‘Ridiculous’: Adelaide Crows’ apology to Sydney torn to shreds

The Crows have come under heavy fire for offering up a ‘ridiculous’ apology to a rival team after a player’s remarks in a post-game interview.

The Adelaide Crows have been torn to shreds by footy fans after apologising to the Sydney Swans on Sunday afternoon.

The apology came after Wayne Milera offered up his thoughts on the Swans in the wake of the Crows 15-goal win on Saturday night.

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The 27-year-old hardly dropped the hammer on the now 4-8 Swans, instead he spoke about what he was seeing out on the field.

“You could sort of feel it as a group … they were sort of a bit of a rabble, just hearing them on the ground,” Milera said to ABC Sport.

That’s it.

Despite the rather tame comments, Nine’s Will Crouch reported that Milera had apologised to the Swans for his comment.

The only thing Milera should be sorry for is not going harder on how paltry the 2024 grand finalists were in front of their home crowd.

Just to add a bit more context to it all, the 90-point defeat was Sydney’s heaviest loss at the SCG since 2000.

Wayne Milera and the Crows ran riot over the Swans at the SCG. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

Even Sydney coach Dean Cox went harder during his post-game press conference as he called his side’s out “unacceptable and embarrassing”.

Swans midfielder James Rowbottom, also speaking to ABC Sport, was just as blunt with his assessment of how the club performed: “Embarrassment is the first word that comes to mind.”

Milera’s comments were hardly him thrusting the knife in and twisting it, he wasn’t meaning any disrespect with his remarks.

And if anything calling the Swans a “rabble” was pretty soft on a night when they showed no fighting spirit in front of the 2005 premiership squad.

Fox Sports’ David Zita even added on Sunday that the Swans “weren’t offended by the comments”.

Footy fans united on Sunday in their agreeance that offering up an apology was not necessary and could stop players in future from speaking to the media at all.

“God forbid you are too honest in an interview,” Campbell Brown said on Seven’s Sunday Footy Feast.

“That’s such weak leadership as far as I’m concerned. Do you know who the rabble is now? Adelaide for having to come out and apologise.”

Kate McCarthy added: “The fact they’ve basically undermined their own player there to come out — yes, they’ve obviously had a conversation — but that did not need to be apologised for.

“We want that from players. He didn’t at any point make that personal. They were unorganised, they were a rabble — I think Sydney would have almost admitted that.

“That is absolutely ridiculous.”

Sydney coach Dean Cox and the club reportedly weren’t offended by the comments. Photo by Phil Hillyard

ABC sports journo Marnie Vinall wrote on X: “Well that feels completely unnecessary. Such a mild comment. We’re really going to just accept ‘we knew they’d be a hard team and we just had to focus on the contest’ as the only thing footballers are allowed to say?

“And we wonder why so many players hate doing media, hmm.”

Fox Sports’ David Zita wrote: “Not sure why this was necessary, by the way. Maybe Crows just trying to get ahead of it. But all good, back to robotic answers.”

Sports broadcaster Daniel Garb wrote: “Let’s harden up a touch, please. There wouldn’t be a Swans person who disagrees with Milera calling them a rabble.”

Don’t be surprised next week when every player who has a microphone thrust in their face busts out the stock standard responses to not ruffle some feathers.

Or in this case, ruffle some feathers of an opponent who was not even remotely offended by the remarks.