Tim Watson believes the comments made by Brisbane’s Nick Robertson may have given the Gold Coast Suns extra motivation heading into this weekend’s Q Clash.
Robertson called the Suns “soft” on Macquarie Sports Radio, and Watson has explained how the public belittling of an opponent can often be a negative.
“You feel as a player and a coach, you’ve actually given motivation to the opposition team that’s what you do feel,” the former Essendon captain told SEN Breakfast.
“Sheeds (Kevin Sheedy) used to do this all the time, he used to bake teams all the time and particularly Hawthorn.
“At the stage we were struggling to beat Hawthorn, we could never beat them.
“Anytime we were about to play them, there would be some bloody story that would come out where he would be negative or somebody from Essendon would be negative about Hawthorn, and we always felt as players, it just made our job that much harder.
“It does make a difference. This game is played on raw emotion, you can talk about all the strategies and tactics you like, but there is this raw emotion part about the game that still is activated when somebody says something derogatory about another team.”
Melbourne champion Garry Lyon says the trash talk has made him more inclined to watch the match.
“I would not have sat down and watched more than half an hour of that, I’m going to watch all of it (now),” he said.
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