David Bridges
North Melbourne forward Cameron Zurhaar appears to have taken a couple of cheeky parting digs at Jason Horne-Francis following the latter’s move to Port Adelaide.
Horne-Francis was central to one of the meatiest and most significant trades in AFL history on Monday, with North’s No. 1 draftee from 2021 joining the Power in a four-way deal that also involved West Coast and the Giants.
It comes after a rollercoaster debut AFL season for Horne-Francis, who copped ample attention for failing to keep North in the loop of his mid-season bye travels before being dropped to the VFL during the back-half of the year reportedly for subpar recovery standards.
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Concurrently, the Kangaroos finished on the bottom of the ladder after a horror two-win season – which included 13 straight losses by an average margin of 63 points – and parted ways with coach David Noble mid-season.
Zurhaar’s cooking business ‘Bulls Cooking’ on Monday posted a story on its official Instagram page advertising tote bags with a 10 per cent discount available with use of the code “Hornetgone”. Hornet is Horne-Francis’ nickname.
The story was deleted, but another picture was uploaded with the caption: “Discount code, if you know you know.”
It came after Zurhaar also commented on North’s Instagram post confirmed the four-way trade, writing: “Elite.”
North Melbourne list boss Brady Rawlings said trading out Horne-Francis was “not a decision we take lightly”, but added he felt all four clubs involved in the trade have “come out with what they were seeking to achieve”.
“We obviously used Pick 1 on him last year, but we’ve got a player who’s incredible homesick. It was very important for him to get back to South Australia,” Rawlings said.
“We felt we probably wouldn’t get the best footy out of him next year if we were to keep him to his contract. So it was a decision that we made that led to doing this trade, which we think we’ve come out in a pretty favourable position.”
Mason Thompson
Sophie Langley
