‘Incredibly stupid or incredibly silly’: Mark Robinson tees off on Warren Tredrea

Mark Robinson has blasted AFL legend and Port Adelaide board member Warren Tredrea.

AFL 360 host Mark Robinson has slammed Warren Tredrea as “incredibly stupid”, “incredibly silly” or “incredibly sinister” after the Port Adelaide club legend over comments on radio on Monday night.

Tredrea, who was the 2004 premiership skipper, the club’s record goalscorer and a current board member, was guest hosting on Adelaide radio station 5AA.

Watch every game of every round this Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial today >

Fans were calling in to vent their frustrations when a caller rang, slamming Hinkley as a “con artist” and declaring his position is “even more untenable now, we can’t waste this current crop of talented youngsters”.

He went on to say the “club will suffer financially if something isn’t done” and “Ken is delusional right now, give Carr an audition, see if he can turn this around”.

Tredrea responded: “Good call.”

The conversation was called out on Nine’s Footy Classified on Monday night with Caroline Wilson claiming Tredrea had “only made matters much worse with his comments on 5AA”.

“(It) beggars belief that he didn’t defend the coach from a rant from a supporter on air,” Wilson said.

“I think that’s caused serious issues. The comments provoked a phone call to 5AA from the club CEO Matthew Richardson. Tredrea then attempted to explain his comments.

“Ken Hinkley supporters are seething and just wondering why Warren Tredrea has chosen this week of all weeks to make these comments and to show the club is not united.”

Tredrea became a Port board member in February. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

Tredrea clarified his response on Tuesday, saying his reaction was an “acknowledgment” of the call rather than an endorsement after station management had issued directions for the announcers to allow callers to keep talking.

“We had multiple callers who were emotional callers, let’s put it that way,” he said.

“Port fans weren’t happy with things, one was pretty ruthless and I acknowledged the caller by saying “oh good call” and then we move onto the next call.

“For anyone who thought that was an endorsement, it was not an endorsement.”

Tredrea then said he was called by CEO Matthew Richardson who listened in because he had been contacted by Footy Classified.

“Richo called me back and said ‘mate I heard you say good call, that was just an acknowledgment of the call?’ and I said “yeah, yeah,” Tredrea said.

“So I then said to the club I was happy to come back after the six o’clock news, and I dropped it in there and said ‘hang on just so people know this is not an endorsement, please don’t read anything into this’, we ask people to ring in and we acknowledge their call.

“I explained that last night, Footy Classified were aware that I had clarified my situation and it was not an endorsement but they still chose to run with a hit-piece story, which I thought was pretty poor and surprising.

“The reality is it was an acknowledgment, it was not an endorsement.”

Ken Hinkley has had a rough week. Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images

But Robinson wasn’t buying the clarification from Tredrea, teeing off on the excuse on AFL 360.

“It wasn’t a hit job piece,” Robinson said. “It was far from a hit job piece.

“It’s a Port Adelaide board member sitting on a radio station and a caller rings up and says Ken Hinkley is delusional and he’s a con artist.

“And Warren Tredrea said ‘good call’.

“Now he’s either incredibly stupid or incredibly silly. I might even say incredibly sinister. I mean, from the outside, after he got on the board because he was a pusher against Ken Hinkley — ‘untenable’ he said last year.

“When I heard that, I said ‘that’s sinister’.

“He explains it away, says it’s not sinister. Okay, that leaves me with bloody stupid.

“You’ve got to be very much aware of where you are, who you are. (Gerard Whateley) You’re a radio host, you’ve got to be aware of the context of every call.

“You can’t be flippant, surely. ‘Ken Hinkley’s a con artist’, ‘yeah good call’. That’s not right. That’s incredibly silly from Warren and he has to make ground.”

Robinson said he looked forward to Port Adelaide president David Koch speaking about the situation, saying the “fanbase is angry”.

Robbo has trashed Tredrea's claim the Footy Classified piece was "a hit job". Photo: Fox Sports

Tredrea won a place on the Port Adelaide board in a member election in February against fellow club great Bruce Abernethy.

Last year, Tredrea had declared Hinkley’s position at the club “untenable” after the side lost two of its first three games.

Port Adelaide finished the season in third but were bundled out of the finals in straight sets.

However, 2024 has been a much tougher run with the side sitting on an 8-6 record, just 0.7 percentage points ahead of the Demons in eighth on the ladder, despite having won four of its first five games.

It culminated in ugly scenes on Saturday when Hinkley was booed by home fans following the side’s 23.14 (152) to 10.13 (73) thrashing at the hands of the Lions.