St Kilda’s Stephen Milne was under extreme pressure when he directed a homophobic insult at Collingwood’s Harry O’Brien during last weekend’s AFL clash, according to Saints coach Scott Watters.
However, Watters said that Milne, who was fined $3000 by the club for the comment, still had a choice and should never have responded the way he did.
O’Brien did not complain but the comment was overheard by an umpire, who reported it.
Watters on Friday painted a picture of a player who was totally frustrated by his treatment in the round 19 clash and hit back inappropriately.
“Ultimately we want to take responsibility for our actions and I’m not someone who wants to hide or or not be accountable,” Watters said.
“You have a choice in how you react, regardless of the pressure – and the players are under enormous pressures – but you do still have a choice on what you say and how you react.
“Stephen’s choice of vocab was poor.
“You need to be disciplined, you need to be controlled and it’s not about laying blame at the doorstep of someone else,” he said.
Watters said Milne would strive to improve his on-field actions but in mitigation said the small forward had had a frustrating day.
“One thing that I do check myself on all the time is trying to maintain a perspective, trying to put myself in a player’s shoes – a player that cops an enormous amount of criticism and taunts from opposition supporters, and probably hadn’t received a couple of free kicks to that point that he thought he might,” he said.
“I spoke to (Milne) early in the week about some things he probably wasn’t happy with … how you react to getting elbowed in the head and then not receiving a free kick, and all those sorts of things, you still have a responsibility to control your actions.
“Ultimately you have a choice … so regardless whether we think it’s political correctness gone mad, or whatever, you control that as an individual.”
Asked whether the issue was highlighted because it involved Milne, who has been in the headlines previously for the wrong reasons, Watters said: “I have an opinion on that but I’ll keep that to myself.”
“Some players are probably judged a little differently to others, but that’s life.”
Watters said the line between what was now acceptable behaviour on the field had changed “for the better” in recent years.
“There are a lot of stakeholders in the game now that need to understand their responsibility to kids, to presenting the sport in the right manner,” he said.
But he said the pressure players were under during games was “almost impossible to comprehend.”