News Willie Rioli signs for Tiwi Bombers

[GremioPower]

Rioli's mental health may be down, so he might miss a coupla games.

I am empathetic towards Rioli obviously

the club's statement was pathetic.

But if he misses games because of this i just feel he brought this upon himself with this instagram story.

Rash has a point. He’s simply stating a fact.

Actions have consequences. Rioli’s post was both fair and aggressive. He seemed willing to fight. If the struggle from it is too big for him to handle, there was a miscalculation.

Junior has support. We are all with him on this. I hope the club is too. I just don’t know if the support is enough for taking the battle and carrying it on. I wish it were.

 

[Mikey13G]

"Despite the depth of feeling Willie and his family have, social media was not the appropriate forum for Willie to share his emotions last night. Willie understands this.

The Port Adelaide football club never ceases to disappoint me in recent years. What bullshit from the club. They have thrown Willie under the bus for having an opinion. The other part of the statement about supporting Willie just makes the club sound condescending, but should we really expect much more from this vanilla administration run by pelicans!? If the club really supported Willie they wouldn't be coming out with these statements and if they did need to make a public statement they could back him by stating that's Willie's opinion and he's entitled to it.

 

[Mikey13G]

Just not a smart thing for Dunstall to say in this day and age.
He’s fully aware of the problems between Hawthorn and Cyril so best to find something else to joke about.
Knowing when to STFU can be a real problem for some people.

You've hit the nail on the head with your statement about in this day and age. I listened to what Dunstall said and he was self-depreciating his own lack of conditioning. If Rioli was also out of shape he was out of shape. Do people now want Dunstall to apologise for telling a story? Should he not tell stories unless they shine everyone in a positive light and censor anything including the truth?

This whole situation is a storm in a teacup. Hopefully Willie comes back to training and we can all move on, but as I said in my previous post I wouldn't blame Willie for having hard feelings with the club as they have thrown him under the bus... over a social media post that explained why he hates the Hawthorn footy club.

 

[Powerade 08]

Dunstalls got nothing to do with anything here. Tom Morris brought him up not Rioli.

But it is very strange to be telling a 'light hearted' story involving an aboriginal player at Hawthorn during that period. You are probably leaving out a lot of very cruel details to make it work. Poor taste.

 

[Rash]

Caroline wilson 'Hes definitely playing this week'

She was pretty adamant, ussaly she's pretty reliable, saying coaches are gonna be sacked aside.

 

[Mikey13G]

Caroline wilson 'Hes definitely playing this week'

She was pretty adamant, ussaly she's pretty reliable, saying coaches are gonna be sacked aside.

No reason for him not to. The quicker he gets back to training and playing the quicker this media storm dies down.

The next game against Hawthorn is going to be a blockbuster. The club has failed to support Willie but doesn't mean our fans have to. If Willie hates Hawthorn we do too!

 

[MrChow]

I find it awful that in footy — and in society more broadly — there’s empathy and open support when a player experiences mental health struggles, a serious injury, or concussion. When they reach out, it’s met with encouragement, understanding, even celebration for their bravery.

But when a First Nations player expresses anger — which often comes from a place of deep pain and sadness caused by ongoing racism that disempowers family, community, and/or connection to Country — suddenly it’s “inappropriate.” Clubs recommend silence. The media gets awkward. Social media explodes with racism. And no one seems willing to call out the blatant harm — like Hawthorn’s racist and insensitive behaviour — for what it is.





Why is that?

 

[RossFC]

Joe Richards reckons Rioli will be back in a day or 2 and will play.

 

[jdeezy]

You've hit the nail on the head with your statement about in this day and age. I listened to what Dunstall said and he was self-depreciating his own lack of conditioning. If Rioli was also out of shape he was out of shape. Do people now want Dunstall to apologise for telling a story? Should he not tell stories unless they shine everyone in a positive light and censor anything including the truth?

This whole situation is a storm in a teacup. Hopefully Willie comes back to training and we can all move on, but as I said in my previous post I wouldn't blame Willie for having hard feelings with the club as they have thrown him under the bus... over a social media post that explained why he hates the Hawthorn footy club.

"The whole situation is a storm in a teacup"

How do you know this?

We don't know what the whole situation is, we don't even know if the Dunstall comments are even part of it (as I said, I highly suspect it's much more sinister than that and the AFL media is reaching).

The Cyril stuff was certainly bigger than a "storm in a teacup", at least until it all disappeared somehow.

It's obviously all enough for Willie to harbour anger for this long.

It's not really your call on the severity of this incident

 

[shewho]

Anyone who criticises Willie for “bringing this on himself” needs a history lesson.

The treatment of indigenous people in this country over 200 years has been deplorable. We have to grow up as a nation and accept that we have a racial problem in this country. It doesn’t mean we are racists… sort of.

