Port Adelaide champion Kane Cornes has taken Richmond’s Alex Rance to task over his staging in a marking contest during Saturday night’s Dreamtime at the ‘G clash against Essendon.
Rance threw himself forward to successfully deceive the umpire into awarding him a free kick and could potentially come under scrutiny from the MRO for his theatrics.
Cornes says the premiership defender’s reputation could be tarnished if he continues to try and con the umpires by staging for free kicks.
“Alex Rance’s one on the weekend was as poor as I’ve seen,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“I thought it was just a really ordinary attempt at milking a free kick, and unfortunately the umpire was gullible enough to be sucked in by it.
“Now it didn’t have any influence on the game but can you imagine if it was a big game and an umpire overturned a decision like that, it could be a two goal turnaround.
“He (Rance) needs to have a serious think about what he’s doing and the legacy he wants to leave because we know what a star player he is.
“But it’s almost like his career will have this little stein on it because of these five or six incidents that he’s had over the last three years."
Melbourne great Garry Lyon believes the umpires must start cracking down on Rance’s diving exploits.
“He doesn’t need to do it,” Lyon said.
“It was at the other end of the ground with Dustin Martin and Michael Hurley and the commentator said: ‘that reputations can sometimes get you free kicks.’
“Well they can also cost you free kicks and that’s where it’s got to get to with Alex Rance. I say to the umpires: ‘you’re getting sucked in you blokes and he’s making you look stupid.’”
Listen to Kane Cornes' chat on SEN Breakfast with Garry and Tim in the player below