Jason Akermanis: AFL’s most annoying player?

 
The Crowd Roar Pro

By Best Clubman, 2 Apr 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

8 Have your say



Best Clubman keeps a list of things that annoy us most about Australian Rules football.

Our top three would have to be Matthew Lloyd finding a reason to continually hit the turf after every mark, Jason Akermanis performing handstands to the crowd after a victory, and Scott Camporeale.

Luckily for us, two of these items can now be removed from our list with the retirement of Camporeale last season and the news that Akermanis’ handstands will be sighted at football stadiums less than reasonably priced food and handpasses from Scott Lucas.

Unfortunately, Lloyd still continues to become earthbound even when taking uncontested chest marks.

Akermanis’ Western Bulldogs teammates recently confronted the bottle blonde about his predilection for the post-game handstand during what the media reported as a “peer assessment session”.

Having never played any form of competitive sport due to having a body that’s a cross between Montgomery Burns and an aged cat, Best Clubman is unsure exactly what a “peer assessment session” is but we assume it required all Bulldogs players to rank how annoying they found Akermanis and his personality on a scale from 1-10, with the result being an average ranking of 11.

The net outcome was that Akermanis’ teammates have asked him to stop performing handstands as they detract from the team focus the club is trying to instill.

According to Akermanis, “one of the things that came up from a few, not all but just a few, is that they thought the handstand was a bit individual. So unfortunately it seems the handstand is dead, it’s no more.”

After the Bulldogs mortgaged their long-term future by trading several draft picks to acquire Akermanis from Brisbane in a short-term tilt at a premiership, Akermanis would not elaborate on whether he had also reached a secret agreement to reduce his ability to find the football and kick goals after seeing his average disposals have fallen since arriving from the Lions.

In all fairness to the Bulldogs and Akermanis, having the club’s leaders confront the man and ask him to refrain from his post-game victory ritual, and for Akermanis to see their point and acquiesce, is remarkably refreshing and something to be commended.

However, Best Clubman couldn’t help but ponder that a less confrontational way to ensure Akermanis forgoes performing handstands after victories was to ask for a trade to Melbourne.

Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.

Get a daily afl email

Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it.

We value privacy. More.