Don’t think anyone was whataboutering- we can be rubbish just as much as the officiating. And we should be beating Brisbane and creating a bunch of chances.
As for the racial attitudes towards diving, as I said you can’t prove it, it’s all circumstantial.
This what guys like Ernie were saying:
Foreign players light up the highlight reel with their play, but diving is part of the football cultures they grow up in, as Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick explained.
Greg O’Rourke:
It's un-Australian, it's un-New Zealand, we don't want to do it." IE it’s a thing foreigners do.
As for the racial attitudes towards diving, as I said you can’t prove it, it’s all circumstantial.
This what guys like Ernie were saying:
Foreign players light up the highlight reel with their play, but diving is part of the football cultures they grow up in, as Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick explained.
Greg O’Rourke:
It's un-Australian, it's un-New Zealand, we don't want to do it." IE it’s a thing foreigners do.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/85669023/aleague-boss-tells-clubs-to-sort-out-unaustralian-diving-problems
So that’s in the back of a refs mind when watching a foreign player claim a pen, that attitude we had.
One of two guys suspended for simulation in the A league was Argentinian in a situation we see most rounds of a striker and keeper in a 50:50. Seb Ryall, a few years later, was let off when a panel saw special evidence.
https://www.ftbl.com.au/news/ffa---the-bans-stand-230769
If you’re saying to me it wasn’t given because it seemed too soft, despite the conditions for a foul being met, to me it feels like there’s some prejudice to foreigners there that’s contributed to that decision. I don’t think it influenced the result of the game, it’s just a terrible call that I’m at a loss to understand. I’m sure the VAR assumed they were showing video of a fact.