“WHAT’S HE THINKING?”: CORNES CRITICAL OF RICHMOND’S STACKBy Andrew Slevison
SEN
14 Feb 2022Kane Cornes could not quite believe what he saw when he was sent an Instagram story post on the weekend.
The video was of Richmond’s Sydney Stack performing a backflip off a cliff in Blairgowrie.
Teammate Tom Lynch filmed Stack launching himself off the Jumping Rock which is about a seven-metre height.
WATCH HERE: https://twitter.com/kanecornes/status/1492963676512747520Cornes has been critical of Stack in the past, and wondered why he would perform such a risky trick only a month out from the start of the AFL season.
“I thought that could not be Sydney Stack 33 days out from round one when his career is on a knife’s edge,” he said on SEN Breakfast.
“When Charlie Curnow has hardly played since he hurt his knee playing basketball, when Jaidyn Stephenson fractured his hip on a bike, when Ollie Wines ruins the best part of two years with a water-skiing incident and the education these players have in terms of what you should be doing to prepare yourself off the field.
“What is the benefit other than a couple of Instagram likes?”
Cornes’ co-host Sam Edmund was in support of the player: “Would you be shocked to perhaps consider that maybe Sydney Stack has done this 500 times over his life?”
Cornes replied: “He looks like he is an expert at doing backflips off cliffs.
“I wish he was an expert at playing football.
“In 2020 he breached protocols and the club was fined $100,000, last year he was arrested and fined $6000 for breaching quarantine.
“This is a guy who is that talented. It’s going to be a travesty if he doesn’t play for 12 years and 200 games.
“What’s he thinking?”
Cornes didn’t miss Lynch either, with the key forward considered one of the candidates to fill the captaincy vacancy at Punt Road.
“Furthermore to that, what’s Tom Lynch doing filming this?,” he added.
“The next day I pick up the paper and I read a story that Tom Lynch wants to be captain of Richmond. If he wants to be captain of Richmond, he says to Stack, ‘Hey Sydney, back off the cliff, we don’t need you jumping and breaking your neck or breaking a leg’.
“He wants to be the captain, Tom Lynch? He films it and posts it to Instagram.
“This is a guy whose career is on life support and I see him doing backflips from seven or eight metres up into what appears to be shallow water.
“Jumping of a cliff and doing a backflip into shallow water is a risk I wouldn’t be taking if my career was on life support 33 days out from round one.”
Edmund responded: “What’s unthinkable for you and I might not be unthinkable for Sydney Stack who has grown up doing it his entire life.
“Hundreds of people jump off it every day. He’s an adult who makes his own risk assessments.
“I had to laugh, because my first instinct when I did see it was, ‘Wow, that is cool, I can’t believe someone can do that’. Your first instinct was horror.”
Cornes concluded: “Does he take his career seriously, is what I’m asking.
“I’m so shocked by it.
“I’m not for one minute comparing the seriousness of getting arrested and being locked up to jumping off a cliff, but when you weigh up the whole package and that he’s very lucky to get a one-year contract extension at Richmond and he’s very lucky to still be on an AFL list considering what he’s put that club through.”
Stack has played 33 games over three seasons for the Tigers and appeared back to his best across half-back in the latter stages of last season.
The 21-year-old signed a one-year deal in October last year.
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2022/02/13/whats-he-thinking-cornes-critical-of-richmonds-stack/
