AFL Grand Final live: Geelong Cats vs Sydney Swans score, start time, Max Holmes dropped
Tom Papley is the rival footballer that fans love to hate.
Renowned as the Swans’ pantomime villain, the 26-year-old couldn’t help but mock Geelong fans during Friday’s grand finale parade along the Yarra River.
The Melbourne-based event was, inevitably, dominated by Cats fans, and a Geelong fan brought a banner that quickly caught Papey’s eye.
He showed an image of the Swans midfielder’s controversial branding during the fourth quarter of last week’s thrilling preliminary round at the SCG, where Papley was charged with a potential push into the back of Collingwood’d Darcy Moore.
Many footy pundits believed it should have been ruled as a free-kick, and the decision proved costly – Papley scored a goal and the Swans won by a point to book their place in the Grand Final of the AFL.
The banner read: “How Sydney does the Grand Final.”
Papey took a video of the banner and posted it to his Instagram story, mocking the camera in the four-second clip.
Tom Papey loves the support from Collingwood fans. 😂
(🎥: tompapley/IG) pic.twitter.com/KrHIB6jwiU
— SuperFooty (AFL) (@superfooty) September 23, 2022
“It’s huge for me, to play the grand final in 2016 and not get the job done, it really hurts,” Papey told reporters on Friday.
“So I’m looking forward to tomorrow and when that siren goes off, hopefully we’ll be ahead.
“But there will be a lot of adrenaline tomorrow and the crowd will be there, so I’m looking forward to it.”
