Adelaide Crows star Rory Laird has joined the chorus of critics against his own teammate Josh Rachele, telling him to reign in his provocative antics.
Laird’s message to Rachele was to let his footy do the talking after his banter before and during Showdown 56 was personally aimed at rival Port Adelaide fans – and it wasn’t just the one time.
“Considering most of our list haven’t played finals yet, that (the Showdown) it’s kind of like the only finals game that we really get once a year,” Rachele told Nova radio last week.
“A big 40-50,000 crowd, I do love playing in it and I do love playing in the away ones the most.
“You can just hear all the Port fans with their no teeth in the background.”
He also went on FIVEAA radio saying: “I did mention before that the Port supporters don’t have many teeth”.
Then when Rachele booted a goal, he ran over to the boundary line pointing to his teeth in front of the Power supporters at the Adelaide Oval, in an attempt to further fuel the fire lit by his radio comments.
The antics didn’t impress Laird or the Crows teammates who say these cheeky wisecracks are not what the club is about, and would rather he focused on playing football.
“He continued on with it instead of letting his footy do the talking,” Laird said on SEN radio.
“He said it was a joke and a bit of a laugh, but it is something that we try to shy away from. It was a bit misaligned as to how we approach these games.”
On Fox Footy’s On the Couch, Jonathan Brown and Garry Lyon said it might have been tongue in cheek but compared it to the “showboating” that Hawthorn’s youngsters are doing at the moment.
“I worked for NOVA for seven years, there’s a lot of tongue in cheek,” Brown said.
“But the main thing is, out on the field, I’m not sure about targeting opposition supporters, there’s a difference between that and taking selfies at Hawthorn.”
“But Hawthorn blokes rile up supporters?” Lyon asked.
“That’s sort of around themselves though. That’s part of a camaraderie thing, they’re not taking the mickey out of opposition supporters,” Brown responded.
“I think, park it for another 12, 15 games and get yourself going again Josh,” Lyon said.
The Fox Footy commentators also took aim at Rachele’s effort on the field where he was out-competed at times by Power player Logan Evans, in his first year at the top level, who they said was “was tougher at the ball”.
Nathan Buckley added that he didn’t mind seeing the Crows rising star putting himself out there, but he has to follow it through with his performance.
Kane Cornes even labelled Rachele as a “laughingstock”, especially after the comments backfired and the Crows were handed a 22-point loss.
“When you set the with those comments, when you celebrate in the face of the opposition. You are now the laughingstock of the competition,” he said on Nine’s Sunday Footy Show.
“You’ve embarrassed yourself and you’re a laughing stock.
“Port Adelaide are laughing at him right now.”
Adelaide plays their final game of the season against the Swans on Saturday night and is not in the running for finals.
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