Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has condemned unruly Hawks fans and his own leaders James Sicily and Tom Barrass after the dramatic finish to Saturday night’s preliminary final loss to Brisbane.
Sicily and Barrass were fined by the AFL for confronting the umpires, who were targeted as they left the MCG by some angry supporters as bottles and cans rained down on the field.
One six-year-old Lions supporter was hit by a full can thrown after the siren and ended up in hospital to receive stitches, Channel 7’s Tom Morris reported.
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Another young fan who had taken part in the Auskick half-time game had nachos thrown over him by a Hawks supporter.
“The AFL said that if they find and can identify any of the fans who threw bottles onto the ground they’ll ban them for five years minimum,” 7NEWS reporter Xander McGuire said on Triple M.
“I mean, they’d have to ban half the stadium. I was on the fence and I had chips bouncing off my shoulder and drinks sploshing.”
Reflecting on Monday morning, Mitchell said he had noticed “there was a fair bit happening” and urged his players in an impromptu huddle to “act with humility”.
“You would’ve seen after that we walked off and gave a clap to some of the people who were still there,” he told SEN.
“Obviously some of the things that we’ve found out since, there was a very small portion of those fans who didn’t act appropriately, which has sort of soured what was probably one of the greatest games of all time.
“Disappointing that a few fans decided to throw things and not act appropriately. That was a bit disappointing.”
But Mitchell confirmed that at the time he had not been aware Sicily and Barrass had teed off at umpire Hayden Meyer in the chaos of the Jarman Impey free kick, Hugh McCluggage goal and final siren.
“I must admit I didn’t see that at all. I hadn’t seen that or heard about that at all. I just saw on the ground there was a lot of debris,” the coach said.
“I hadn’t seen any of that (with the players). I assumed that was all happening while we were coming back down from the coaches box. I wasn’t across that.
“I read a story about a young eight-year-old who had nachos thrown at them at the footy.
“I think one of the great things, I’ve been on record about this regularly, saying how good is Aussie rules footy that you can just take anywhere, you can sit anywhere and you can feel safe all the time. And I think we lost that for a moment after the game.
“I don’t think that’s ever what anyone wants so making sure we behave appropriately, which goes to our players as well, going towards umpire after game is I don’t think appropriate behaviour either.”
McGuire said Sicily, who was fined $10,000 to Barrass’s $5000, “went very, very hard”.
“I’m told there was a transcript of what he said and there was every sort of expletive in the book that might’ve been levelled at the umpire,” McGuire reported on Triple M.
Mitchell confirmed he had already spoken with Sicily and Barrass about the issue on Sunday at the VFL grand final.
“Box Hill had a great win in their grand final yesterday so we all sat and watched that and certainly caught up with those boys and chatted through it,” he said.
“They’ll work through the fines and all the things that they have to do at their end. But I think they knew that the emotions got well and truly the better of them at that moment.”
Asked by David King if the AFL should hand down suspensions to send a message of respect for the umpiring fraternity, Mitchell said: “Oh, I’m not going to get into that.”
“I think I agree with your point that umpires have got an enormously difficult job, and I go and watch my kids play sport and you watch, the way people treat umpires is very, very important all the way through from junior footy, junior sports, all the way into the AFL and we have to set a very high bar for what we accept in that area,” he went on.
“I won’t get into what the ramifications should be but I wouldn’t call it a pattern of behaviour (from Hawthorn). I think the thing that has to happen is we need to make sure our umpires are respected and treated that way.”
Mitchell also said there was no question Impey’s free kick was deserved, and he called out nearby Hawks trio Jai Newcombe, Massimo D’Ambrosio and Lloyd Meek.
“I look back now at the game with a little bit of time and I think all about the errors we made, the last one with Jarman Impey, clearly that’s a free kick,” he said.
“And I looked at the three players standing around who, in any other circumstances, would’ve done something but they were stunned mullets at the moment that matters most.
“They’re the things we’ll be able to work on in our off-season and making sure that we can continue to improve. Because those individual moments, if it comes down to them, there’s going to be some luck involved.”
