Cricket
Racing
Rugby
League
Motorsport
Football
Golf
Combat Sports
Basketball
Tennis
Other Sports
Sport Nation
"Incredible" Power leadership commended amid Horne-Francis outburst
SEN • April 27th, 2025 5:45 pm
Port Adelaide’s Jason Horne-Francis has found himself under the spotlight following an emotional outburst during his side’s nine-point victory over the Kangaroos.
The 21-year-old midfielder was clearly the target of attention against his old side, frequently found in the centre of scraps around the ground, one of which resulted in a free-kick and a goal to North Melbourne as the game was in contention.
Speaking with coach Ken Hinkley, the young star was seen attempting to walk away from the conversation, having to be held in place by club leaders Connor Rozee and Zak Butters.
Speaking with Fox Footy post-match, Horne-Francis admitted that controlling his emotions is a factor that the midfielder is continuing to work on.
“I’m still trying to learn from those moments and keep my cool a little bit more,” he said.
“It was just a little one-time thing in the game. I just need to keep getting better at it, keep talking to people and keep finding ways I can control myself.”
Hinkley was quick to defend Horne-Francis, putting the incident down to his intense and fierce nature.
“I was just trying to help him a little bit and calm him down because he’s an emotional player,” Hinkley said in his post-match presser.
“I love that about him, he’s such a fierce competitor, and he’s playing against North Melbourne, who we all understand where he came from.
“I think the thing we miss a little bit with ‘Hornet’ is he has to work damn hard for any free kick, yet he can give them away a little bit easy.
“I would recommend that he gets to earn his free kicks a lot more than most people, and I’m not saying he does everything perfect, I just think he gets held onto and all sorts of treatment, but he keeps playing hard and going at the footy.
“Sometimes it boils over… players like that don’t always get it perfect for themselves or the team, but you admire the way that they go about it.
“He was frustrated and he let his frustrations boil over into stuff he couldn’t control. When he gets like that, we’ve just got to try to bring him back down.”
Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney was full of compliments for the manner in which the situation was dealt with, particularly commending the Port Adelaide leaders for de-escalating the situation.
“I think they (dealt with it) really well,” Cooney told SEN’s Crunch Time.
“Particularly the leaders, to keep him engaged because he is a fiery customer.
“He would have known that he made mistakes on the field, and that can bubble over.
“It’s a maturity thing as well, in four or five-years’ time we won’t see that from him as he grows up and his brain starts to develop a little bit more.
“I thought it was incredible for those two players to recognise that this isn’t going too well, let’s just hold him here so the coach can have a fatherly word of advice in his ear.
“Ken (Hinkley), to be fair, was staying as calm as anyone in that situation. I think if a player had walked away from a coach in some other instances, then the coach might not have been as calm with his player. They might have been a little bit more forthright.
“No matter what the situation is, if you’re in the right, if you’re in the wrong, you always stand there, you eyeball your coach and listen to what they have to say.”
Port Adelaide are set for a clash with the Western Bulldogs in Ballarat next Saturday.
