If Brooke Cotchin wants to make a social media post of love and support for her embattled husband good on her. I am sure it would have been profoundly meaningful to the man it was intended for and I am surprised anyone else thought it worthy of commenting on, let alone criticising. But that is the price you pay when you choose to make a statement on social media- it is no longer private and you are inviting anyone that wants to make comment to do so. Trent Cotchin is a very good footballer and one of his team’s best. Yet instead of recognising that, a lot of comment on him focuses on why he is not a truly great player, holding him to standards set by the very best players in the competition. He also possesses the invidious title of captain of the Richmond Football Club. As such, he is often held to account for the performance of his teammates and team as a whole, regardless of his personal performance. His ‘Leadership’ has frequently been questioned as a way of explaining why players are not developing as well as poor team performances.
Seeing her husband endure this stream of public negativity that is mainly based on others having incredibly high expectations of him, Brooke Cotchin chose to make a public gesture of support. Hopefully it had its desired effect. I imagine it might have been an uplifting counterpoint for Trent. Sadly there was also a bit of public blowback, but I imagine she was prepared for that. As I said at the start, you can’t make a public post and not be prepared for the odd troll. Just a shame that some of those troll were paid TV journalists. Perhaps not such a surprise- I could write a very long essay on the many levels of contempt I hold for that industry.
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