Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes has turned the heat up on Jason Horne-Francis following the young gun’s undisciplined acts during Sunday’s loss to Gold Coast.
Cornes has been one of Horne-Francis’ biggest fans and will almost always defend the 21-year-old against any criticism that comes his way.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Horne-Francis loses his cool during Power’s loss.
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But the 300-gamer didn’t hold back after Horne-Francis failed to get a touch in the first quarter and gave away a string of critical free kicks.
He hadn’t registered a disposal when he gave away a 50-metre penalty after shoving Suns midfielder Sam Flanders, who he had just tackled high, to the ground in the second quarter.
Horne-Francis was then caught up in another scuffle with Nick Holman in the final term, flinging the Suns hardman to the turf.
Six third-quarter possessions swelled his numbers, after just two touches to half-time and one in the final term.
He salvaged his dirty day with two goals, but his undisciplined behaviour far outweighed the positive impact on the scoreboard.
“I’m going to talk about my man, Jason Horne-Francis yesterday, he let his side down and he let himself down,” Cornes said on SEN.
“He hadn’t touched the footy probably until the halfway point of the second quarter.
“Zero touches in the first term and he didn’t touch it through the halfway point of the second quarter.
“Then he got really frustrated and the Gold Coast players sensed that. He gave away a 50-metre penalty which led to a goal.
“Ken Hinkley pulled him off to the interchange bench and had a good discussion with him, but then he did it again, he gave another one away to Nick Holman.”
Cornes added that he must learn to keep that behaviour “in check”.
“We know it’s part of his package and it has been, he’s been pretty good at keeping that under control this year,” he said.
“But when things aren’t going your way, you cannot visibly be frustrated like that.
“He hurt his side yesterday. So, Jason pull your socks up.”
Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd said Horne-Francis was a “huge distraction”.
“It was petulance from Jason, no doubt about that. Big game, everything on the line and I thought he was a huge distraction for Port Adelaide,” he said on the AFL website.
Port coach Ken Hinkley didn’t excuse his youth when addressing the former No.1 pick’s tough day.
“He’s got to be better than he was today in some moments … and we won’t accept that that’s OK,” he said.
“He’s learnt a lot but he’s still got a lot more to learn.
“He’s an aggressive player who seeks out body contact and once you let the oppo (opposition) get a look at it, they tend to come after you a little bit more.
“Jason’s learning to deal with that and he has to get better.”
The loss cost Port, who had won two-straight, fourth place in the midst of a 12-team battle between second and 13th separated by just two wins.
A concussion to Lachie Jones and bizarre hip injury to forward Todd Marshall compounded Port’s problems.
Jones was taken high by Alex Davies while Marshall’s legs took the weight of falling teammate Charlie Dixon, the forward to have scans to determine the extent of the damage.
“I’ve been around a long time, seen a lot of strange things happen on the footy field and that’s another one to add to the collection,” Hinkley said of the nature of Marshall’s injury.
“Ultimately, we paid a big price.”
– With AAP