“Front up”: Cornes and King disagree on Rankine’s overseas trip

Izak Rankine has reportedly fled the country after an almost week-long AFL investigation into his use of a homophobic slur against Collingwood last weekend.

The Adelaide star has been on the front and back pages for almost a week after an initial five-week ban was appealed and took five long and arduous days to be reconciled by the AFL.

Ultimately, he had the sanction reduced by a week meaning he will only be available for the Grand Final if Adelaide loses their first final and take the long road to the big dance.

SEN Fireball's David King and Kane Cornes did not see eye to eye on Rankine's trip to Europe.

King believes Rankine must have felt like he had to get away, while Cornes firmly believes he should have stayed in Adelaide, front up and train with his teammates rather than running away.

King: “The Izak Rankine reporting is a little bit out of line.

“The fact they’re taking videos of him getting on a plane to get away from the stress of everything he’s going through at the moment.

“He’s gone overseas to get away from all of this type of attention. Can we just give him a spell? Can we just back off a bit?”

Cornes: “I couldn’t disagree with you more.

“If you do the crime, front up to it, don’t look like you are running away and escaping.

“This is a big news story. The pictures of him jumping on a plane and heading to Rome after he’s lobbied the AFL for a compelling medical reason that we do not know is a major football story.

“Well done to them for capturing that. There are some people out there who would be thinking, and rightly so, that he’s running away from his problems.

“You’ve got to front up.”

King: “What if the stress of the situation has got to a point where he just has to get away from it?

“He knows what he’s done in terms of putting this premiership in jeopardy, he can’t handle that and has to get away. It’s at that level.”

Cornes: “I understand that, but sometimes you put yourself in that position.

“I’m not sure jumping on a plane to an exotic overseas destination is a good look after everything that has gone on this week.

“He’s essentially gone on holidays. It looks like that, he’s chosen to go to Rome.

“I want him to go to West Lakes and front up and face the music.”

King: “This is the discussion - what if you cannot face that?”

Cornes: “But he can. He’s fronted up to an overseas trip, so it’s not like he can’t get out of the house.

“I understand there’s stress on him, of course there is, he’d be feeling awful.

“But when you do a crime like that, when you make an error, I think the best thing to do is to front up.

“I would have put him up in front of the media, if he was capable of doing that, at some stage this week. I’d be out there training with my teammates who are trying to win a premiership for the first time this century.

“At some point he’s going to have to face up, at some point he’s going to have to return to training. Adelaide might lose to Collingwood (in the Qualifying Final) and then does he want to play in the Grand Final? Is he capable of getting himself in that space to play in a premiership? Because they’ll pick him.

“So at some point the is going to have to face the music.”

King: “We’ll have to disagree on this one.

“If this was my son I’d be saying, ‘If you can’t handle people attacking you every day for what you’ve done, get out of there, remove yourself from the hot spot’.”

Cornes: “There’d be some people he offended looking at that and shaking their heads.

“I wonder what the AFL would think about it as well. Adelaide allowing him to jump on a plane and go to Rome was an error.”

According to reports on Sunday morning, Rankine was pictured on a flight bound for Europe and later transited through Italy.

Channel 7's* Mitch Cleary says he will “train at a facility in Europe”.

After Rankine had his final sanction confirmed on Thursday, he released a short statement admitting he needed to go through further training.

“I regret using the word and I am very sorry for doing so, and that type of language has no place in football or the community,” he said.

“It was a mistake, and I have apologised to the Collingwood player, and what happened does not reflect my values or those of the Club.

“I’m committed to educating myself and being better.”

The Rankine saga has been a PR disaster for the AFL.

The fact he had his sanction reduced given the precedent set in the last 18 months has been slammed and moreover, that it was changed with no clear explanation with the AFL hiding behind “medical submissions”.

The fallout from the decision led to emphatic commentary from SEN’s Gerard Whateley who slammed the decisions of the league while Sam Edmund renamed the AFL the Ambiguous Football league.

Adam Simpson however had a different take, saying Rankine needed care.

“I can only compare it to Gaffy,” Simpsons said on SEN’s CrunchTime Saturday. “Self-inflicted and it’s gonna hurt the team.

“He’s made a massive mistake and he’s copped his penalty. He needs to be educated. I can’t help but think if it was my son or daughter and they make a mistake like that.

“You picture your first conversation ‘ok you’ve made a mistake’ and then you start slipping into care mode.

“It takes a long time to recover from being on the front and back page all week. Walking down the street and people look at you differently. All these things he has to live with.

“We will move on, but he is left with this big penalty. It such a big penalty for a mistake you have made. I think the club will go into care mode.

“I’m not saying he is broken, but as angry as you are, there is only so much you can do before you say ok, we can now get better.

“He’s let everyone down, but I don’t think we have to keep reminding. He will get better in that space. Unfortunately, things will happen again.”