Port Adelaide’s Hamish Hartlett has had a dig at Richmond’s Tom Lynch ahead of tonight’s Preliminary Final.
Lynch has again come under fire this week after he knelt on Dougal Howard in last weekend’s Semi Final win over St Kilda.
Power defender Hartlett suggests Lynch’s emotions get the better of him on the field and indicated that plenty of people in the football world would love to see the Tigers beaten tonight so his season were to “come to an end”.
“He obviously gets caught up in the emotions of the game probably a bit more frequently than others do,” he said on FIVEaa.
“I guess others are able to control their instinct and reactions perhaps on their emotions a little bit better than what Tom does.
“I think there’d be plenty of people out there who would like to see his season come to an end. I’ll leave it at that.”
He added: “That was on my poor mate Dougal as well, so I wasn’t real happy with that one.”
The last time Port Adelaide and Richmond met in a final, the Power kicked eight goals to one in the opening quarter of the 2014 Elimination Final on their way to a 57-point victory.
Hartlett, who experienced that game first-hand, admits he would love to see a another fast start against the reigning premiers but is not holding his breath.
“That was extraordinary,” he said.
“Seven goals up in the first quarter. It would be nice to put the game to bed by quarter-time but I can’t see it happening unfortunately.”
Port enters tonight’s prelim as the minor premiers and will play in front of a partisan Adelaide Oval crowd which subsequently has them as favourites to win their way through to the Grand Final.