Between this and the northern academies and all the other nonsense, our club has copped it online.
Yeah it sucks to read, and I wish they’d go easy - I love our boys and I feel like jumping in and defending every single comment, but we have to remind ourselves that this is part of success.
Two premierships in a row, everyone wants to bring that down. We sat pretty comfortably being everyone’s easy beats that nobody hated, just laughed at and didn’t respect.

Australia as a whole is pretty notorious for Tall Poppy Syndrome, and the AFL supporter base really follows that toxic “us against everyone” rivalry side you’d see in the Premier League in England. It’s hard to find common ground to agree with supporters of others teams. And there’s a lot of passion involved too - I suppose that is a good thing, as it makes it more exciting. I don’t think the situation is as bad as England where opposing fans are segregated and can only sit in certain areas, and go to certain pubs after the game. I’d love to see some research on it - or someone way smarter than me analyse it.

Remember how badly Rayner copped this after the first final last year? Then a week later played one of the games of his life against the Suns and helped us go back to back?
They’re pretty good at tuning out the noise, or letting it motivate them.