Sorry to butt in here. Well, not really sorry, but sorry in the sense of the formality used to interject. Sorry, but at least now I’ve got your attention.

I’m not as sorry as, say, St Kilda’s Jimmy Webster was when he bumped North Melbourne co-captain Jy Simpkin into next year in an AFL pre-season match. I may not be even as sorry as North coach Alastair Clarkson was when he gave Webster a vulgar verbal spray in the aftermath and was brought to book for it. There’s sorry and there’s sorry.

Jeremy Finlayson: doubly sorry..Credit: Getty Images

It’s been a sorry week in sport, a sorry sort of year. Port Adelaide’s Jeremy Finlayson was sorry for using a homophobic slur against an Essendon opponent and the AFL took his remorse to be genuine and was explicit in saying that this contrition was why he was suspended for as few as three matches.

And then Finlayson went on his wife’s podcast and said he was “pissed off” to have been suspended, and had to say sorry all over again, trying to explain that he was not pissed off because he thought the suspension was wrong, but at himself for getting suspended at all.

Did it then lie open to the AFL to activate the notionally suspended part of his suspension and give him two more matches? Eddie McGuire thought so.

We’ll make this much allowance for Finlayson: he is maladroit in his choice of words wherever he is. It should also be noted that the podcast is called Sh!t Talkers.

Oops, sorry: Jimmy Webster bumps Jy Simpkin.Credit: Fox Footy

The NRL got going early on its apologies this year with a test run in Las Vegas. There, the Sydney Roosters’ Spencer Leniu spat out a racial slur at the Broncos’ Ezra Mam, and apologised for it, saying that anyone who knew him knew that was not who he was.

Sorry to say so, but it sure looked and sounded like him. In any case, he has eight weeks to have a good look at himself in the mirror, lest there be any mistaken identity.

QOSHE - The art of the sporting apology, and how it became a business - Greg Baum
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The art of the sporting apology, and how it became a business

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19.04.2024

Sorry to butt in here. Well, not really sorry, but sorry in the sense of the formality used to interject. Sorry, but at least now I’ve got your attention.

I’m not as sorry as, say, St Kilda’s Jimmy Webster was when he bumped North Melbourne co-captain Jy Simpkin into next year in an AFL pre-season match. I may not be even as sorry as North coach Alastair Clarkson was when he gave Webster a vulgar verbal spray in the aftermath and was brought to book for it. There’s sorry........

© The Sydney Morning Herald


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