Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has refused to apologise for the physical targeting of Brisbane Lion Lachie Neale, but admits “we made some mistakes” early in the game, which Port lost by 48 points.
After the game, Lions coach Chris Fagan said the treatment of Neale was “a bit over the top”.
“He got pounded, didn’t he?” Fagan said. “But hopefully what it shows is that we’re not a one-man band in our midfield — we have got a lot of guys in there that can contribute.”
Meanwhile, Hinkley said:
“We don’t make any apologies for being an aggressive football side.
“(But) we made some mistakes early in that game with our aggression.
“Clearly with Lachie Neale, we were trying to defend him and slow him down … in the past, he is a player who has caused us enormous amount of grief.
“What Brisbane showed is, as a collective, they were still too good for us.”
LISTEN:
Tempers flared early in the first quarter of #AFLPowerLions.
— AFL (@AFL) July 14, 2019
Plenty of feeling in this one. pic.twitter.com/4K2i1mr1TX
