For a short time on Sunday, the loser of the drawn clash between North Melbourne and Sydney was young Kangaroo Scott Thompson.
The defender copped an earful from midfielder Brent Harvey who, confused in believing the Roos were in front in the dying seconds, was yelling at his less experienced teammate to slow the game down.
"Scotty Thompson got the ball probably 65 or 70 out [from goal] and moved it on quickly and I gave him a real good spray because I thought he should have been holding onto the ball [because] we were a point up," Harvey said.
"And after the game he’s come back to me and, yeah, given me a little bit of a spray too."
The previous week, Harvey was amused by the exuberant celebrations of Richmond’s Nathan Brown, who enthusiastically punched the sky when the siren sounded in the game against the Bulldogs – only to learn scores were level.
Harvey shared Brown's initial disappointment - then embarrassment - when he and teammate Brady Rawlings were caught on camera embracing in ecstasy at what they felt was a hard-fought victory.
Despite being the unlucky subject this time around, North's best and fairest player of 2007 was able to laugh off the incident.
"It feels a bit funny because all week last week I’m thinking what a fool Browny looked like and, this week, obviously myself and Brady had a premature celebration," he said.
"It wasn’t good, but we got two points so I was pretty happy about that."
Harvey said a simple matter of bad timing accounted for his post-match error.
"I actually looked at the scoreboard as Brett Kirk kicked the point, so obviously it [the point] hadn’t ticked over yet so I thought we were a point up [when the siren went]," he confirmed.
