Bullying? Give me a break. Harsh honesty is not harassment
Pundit Kane Cornes’ brutal honesty might polarise fans and piss off footy clubs, but to categorise his remarks as harassment is offensive to those who suffer from it each day at home, online, and in their workplace.
The combative Channel 7 and SEN expert takes the whacking stick to most clubs, but North Melbourne is his preferred target.
Few have been spared, from president Sonja Hood and coach Alastair Clarkson to 20-year-old Harry Sheezel, whom he accused last week of “stat-padding” by only winning easy ball. Even had a name for it: “Sheezy Ball”.
Most commentators will lob grenades from the safety of the studio or the panel high in the grandstand.
In his new role this season at Seven, Cornes was prepared to enter the Kangaroos’ dressing-room before Thursday night’s match against Essendon at Marvel Stadium, look the players he’s scorched in the eye, then interview Clarkson about how the season was going.
North Melbourne didn’t just deny the request, but the board banned him from their rooms because the club won’t stand for “vindictive, bullying behaviour”.
Bullying? Give me a break. That term has crept too easily into the sporting vernacular. Disagreeing with someone’s point of view, no matter how harsh it might be, does not constitute bullying.
Cornes’ brutal honesty might polarise fans and piss off footy clubs, but to categorise his remarks as harassment is offensive to those who suffer from it each day at home, online or in their workplace.
It also exposes the immaturity of the AFL. Like many codes, it takes its cues from the NFL – except the part in which you’re not allowed to be critical of a player, team, or coach’s performance.
A narrative has been spun out of North Melbourne that the relationship with Cornes soured because he was critical of Hood for “going quiet” in late 2022 after her “victory lap” following the signing of Clarkson in August that year.
Cornes rejects that claim and, in fairness, it doesn’t line up: Hood went public with her breast cancer diagnosis in February 2023 and said two months later she was cancer-free.
Of course, Seven knew what it was getting with Cornes when it lured him from Channel 9 at the end of last year, but you suspect the network never figured he would become the central character as he did on Thursday night.
North Melbourne weren’t playing Essendon. They were playing Kane Cornes.
When captain Jy Simpkin, of whom Cornes has also been highly critical, booted a crucial goal in the third quarter, he pivoted towards the commentary box and put a finger to his lips.
“That I reckon is directed firmly at you, Mr Cornes!” commentator Brian Taylor observed.
“It’s a long way out to go the ‘shoosh’, BT,” Cornes said with a laugh.
And it was. The Bombers won by three points, leaving North Melbourne second last on the ladder with one win.
Cornes is into US sport, particularly the NFL and NBA, but is less interested in the matches as the combative and aggressive panel shows in which only flint-hard opinions are tolerated.
The Agenda Setters program this season follows that blueprint; the constant tongue-fu between Cornes and his panellists is very watchable.
By way of disclosure, I am contracted to SEN 1170 in Sydney, although I’ve never met Cornes and have been critical of some of the things he has said in the past.
But, in an industry in which retired footballers happily bank a fat cheque for tossing up banal insights, he’s refreshing.
It’s not easy being the guy people dislike. It’s not easy saying what others won’t.
If North Melbourne want better commentary, win more footy games.
Joey makes a stand
Speaking of outspoken former players, rugby league Immortal and Nine expert Andrew Johns wasn’t reprimanded for his on-air protest of the NRL’s ham-fisted head-high crackdown.
As revealed by The Australian, Johns refused to call the final 23 minutes of the Wests Tigers-Cronulla golden-point thriller after the silly sin-binning of prop Fonua Pole.
Neither Nine management nor the NRL rebuked Johns.
More than a few callers from other networks reckon they would never get away with such shenanigans.
Say what you want about the Newcastle Knights legend, but you can’t fault his passion for the game that gave him everything.
South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett squared up NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo on Thursday for the standard of officiating, but it’s his good mate Peter V’landys who should be in the crosshairs.
At his first media conference as ARL Commission chairman on October 31, 2019, V’landys was asked what needed to be fixed.
“To be frank, we need to improve our refereeing,” he declared. “That’s our single biggest problem. You can’t have fans walking away thinking they’ve been ripped off, so we need to fix our systems and do whatever we can so the fan walks away happy and content that they’ve had a fair crack.”
