David and Candice Warner's secret classy act

By Hannah Mouncey

Australians love to bully. There, I've said it.

That's not going to be a popular statement among large sections of the community, but maybe they're the people who engage and revel in it. But if there's one thing that's become evident in the last two weeks since the ball tampering scandal hit, then that's it.

This is not to excuse what the three players involved did, but the ongoing and extreme nature of the comments made towards these players, particularly David Warner and his family, on social media and from the news media has been absolutely abhorrent.

Tall poppy syndrome is nothing new in this country. While most seem to have responded positively and with early signs of forgiveness towards Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft after their press conferences last week, the vitriol and public lynching of Warner has continued.

Is it because of his nature on the field, his background, his success ... or is entirely because he seems to be the one who instigated the ball tampering incident?

The truth is it's all of those things. The ball tampering was the green light needed for sections of the public to unleash on someone only a short time earlier we were cheering on in the Ashes.

Australia wants to like Smith. He's the guy we can all relate to as Test captain — the middle class kid next door who worked hard, went through the ranks and went on to captain his country. Bancroft is the new guy who was 'pressured' into doing it by Warner and is nothing but a victim of circumstance and peer pressure.

So who else was Australia going to take their anger out on? From the moment Bancroft and Smith held their press conferences, it was always going to be Warner.

Some Australians want to see him fail. They want his fall from grace to be as harsh as any seen. He's a guy from a working class background, and isn't as well spoken as a Smith or Adam Gilchrist before him. He goes hard on the field, but no harder than a Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne or Mark Waugh.

But perception is everything, and there is a large part of Australian society that sees him and feels ripped off that he, not them, has had all the success he has had. The millions of dollars, the international travel and beautiful wife. These things surely aren't deserving of someone they perceive as a loudmouth bogan who's simply lucky enough to be able to hit a ball. And that's why so many members of the public and media are riding his downfall so hard.

But he doesn't deserve that, and he certainly isn't a loudmouth bogan, which is something I can vouch for personally.

It's no secret that I've seen first hand how harsh the public can be, although not on the scale he and Candice have had to endure over the past month.

When I was going through all the issues I faced with the AFL (as a trans player, I've been fighting to be able to play in the AFLW), there was a small number of people who I hadn't yet met who reached out to offer their absolute support. One was former Hawthorn player Russell Greene, another was an AFLW player I will keep anonymous, and the last of these people were Candice and David Warner.

Former Australian cricket vice captain David Warner kisses his wife Candice before a press conference in Sydney, Saturday, March 31, 2018. Photo / AP.

No one made them do that, there was no doing it for appearances and it was clearly entirely genuine. It's a side people don't get to see of anyone when they're competing.

If people are going to judge someone, they need to take into account a lot more than one mistake on the cricket field or whether the way they play Test cricket fits in with how spectators on the couch would go about it.

The public and media went hard on Warner for not holding a press conference upon landing in Sydney but the reality is, he was the only one of the three players with a wife and kids travelling with him. I would expect him to get his kids home first before speaking properly to the media, and I think anyone would. To do anything else would have been absurd, and after witnessing his press conference on Saturday, could you blame him for not wanting to expose his children to what was coming?

There was already a lot of angst towards Warner because of the issue involving South African wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock in the First Test, but again, if what is alleged to have been said was true, then I would also probably expect him to respond the same way.

That it was Warner shouldn't make a difference, but I'm sure if it was Mitch Starc or Shaun Marsh reacting that way then we wouldn't have seen it be made into the issue it was.

Which leads me to ask the question: with the drama that's recently unfolded plus the constant and unacceptable harassment of Candice from the South African supporters — should we not be praising Candice for how she's carried herself throughout this saga?

Instead she's being treated just as 'David Warner's wife' and copping significant criticism herself.

Meanwhile, unless they got exactly what they wanted, the media and public were always going to paint Warner's media conference as a cop out. Going into it, the media in attendance were always going to ask for two things; that he dob his teammates in and admit that he's done it for each of his 74 tests.

No one is ever going to do either of those things, and those asking would have known that. The outrage that he didn't do either of those things was ridiculous, but it was asked with full knowledge that any answer was going to allow them to crucify Warner further.

Hopefully now we will quickly see the end of this saga, with players serving whatever suspension is accepted and the public taking a deep breath and realising that while these three players made a mistake on the field, they are all good people with families who certainly don't deserve the level of scrutiny, criticism and public hatred playing out at the moment.

Hannah Mouncey has been a member of the Australian Handball team for the last seven years and is an AFL footballer. She also does considerable work with the AFL Pride Cup and Proud2Play inclusion and anti bullying program.