Adelaide fans have been savaged for an awful display, targeting an opposing player for ugly reasons during their side’s qualifying final loss to Collingwood.
Magpies defender Isaac Quaynor starred in the visitors’ win at Adelaide Oval but he was one of several players to receive targeted booing from some Crows fans.
Some, like former Port Adelaide star Dan Houston, being booed were expected but few thought Crows fans would react in such a way to Quaynor.
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It has not been confirmed which player was targeted by Adelaide superstar Izak Rankine when he delivered a homophobic slur during the sides’ Round 23 clash, but Quaynor spent most of the game playing on Rankine and was seen in several heated exchanges with the Crow.
The reaction to Crows fans booing Quaynor was therefore a chorus of confusion and outrage, with a wide range of experts criticising the message being sent.
Triple M’s Kate McCarthy said on air “stay classy, Crows fans,” then tweeting “booing someone for calling out homophobia is truly something isn’t it.”
Meanwhile veteran journalist Rohan Connolly wrote: “If you ever wanted to confirm the stereotype of footy fans as uneducated, bigoted a***holes … yep, booing a guy (Quaynor) for being on the RECEIVING end of a homophobic slur … yep, that will do it. D**kheads.”
ABC’s Damien Peck added: “Crows fans booing Quaynor at Adelaide Oval is just pathetic.”
Collingwood coach Craig McRae declared he was always against booing.
“It is disappointing,” McRae said in his post-match press conference.
“Not just Isaac, but Dan (Houston). There’s always stories behind things. I’m just not a booer.
“I said this years ago … I just get disappointed with that. I just find that really disappointing.”
Asked if the booing felt ‘pointed’, McRae said: “I’m not sure. Just when I first heard it I thought ‘that’s disappointing’.”
After footage played of the Crows fans’ booing when Quaynor touched the ball, Fox Footy host Sarah Jones said: “I don’t think we need to do that, as a footy code. We’re better than that.”
Hawthorn legend Jason Dunstall added: “We don’t, we don’t. But credit to Isaac Quaynor, because you know what? He said ‘stuff them, I’m going to have them booing all night’.
“And he did. Every ball that came his way, he won that contest — I thought he was one of the better players on the ground tonight.”
However Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks refused to criticise his fans or speak on the booing at all.
“It’s not one for me to comment on,” he said.
He repeated the phrase when asked a second time.
Rankine’s four-game suspension will now expire in time for him to play in the Grand Final, if Adelaide qualifies, due to the Crows’ loss on Thursday night.
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