It’s a bit strange. Reality is we have racial issues. Clearly we do. That means you sort of have to be a bit racist to think otherwise. What happens to our indigenous brothers on a day to day basis is not ok- it’s not cool and we shouldn’t accept it.

Rioli was entitled in a free speaking country to write what he did. The fact that he got backlash is a disgrace.

Hawthorn used everything in its power- media, influence, threats of embarrassing and bankrupting the whistle blowers- to escape sanction and humiliation.

So let’s step back and see this incident for what it was- Willie was going on to bat for his cousin- one time Hawthorn legend, Cyril Rioli. It’s like Gavin Wanganeen calling out Port! But instead of backing Cyril, Hawthorn chose to fight him. In Willie’s eyes that makes Hawthorn scum, and frankly - fair comment Willie.

 

[Mikey13G]

"The whole situation is a storm in a teacup"

How do you know this?

We don't know what the whole situation is, we don't even know if the Dunstall comments are even part of it (as I said, I highly suspect it's much more sinister than that and the AFL media is reaching).

The Cyril stuff was certainly bigger than a "storm in a teacup", at least until it all disappeared somehow.

It's obviously all enough for Willie to harbour anger for this long.

It's not really your call on the severity of this incident

The whole situation should have been a storm in a tea cup. If the Port Adelaide Football Club didn't worsen the situation by throwing Willie under the bus this whole situation would've been concluded with Willie hates the Hawks. Some Hawks supporters would've viewed his post and been offended by it. Who gives a shit. They can be offended.

As for it disappearing it hasn't disappeared as we're still talking about it. My point is that it's a storm in a teacup because we shouldn't be talking about it. If Willie hates the Hawks he's allowed to hate them. It shouldn't be the Port Adelaide Football Club coming out and telling everyone they support Willie but disagree with what he did. Because that's exactly what Port Adelaide has done with their statement. And if it's different within the inner sanctums of the club it begs the question why the media department came out with a statement effectively telling the world that Willie had made a mistake by grieving his feelings on social media.

 

[Mikey13G]

Look at UFC and Dana White. A lot of people don't like Dana White. That's fine Dana doesn't care. Dana let's people in the UFC have opinions and he doesn't try and censor them. If he strongly disagrees with what they have said he will come out and call them an idiot, but he still let's them have an opinion. What Port has done is come out and said they support Willie but they condemn him voicing his opinion on social media. So basically Port are trying to censor Willie. Why!? It's pissweak and everyone sees through it. This isn't the old Port Adelaide where we knew everyone hated us but we didn't care. This is new vanilla Port Adelaide where Koch wants Port Adelaide to be every supporter's second favourite team.

 

[True__Believer]

"The whole situation is a storm in a teacup"

How do you know this?

We don't know what the whole situation is, we don't even know if the Dunstall comments are even part of it (as I said, I highly suspect it's much more sinister than that and the AFL media is reaching).

The Cyril stuff was certainly bigger than a "storm in a teacup", at least until it all disappeared somehow.

It's obviously all enough for Willie to harbour anger for this long.

It's not really your call on the severity of this incident

Exactly. There is a reason Cyril no longer wants anything to do with the club whatsoever. And he is one of their greatest modern day players.

 

[JimmyBC]

I find it awful that in footy — and in society more broadly — there’s empathy and open support when a player experiences mental health struggles, a serious injury, or concussion. When they reach out, it’s met with encouragement, understanding, even celebration for their bravery.

But when a First Nations player expresses anger — which often comes from a place of deep pain and sadness caused by ongoing racism that disempowers family, community, and/or connection to Country — suddenly it’s “inappropriate.” Clubs recommend silence. The media gets awkward. Social media explodes with racism. And no one seems willing to call out the blatant harm — like Hawthorn’s racist and insensitive behaviour — for what it is.





Why is that?

I think the club deem social media inappropriate not the actual message, it's like ringing the dinner bell for every racist meathead in the country to pile on and add more abuse.
I get the point of what is the appropriate platform however.

 

[Chachi]

Hornet just said on MMM that Willie will back at the club today and good for Sunday.

 

[Us against the rest]

Just typical of this amateur run club, they would be better off to start explaining what happened with our preliminary final losses instead of making a sensitive issue worse by their ignorance.
Willie would have every right to feel let down by the clubs reaction.

 

[Teal Leviathan]

The club isn't telling him to ignore racist comments. They have publicly stated they acknowledge the pain and hurt he is feeling and will do everything they can to support him.

They did say social media wasn't the appropriate place to air those grievances and as chiwigi said, they could just as easily have said that because what happened last night was sadly utterly predictable and exposes him to shameful vitriol.