On V’landys’ watch, there has been no improvement – in fact, it has become demonstrably worse. He keeps telling aggrieved former players: “I’ll fix it.” The same former players keep asking me: “Oh yeah, when?”
Kiss and tell
Les Kiss has been revealed as the next Wallabies coach, and what a story it is: a rugby league winger who never played a game of rugby leading the national side into a home World Cup in 2027.
The man who inadvertently steered Kiss into rugby coaching was Melbourne Storm general manager Frank Ponissi. In 2000, in the first year of the ill-fated Northern Eagles, the pair were assistant coaches under Peter Sharp.
Because of financial problems, Sharp was forced to let Kiss go the next season.
When a handful of Springboks coaches indicated they wanted to attend a training session, Ponissi asked Kiss if he would sit with them to explain what was going on.
“That’s where it started: Brookie Oval, as a favour to me,” Ponissi recalled. “That’s the type of bloke he is. He lost his job with the Northern Eagles but helped that day and, from that, they offered him a job. That was his introduction to rugby union. He consulted with the Springboks for the next year or two and then went onto bigger and better things.”
Kiss will replace Joe Schmidt midway through next year once his three-year contract with the Queensland Reds ends.
Yes, it’s the longest coaching handover in history but a win for all parties, not least Australian rugby.
It’s Games on
Network Ten newsreader Sandra Sully versus Olympics supremo John Coates is the feud we never expected to see.
In an interview for The Australian last week, Coates showed he hadn’t forgotten the events of 2017 when former Hockeyroo Danni Roche attempted to overthrow him as AOC president.
He name-checked Sully, a long-time Hockey Australia director, as someone to whom he had to justify his credentials.
“What would she know about sport?” Coates asked.
He added that Sully had recently reached out in the lead-up to this Saturday’s board elections at the AOC annual general meeting.
Much-loved Sully has received widespread support all week, although that won’t be enough to result in her being appointed to the board as hockey’s nominee. Layne Beachley, whom Surfing Australia has nominated, is also considered little chance.
Swimming legend Susie O’Neill, though, is a certainty. She’ll be a welcome addition in the lead-up the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.
Coates will attend the meeting in Sydney to receive an award as honorary lifetime president.
His candid interview might have angered some at the AOC, but he’ll have the eternal support of people such as Indigenous sprinter Patrick Johnson, who says Coates’s decision to ask Cathy Freeman to light the flame at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 was an act of reconciliation equally important as Indigenous people being given the right to vote and the Mabo High Court decision.
“John was insistent that this was to happen,” Johnson said. “We knew in that moment we all felt as Australians and showed what the Olympic movement and sport can do for this great country of ours.”
Infusion confusion
“It’s a triple standard!” declared former Australian tennis player John Millman of the 18-month ban handed to US doubles champion Max Purcell for using an intravenous drip while apparently crook in Bali.
He’s got that right.
When an Australian athlete is slugged for an anti-doping violation, it’s considered a gross injustice. When an athlete from another country does it, he or she is guilty as sin.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) on Tuesday ruled Purcell had used a “prohibited method” by receiving infusions of more than 500 millilitres in December 2023.
Millman was stunned that Purcell was rubbed out for so long, comparing his sanction with that of Australian Open champion and world No.1 Jannik Sinner, who was given a three-month ban after testing positive for anabolic agent Clostebol.
The Sinner suspension was far too light, but he had a plausible excuse for the tiny traces of the drug being in his system: a trainer had used a cream on a cut finger, and he then massaged Sinner.
At least Sinner didn’t have a phone full of incriminating WhatsApp messages, as Purcell did.
In its findings, the ITIA revealed the exchange between Purcell and another player under investigation were at the heart of the heavy sanction.
Those messages showed Purcell asked staff at the clinic where he received the IV infusion to not keep receipts, discussed if he could justify the infusions by feigning illness, and then researched the WADA code itself … before heading back a few days later for a second go.
Millman neglected to mention any of this in his TV appearances and newspaper columns this week, in which he painted Purcell as the victim.
Nor did Millman explain – perhaps he didn’t know? – that IV infusions of more than 100ml are prohibited because they can change blood test results, mask urine test results, or allow prohibited substances to leave the body quicker.
If it was another athlete from another country, would he be so forgiving?
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Whatever you have to say about Kane Cornes – and there’s been quite a lot said this week – you can’t deny the guy has stones.