A disappointed Damien Hardwick believes the umpires \u201cgot caught up in the emotion of the game\u201d on a night the Gold Coast lost the free-kick count 33-16 to Port Adelaide and blew a golden opportunity to finish the season in the top four.<\/p>\n
The Suns\u2019 four-point loss to the emotion-charged Power outfit at Adelaide Oval means they now have to beat Essendon next Wednesday in their cyclone-delayed clash to make finals for the first time in the club\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
It was a tough theatre for the Subs, as Port Adelaide finished the season with a stirring victory in front of a raucous home crowd to farewell retiring coach Ken Hinkley and club great Travis Boak.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the umpires got caught up in the emotion of the game. Can happen,\u201d Hardwick said in his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201c(But you are) asking the wrong bloke the wrong question. Maybe ask the umpiring department.\u201c<\/p>\n
Brisbane Lions legend Jonathan Brown told Fox Footy after the game: \u201cThe umpires had an ordinary night.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hardwick has backed his side to rise to the occasion next week against an injury-depleted Essendon.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur players have got to pick themselves up, they\u2019ve got to lead from the front, they\u2019re going to take charge, I\u2019m going to hand it over to them, and we\u2019re going to see what this group\u2019s made of,\u201d Hardwick said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause they are made of something special \u2014 tonight they didn\u2019t show it, but I think they\u2019re capable of doing some really good things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disappointed Damien Hardwick believes the umpires \u201cgot caught up in the emotion of the game\u201d on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-89145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}