Port Adelaide star Connor Rozee says he’s baffled why some fans boo teammate Jason Horne-Franics, but hopes the jeers will stop with time as the prized star finds consistency at AFL level.
Horne-Francis played a crucial role in the Power’s hard-fought 14-point win over the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night, winning 11 fourth-quarter disposals to inspire his side at the coalface.
But the 19-year-old was also booed by sections of the Adelaide Oval crowd throughout the match – three weeks after he was also jeered at the MCG during the Power’s loss to Collingwood.
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Power coach Ken Hinkley post-game launched an impassioned defence of Horne-Francis, while Rozee said the behaviour of some fans left him puzzled.
“I don’t really understand it, to be honest,” Rozee told foxfooty.com.au post-game.
“He’s a young kid just trying to play football and we support him as a teammate. I’m not really sure why people do it, but we’ll keep supporting him.
“I’m sure if he keeps playing consistent football, they’ll dissipate.”
Horne-Francis, who was drafted out of South Australia and taken by North Melbourne with Pick 1 in 2021, has played all five games in his first season with the Power since moving to Alberton after just one season with the Kangaroos.
Rozee said he was excited by Horne-Francis’ enormous potential.
“He’s been awesome for us since coming to our football club,” Rozee said. “He’s still so young and he’s got so much potential, but he’s a great teammate and great off the field. He’s so competitive and he showed what he can do tonight.
“He’s hard to play against. He’s built like a man already. He ‘don’t argues’ everyone five or six times a training session.”
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The Power ultimately won a tense arm-wrestle over the Bulldogs, with both teams struggling for ball movement fluidity due to, at times, torrential rain.
Rozee said he was proud his side held on to win in “very scrappy conditions”.
“You always love to win games like that because they can probably go either way. But we were stronger for longer it seems,” he said.
“We’ve got a pretty young squad, so it (Hinkley’s three quarter-time message) was more to play our way, don’t go into our shell and take the game on. We were able to get on top in the middle a little bit more and get it going forward – and once we get it forward, we trap it in well.
“There was just a lot of belief and confidence from Kenny at three quarter-time and it rubbed off.
“We were still playing really strong, contested footy and cracking in. If we play like that every week, we’ll be hard to beat“
The Power has righted the ship after tough losses to Collingwood and the Crows, with wins over Sydney and the Dogs improving their win-loss record to 3-2 – a significant improvement on last season‘s disastrous 0-5 ledge at the same stage.
“That’s two tough wins in a row now, so hopefully we can take that confidence and keep rolling it forward. We’ve got our gamestyle downpat a bit more now and it seems like we’re on a bit of a roll,” Rozee said.
