From the Pocket: No surprise as booing of Isaac Quaynor is met with the usual equivocation

. AU edition

Isaac Quaynor in action during Collingwood's recent game against Adelaide
Isaac Quaynor was subjected to booing from a section of the Adelaide crowd last weekend. Photograph: Matt Turner/AAP

The response to the Collingwood defender’s treatment in Adelaide was largely predictable – though Pies coach Craig McRae came closest to nailing it

The booing began when Isaac Quaynor pounced on a loose ball 10 seconds into last week’s game between Adelaide and Collingwood. They booed Billy Frampton, a former Crows player. They booed Dan Houston, who had ironed out Izak Rankine in his final act as a Port Adelaide player. But most of the boos were directed at Quaynor, partly because of the history between him and Adelaide, and partly because he kept getting the ball.

The resentment over the handling of Rankine’s homophobic slur last August was clearly still lingering. Local broadcaster Stephen “Rowey” Rowe had predicted a cacophony of boos in the lead-up to the game. “I think they’re a bit dirty ‘cos he sooky-sooky la-lahed, and rightly so,” he told Eddie McGuire.

It’s worth stressing that a significant portion of the Adelaide crowd didn’t boo at all, and that many Crows fans would have been oblivious, embarrassed, appalled or indifferent to what was going on. It’s also worth stressing just how self-defeating it was. Just like the qualifying final last year, the more Quaynor was booed, the better he played. Collingwood thrives in that environment. Adelaide Oval is a second home to them. The club is very canny and strategic in the way it communicates, not just with its own fans, but with the opposition. They talk up how the ground suits the way they defend. They talk up their love of an ambush. And they said words to the effect of: “boo us if you must, we’ve heard it all before”.

After the game, Craig McRae called it out for the nonsense it was. For those questioning whether Collingwood would be so judgmental if it was their own fans put to the test, they have a history of shutting these things down, most specifically in regard to Lance Franklin and Jason Horne-Francis. McRae is a coach who speaks to his fans every time he does a press conference. “I teach my children that we don’t boo,” he said. Notice that he didn’t say “you shouldn’t boo”. He was simply leading, and asking a large and disparate supporter base to follow.

“It’s not ideal,” his Adelaide counterpart Matthew Nicks said. Nicks is obliged to explain both his gameplan and the more unsavoury elements of his fanbase 10 minutes after a bad loss. But the moment called for something better than that. His club’s statement began with a defence of the passionate and respectful majority, before clipping the idiotic few. The AFL, as always, reminded its fans they are the “best in the world”, a nebulous ranking that presumably surpasses Gaelic football, yachting, tenpin bowling and MMA enthusiasts. And Patrick Dangerfield, the former head of the players union, spoke about the importance of supporters having a release from the pressures of their daily lives, a comment he later retracted.

Whenever there’s a booing controversy, the Adam Goodes saga is bubbling beneath the surface of every press release, in every statement and in so much mainstream and social media reaction. In that instance, the AFL completely misread the situation and left a champion footballer and a decent man at the mercy of the mob. In subsequent years, administrators and journalists have been terrified, to the point of overcorrection, of making the same mistake again.

This was something else altogether. Like so much booing, there was a certain self- righteousness to it, an element of: You won’t tell me how to behave, this is my right, and this is my stand. Some were booing because they resent being told what to do – by the AFL, by Adelaide, by Collingwood, by the woke moral gatekeepers. Some booed because of the residual anger over the way Rankine’s suspension was handled. Some, I suspect, just love to be difficult, to make themselves the story. Some were having a sook. Some, with the wit, irony and insight of Rowey, simply thought Quaynor was a dobber.

I’ll go out on a limb and suggest Quaynor wouldn’t see himself as a victim in any of this. But that doesn’t mean it was harmless. First, it was a reminder that any player who calls out racism or homophobia has a potential target on their back. And second, any gay or lesbian person sitting in that crowd had cause to ask themselves – am I actually welcome here?

But few of the official responses addressed either of those factors. What the moment called for were words to the effect of: “If you or someone else is being vilified, we want you to speak up. We’ll back you to the hilt. And we’ll come down like a ton of bricks on the people who boo you because of it.” Instead, there was the usual coughing, spluttering and equivocation. They spoke, as always, to the people doing the right thing. The closest to nailing it was McRae. The Collingwood coach may as well have been saying: “Don’t be a sook, don’t be a bore, and don’t be an asshole. It’s not hard.”