.
De Goey and Ned Long were the biggest problems in the midfield. Big and they hit us both ways both offensively and defensively. We got guys 180cm and 84-88kgs at most like Berry and Soligo going against guys that have 6-10cm and 6-10kgs on them and wonder how they can power out of the stoppages. We send multiple guys to stop them and it leaves the outside mids open for the handball receives.

Ned Long is a mid-season draft pick and he matched up with our mids with no issues.
 

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Quaynor was always getting booed at. He needs to be grateful it wasn't a Port game and he would have had nail polish bottles thrown at him.

Angry mobs need to vent. It's why umpires get so much shit. It's not the person per se, it's the system and we love to feel like the world is against us. That's how it goes.
Quaynor has never been booed at any game in his whole career before last night.
 
De Goey and Ned Long were the biggest problems in the midfield. Big and they hit us both ways both offensively and defensively. We got guys 180cm and 84-88kgs at most like Berry and Soligo going against guys that have 6-10cm and 6-10kgs on them and wonder how they can power out of the stoppages. We send multiple guys to stop them and it leaves the outside mids open for the handball receives.

Ned Long is a mid-season draft pick and he matched up with our mids with no issues.

Sending multiple guys to stop a player is more of a coaching issue though.

We know Berry can tackle hard. He could stop a player like De Goey, if he was positioned near him, which he often wasn't
 

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The booing - this is a long post but hopefully one worth reading if people want to give this issue more thought than just to be outraged in one direction or the other.

This is an topic that has a level of nuance that goes beyond what anyone who speaks publicly about it (coaches, media) etc will be willing and maybe even able to understand.

The thing is, fans may have animosity towards an opposing player for any number of reasons.

Quaynor

To take Quaynor as an example, it seems to have got out such that it is generally accepted public knowledge (whether it is actually true or not) that he was the subject of Rankine's slur. So there may be - and these things overlap to a large extent:
  • genuine homophobia and a perception about his sexuality. I would assume this is rare if it exists at all.
  • a perception that he snitched.
  • a perception that he overplayed the offence taken to any comment for a sporting advantage in finals.
  • a perception that he played a material role in the events that led to Rankine's loss of control.
  • anger that Rankine is not playing and scapegoating.
  • victim blaming.
  • generalised dislike of Collingwood in the current heightened atmosphere between the two teams.
  • unthinking joining in of booing by others.
  • just a visceral reaction to the whole thing.
And any combination of those things in unknown proportions. I think most sane people would think that booing for these reasons is not a very tasteful thing to do. Right minds might differ on whether that should stop them. I didn't boo him. I would have preferred if nobody else did but I am not judging anyone for it... I get it.

I reckon it's probably the case that if all the people who boo'd Quaynor last night were really honest, they actually could probably not articulate why they did it. They just did.

Houston

To take Houston as a different example, it's a bit clearer:
  • he knocked Rankine out in the first place.
  • the media has reported that he taunted Rankine about it.
  • the perception is that he played a central role in the events that led to Rankine's loss of control, and in a way most people think is unacceptable.
  • the perception (rightly or wrongly) of injustice that Rankine is suspended for what he said but Houston got away with saying something that was actually nastier and more personal.
I think most sane people would think that booing for these reasons is perfectly fine and all part of the game.

Fan reaction

The thing is, from a fan perspective, there is really only one way to tell a player you don't like them. BOOOOO.

So then everyone who does that one singular action is taken - in the public discourse - to have the same motivation in booing a player. Which, and particularly in the case of Quaynor where there are so many different things at play, is just not right.

And then suddenly everyone who does that one singular action is taken - in the public discourse - to have the same motivation in booing various different players. Which, and particularly here in the case of Quaynor v Houston v Frampton v Daicos is really obviously not right.

And suddenly, the whole city of Adelaide is homophobic.

It's reductive and ignores nuance that is so obviously present that you have to question (I would go further - assume) whether the ignorance of that nuance is deliberate.

The AFL's role in this

One thing that is central in all of this is that the only reason any of the above information is in the public domain is that the AFL leaked like an absolute f-ing sieve throughout the whole Rankine process.

Have the recipients of Finlayson, Powell, Collard, Graham or Andrew's slurs been booed or otherwise treated badly by anyone? You only have to ask the question to realise the answer - we don't even know who they are. Just as it should be.

The AFL runs a "confidential" process which in 5 cases, worked just fine. Press release. Player X has been suspended. Fans of that team will be annoyed, fans of teams that play them next week will be happy, the lefties will say how important it is to denounce homophobia in the strongest terms, the righties will say it's woke and the AFL shouldn't impose its moral agenda on the world. That's all fine, people are allowed their opinions and feelings.

But the story doesn't become about the "victim", and it doesn't become about why it happened.

Here, the AFL could not keep its house in order. By the Sunday night, everyone "knew" Quaynor was the victim. By the Tuesday, the media had reported on Houston's comments.

I have some inside info - not about the details - but enough to be confident the Crows did not want anything about Houston becoming public. They did not want him cited or punished. Their position was that it was just an important part of the context to be taken into account when assessing a proportionate punishment for Rankine.

The outcome: a semi-informed public and an inability to correct

I'm also pretty confident that the media reports had bits that were true, bits that were not true, and bits that were somewhere in the middle.

You end up with two fan bases at an absolute fever pitch, coming into a game that was super important anyway, who think they know what went on but actually don't really. It would be better, for obvious reasons, if the whole thing really was confidential.

But the problem is because it is "confidential", the Crows can't really come out and say anything about it. So when Nicks is asked in a pre-match presser what he would say to the fans, he's pretty neutered. He gave a bit of "Come and enjoy the game" nothingness.

If the AFL was going to leak everything to the press, it may as well just be an open process so that then Nicks can come out and say "hey fans, we know you're angry, we know you'll be passionate, but as a club we do not support and do not condone anyone getting stuck into Quaynor - please don't do it".

I think that would have had a serious impact on the booing happened last night. There would have still been some. But what I would describe as the "group think" booing, which I actually suspect is probably most of it, might not have happened.

It also might have been more targeted at Houston, who frankly deserved whatever he got.

TLDR

I think the booing of Quaynor was bad. I wish it didn't happen. But I don't cast any moral judgment.

It's the AFL that needs to have a good hard look at itself here. They knew what they were creating when they fed the media everything about the Rankine investigation from beginning to end.

Good post and I didn't like the booing of Quaynor but I don't mind if people boo anyone, that's their choice at a game of footy to boo.

We shouldn't police the 'booers', we shouldn't label them as anything as we don't know their justification for booing.

I think perhaps some people used Quaynor as a 'lightening rod' to vent/show how unhappy they were with how the AFL handled the whole Rankine thing.

It's unfair to Quaynor but for people pissed at the AFL over this when else would people inclined to boo actually boo?
 
I feel this is more a game plan issue than composure.

Playing so many behind the ball that when we do win the ball back, we have no one to kick to.
I think this is where we should be looking for and using our wingman a lot better than we do.
You need your wings to be attacking players as well
But you have such a defensive mindset, everyone focused on stopping goals and then we have nothing when we need to go forward

Nicks resurrected his Rogue Bonkers gameplan of 2024 - with the added extra of Laird (and Keays) in the midfield.

Yes the players (as a whole) were poor but they were set up to fail by our coach.
 

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Review QF: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly vs. Collingwood

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