Covid mistake enough for a racist attack on Elijah Taylor

Swans rookie Elijah Taylor with the number made famous by Adam Goodes. Picture. Phil Hillyard

The lowest Australian life form crept back from under the couch again.

Anonymous as usual. Cowardly as ever. Crawling out of the cockroach corners. Spoiling sport. Infecting the social fabric. Vomiting the disease that infests their ugly type.

Some of us can find a little empathy for Elijah Taylor despite the seriousness of his recent indiscretion. The 19-year-old snuck his 18-year-old girlfriend into the Sydney Swans’ resort hotel in breach of the WA and AFL quarantine regulations.

The kids have had a walk of shame since that few endure.

The AFL came down like a tonne of bricks. His timing was terrible. Others, who should have known a lot better, got off with a slap on the wrist. Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley and those who breached before the penalties were increased can count themselves very lucky.

Taylor has been berated and suspended for the rest of season and his club has been hit with a $25,000 fine.

Elijah Taylor has been suspended for the rest of the season. Picture: Phil Hillyard

It might be one of the most expensive booty calls of all time.

Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan lambasted the club and said the league had let the state down.

It’s not often a footballer cops that sort of spray from a political leader, it has to be the first time two lovestruck teenagers have triggered such responses, but while some of it might be harsh it could be argued it is fair enough.

The amorous couple could have derailed the season.

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The police say they are ready to fine the player and his girlfriend, Lekanhi Pearce, a sweet young woman who was doorstopped by television on Tuesday wearing what looked like an animal print dressing gown.

“I am sorry for everything,” she said. “And like, we did make a really big mistake.”

Pearce pointed out she hadn’t, as reported, jumped two fences to be with her man. At that age many of us would have swum through a crocodile-infested moat, but the breach was serious — as the sanctions and criticisms establish.

She was frightened by the prospect of getting in trouble with the law.

A private message to AFL player Elijah Taylor, which Taylor posted to his Instagram account with a message of his own.

Taylor also spoke out about the incident on social media on Tuesday night.

“Honestly I’m extremely sorry for being selfish with my actions,” he wrote on social media.

“I know what I’ve done not only affected me and the players but many others that all love the game.”

There was, however, something he needed to add.

“I understand that a lot of people are angry but racism really doesn’t fix anything,” Taylor wrote.

An anonymous troll had sent Taylor a message calling him a “dirty coon” and a “smelly monkey”, phrases so offensive you hesitate to repeat them, but filth like this deserves a harsh light on it. People need to know how ugly this is. People should try to understand what it would feel like to be abused like that when you are 19 and enduring one of the hardest week of your short life. And then they need to understand that people like Elijah Taylor live their lives knowing such attacks are never far away.

And to think people were sooking long and loud about a cheese changing its name. There’s not a violin small enough.

The Swans have asked the AFL to investigate. Chief executive Tom Harley said on SEN: “It is one of the unfortunate realities of social media that it’s a platform that allows faceless cowards to abuse”.

It appears it was a fake account. If only these people were faking their ugliness.

But, no, it’s the same depressing, depraved, ugly underbelly of Australian “fan” culture that happens time and time and time again in the football codes.

Adam Goodes was chased from the game by racists who were encouraged by a jeer squad of media commentators and excused by pathetic rationalisations those responsible cling to this day.

Taylor inherited Goodes’ No 37 jumper.

In July it was Eddie Betts’ turn. At 33 the charismatic champion should be subject to nothing more than the plaudits from all those who have enjoyed his career. Instead, he revealed, the racism is regular and reliable.

Betts had to break his usual silence on the issue.

“I’ve got to set up barriers every day when I leave the house, thinking I’m going to get racially abused when I’m driving or when I go to a supermarket,” Betts said.

“All I want to do is rock up to training, play and enjoy the game of footy.

“I’m sick and tired of it, but I want the AFL to be a safe platform for young Aboriginal kids to come and enjoy and play footy without being racially abused.”

On Monday John Longmire talked about the need to balance punishing and supporting Taylor for his indiscretion. He is very young he said, not everybody is mature at that age. Most aren’t.

On Wednesday the club was again supporting one of its players, as it had to so often when Goodes was driven from the game, against racists.

It must stop, but you wonder if it ever will. It’s been centuries now. You call it out and it goes quiet, but the moment they get a chance the cockroaches come scuttling out of the corners again.