A dour Saturday afternoon game between Essendon and Brisbane at Marvel Stadium has created headlines for the wrong reasons with a leaked image of a Brisbane Lions whiteboard detailing thoughts on every Essendon players' strengths and weaknesses doing the rounds on social media.
The whiteboard, which is believed to have been written on by Lions players, assigned strengths and weaknesses to every Bombers player featuring in the Round 8 fixture.
Essendon star Zach Merrett and forward Kyle Langford were both branded as "selfish", while former Lion-now-Bomber Jaxon Prior had the words, "no right foot" and "temper" awarded to his weaknesses section, along with his long term partner's name, Bronte, as his only strength in that column.
The whiteboard image was taken by a parent of an Auskick participant after a clinic was held at the Brighton Homes Arena in Brisbane - the Lions' home base.
Speaking after the Lions defeated the Bombers by 64 points, Brisbane co-captain Josh Dunkley said the listing of opposition strengths and weaknesses on a whiteboard would happen at most clubs.
"It's obviously something that happens inside every four walls I would say," he said on the Fox Footy broadcast.
"Strengths and growths of opposition players, that's what we do as footballers, we always talk about the opposition and who we are coming up against. We actually get our young guys to fill that out so they learn the opposition and then they go and watch vision and then write it up on the whiteboard.
"I spoke to Jaxon Prior after the game and before the game, so he is all good which is nice. We love 'Priz' and he has been at our footy club for a long period of time, so it is good to see him going well for the Bombers."
Fellow Lions co-captain Harris Andrews also commented on the situation via the Fox Footy broadcast.
"I think it's really disappointing that we allow people to come into our facility and we have Auskick clinics and that sort of thing in our cage area out of Brighton Homes (Arena)," Andrews said. "To have someone come in and take photos and spread that is really disappointing.
"We will certainly have to do some things in regard to security and making sure that information doesn't get out there."
Brisbane coach Chris Fagan joined his leaders in sharing his bitter disappointment in the individual who leaked the photos, but said there was zero malicious intent in any of the comments on the whiteboard.
"What I am going to say is that I am not going to comment on what was written on that whiteboard, because from our perspective it is private information," Fagan said in the post-game presser. "Somebody illegally took photos of information that was on a whiteboard and then decided to make a hero of themselves and put it out in the public domain.
"I think it's a little unfair when it is your workplace and it was what you do every day and it's information we keep internal. We have been doing it for nine years, writing the strengths and vulnerabilities of players up on a whiteboard.
"I can promise you nothing that was written on there was sinister in mind or degrading in mind at all.
"I spoke to Jaxon out on the field after our game, as did a lot of our players, and had a little bit of a laugh and a joke together.
"It's very disappointing. We go out of our way to bring the community into our football club and use our facilities. For someone to do that, it's really disappointing and it makes you feel like not bringing the community in and keeping it exclusive as an elite performance centre.
"It staggered me when I heard about it.
"We will keep bringing the community in because we are a good footy club and that's how we we go about things, but when things like that happen you go, 'Should we or shouldn't we?"
Essendon coach Brad Scott said it was an issue for Brisbane to deal with.
"My understanding is that Brisbane have done that for six or seven or eight years, so it's nothing new," Scott said in the post-game press conference. "They would do that for every team I would imagine.
"I think it's a problem for them to deal with, not for us. I wouldn't want that coming out of our building."
The photo was leaked on the Essendon Supporters Group private Facebook page which has nearly 10,000 members.
The image has since been removed from social media.