PAFC could've conveyed that message to Rioli in private, but they instead chose to publicly rap him over the knuckles for posting "inappropriately", thereby clearly implying that Rioli has, to some extent, brought the abuse he has been receiving upon himself. Imagine if Longmire had "supported" Goodes by claiming that his spear-throwing motion was "inappropriate". That would've rightly been viewed as the club throwing him under the bus.

The real reason that line is in the statement is because the club wants to distance itself from Rioli's claims and avowed hatred for Hawthorn. And that has nothing to do with supporting Willie Rioli.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

PAFC could've conveyed that message to Rioli in private, but they instead chose to publicly rap him over the knuckles for posting "inappropriately", thereby clearly implying that Rioli has, to some extent, brought the abuse he has been receiving upon himself. Imagine if Longmire had "supported" Goodes by claiming that his spear-throwing motion was "inappropriate". That would've rightly been viewed as the club throwing him under the bus.

The real reason that line is in the statement is because the club wants to distance itself from Rioli's claims and avowed hatred for Hawthorn. And that has nothing to do with supporting Willie Rioli.

Sure you can interpret it that way, and I can interpret it as the club was protecting him from vile racist abuse which mentally disintegrates him.

Willie took the post down within 10 minutes of putting it up because of the maelstrom of abuse he received. And I would bet it wasn't just Hawthorn supporters, it's the professional racist trolls on social media looking to mentally crush a black person who speaks out.

Clearly there are people who think the club handled this badly, and there are those who don't. I'm one of the latter.

And Port never said what Willie said was inappropriate and that he can't share his feelings, just the forum as it left him open to the disgraceful racist - and apparently homophobic even though he is not gay as far as I know - abuse which he received and probably continues to receive.

 

[Schulzenfest]

Sure you can interpret it that way, and I can interpret it as the club was protecting him from vile racist abuse which mentally disintegrates him.

Willie took the post down within 10 minutes of putting it up because of the maelstrom of abuse he received. And I would bet it wasn't just Hawthorn supporters, it's the professional racist trolls on social media looking to mentally crush a black person who speaks out.

Clearly there are people who think the club handled this badly, and there are those who don't. I'm one of the latter.

And Port never said what Willie said was inappropriate and that he can't share his feelings, just the forum as it left him open to the disgraceful racist - and apparently homophobic even though he is not gay as far as I know - abuse which he received and probably continues to receive.

I can see where you're coming from, but I would still say that the bit about 'social media not being an appropriate forum' was best said to Willie privately rather than in the public statement. It does give the appearance that we're chiding him. Publicly he should've received our full and unqualified support.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

I can see where you're coming from, but I would still say that the bit about 'social media not being an appropriate forum' was best said to Willie privately rather than in the public statement. It does give the appearance that we're chiding him. Publicly he should've received our full and unqualified support.

I don't know, I think in the context of all the abuse Willie copped, a component of Port's statement is a strange hill to die on. Personally I thought if anything, it was a salutary warning to others of the absolutely unhealthy shitstorm that can envelope you after making a social media comment.

 

[Progressive Aggresion]

Ken seemed pretty upset about the treatment towards Rioli in his press conference today. Even said that it was "sad" that he "had" to delete his Instagram story. Which implies the club had no issues with him posting and only wanted to prevent further racial abuse. Hinkley also said that no other player he has coached has been racially abused as much as Willie

Although I thought he was a bit cowardly on commenting about Hawthorn and the clubs history.

 

[Powerade 08]

Yes its pretty bad.

Don't forget the media coverage of his accidental high hit on Ridley. and he was booed again a couple weeks back v Essendon.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Port Adelaide forward Willie Rioli

15

Willie Rioli

Age

30

Ht

175cm

Wt

78kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.0

3star

K

8.0

3star

HB

4.1

3star

M

3.3

3star

T

2.8

4star

G

1.2

4star

No current season stats available

D

11.0

3star

K

7.4

3star

HB

3.6

3star

M

3.0

3star

T

1.8

4star

G

0.6

3star

has returned to the club following a day’s leave due to racial abuse in the fallout from a now deleted social post where he professed his “hatred” for Hawthorn after Gather Round.

Rioli was back training at Alberton on Wednesday, seen taking part in drills and chatting to coach Ken Hinkley, who labelled racial attacks on Rioli a “disgrace”.

‘Emotion gets the best of me’: Rioli breaks silence on Hawks furore as Port coach launches defence

‘Emotion gets the best of me’: Rioli breaks silence on Hawks furore as Port coach launches defence

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[Ford Fairlane]

 

[Gryllis]

Very poor statement from the club, but it's pretty much what I expect from them now.

They'd have been better off saying nothing and supporting him privately. In the end, it drew more media attention and he's had one day off.