Dockers coach Ross Lyon has swept aside a bitter rivalry with cross-town club West Coast to back the AFL premier's stance on eliminating racism in today's modern game.
Fremantle's support on Wednesday was in stark contrast to where relations sat between the two clubs after both western derbies last year were marred by incidents that saw both at loggerheads.
Ross Lyon talks about the Liam Ryan incident at Wednesday's press conference.
West Coast on Tuesday used a racist online attack on forward Liam Ryan to further push for education and influence change in the community.
The club's Indigenous liaison officer and inaugural Eagle Phil Narkle, along with recently-appointed development coach Chance Bateman, produced a video explaining the hurt caused by such posts and why the term "monkey" was more than just name-calling.
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The AFL and Richmond also got on board, with the person responsible for the racist post having his Richmond club membership suspended for two years.
"Before we start I'd really just like to talk about what's occurred with Liam Ryan," Fremantle coach Ross Lyon said before his weekly press conference on Wednesday.
"The Fremantle Football Club has a rich history of Indigenous players … we're incredibly supportive and are calling out, as West Coast are, and we hope the rest of Australia, the vitriol and the bile of the keyboard warriors, there is no place in our game for that.
The standards that you walk by are the standards you accept, so everyone needs to make a strong stand.
Ross Lyon
"Personally, watching that video I think the education piece for our children coming through and all of us as adults is really pertinent.
"I learnt a lot more about the cultural understanding about when Australia was turned into no man's land, the atrocities that occurred and why the term is offensive, it has been used before to (denigrate) some of our greatest Indigenous players.
"We stand united as a WA football community and AFL community, we register our public support and I am really passionate in that space.
"Id just like to put that on the public record that we are fully aligned, we are fierce rivals with everyone in the AFL but there are causes when we come together.
"There is no place for this and we need to continue to call it out, because the standards that you walk by are the standards you accept."
Lyon said he didn't have to ask his Indigenous players how they felt about the attack on young gun Ryan.
"Within the AFL it is a brotherhood of the Aboriginal boys, so they would be feeling the pain, as we are," he said.
"It's an emotional topic … when you're the coach of these boys, it's just hard to comprehend.
"I played with Aboriginal boys in the Diamond Valley in 1983 and the racism coming over the fence then … I would like to think we have evolved, and everyone's held to higher account.
"So, everyone needs to make a strong stance. We understand the racism is coming from a minority, but we need to weed it out, we just need to continue to educate. In the end, the good people come out on top.”
Fremantle's Indigenous reach includes 19 players across the clubs AFL, AFLW and NGA playing lists, the club's number one ticket holder and Indigenous elder Richard Walley, board member Colleen Hayward and a massive cohort of past players, including current staff members Michael Johnson and Roger Hayden.
The AFL on Tuesday said it wRead More – Source
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