‘Dumbest thing I’ve seen for a long time’: Port Adelaide star savaged
An AFL great has torn shreds off a Port Adelaide star who injured the club captain during a pre-season training run.
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Kangaroos legend David King has described Jason Horne-Francis’ chase-down tackle on Connor Rozee at training as “the dumbest thing I’ve seen for a long time” in pre-season as the Port Adelaide skipper enters the season under an injury cloud.
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Power fans’ hearts were in mouths when Rozee appeared to hurt his toe early in Friday’s intra-club session after Horne-Francis chased him down during the match simulation session.
Of course, Port will already be without fellow star midfielder Zak Butters for the first chunk of the season after he underwent knee surgery late last month.
While the Power have downplayed concerns around Rozee’s health ahead of this week’s Round 1 clash with Collingwood at the MCG, King was dumbfounded that Horne-Francis put the star skipper in such a vulnerable position.
“This is the dumbest thing I’ve seen for a long time through a pre-season period,” King said of the incident on Fox Footy’s The First Crack.
“When you’re against your teammates. I know Geelong has all sorts of rules — you’re not allowed to run back with the flight or slide in, in tackles you’re not allowed to do all sorts of things that could potentially cause injury.
“To hip drop tackle from Horne-Francis on Rozee is just ridiculous. It puts pressure on this young man, who’s now going to take an issue with his toe for a little while.
“You just don’t take risks like that. Run down tackles in meaningless intra club sessions, you’ve just got to be smarter than that.”
Saints great Leigh Montgna noted: “Particularly with one of the best players, you don’t really need to tackle them,” before quipping: “If we went anywhere near Lenny Hayes in an intra-club, Ross Lyon used to send us off and say: ‘Don’t touch Lenny’.”
King added with a laugh: “We’d go near ‘Duck’ (Wayne Carey) when we wanted a session to stop.”
Originally published as ‘Dumbest thing I’ve seen for a long time’: Port Adelaide star savaged
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