A dour Saturday afternoon game between Essendon and Brisbane at Marvel Stadium has created headlines for the wrong reasons with a leaked image of 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 section, along with what is believed to be his long term partner, Bronte, in his strength 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."
The photo was leaked on the Essendon Supporters Group private Facebook page which has nearly 10,000 members.
Brisbane is aware of the images which have since been removed from social media.
More to come...
