RETIRED Brownlow Medal winner Adam Cooney has opened up about the barrage of abuse he would cop on social media following an Essendon loss.

Cooney crossed from the Western Bulldogs to the Bombers at the end of the 2014 season and played two seasons in the red and black.

In that time Essendon won just five games and Cooney heard all about it via his Twitter account.

“I would dread checking my Twitter after a game because I knew there would be a barrage of abuse,” he said.

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“A lot of the Essendon supporters were pretty ruthless on me.

“I would get a lot of criticism about my kicking and after a while I kept getting more and more of it, and I was reading about it.

“I think it did affect my kicking, because I was thinking about it out on the field.

“In games if I would miss a kick, at the time I’d be thinking, oh gee I’m going to cop it for that.”

Cooney only struggled with the criticism when he moved to the Bombers, mostly because his form dropped off and injuries took their toll.

media_camera Adam Cooney played two seasons with Essendon. Picture: Colleen Petch.

Essendon was also going through a tough time with the supplements saga continuing to hang over the club.

Cooney said that, as he started to pay more attention to the abuse, he would look at the users who were attacking him.

“If I get abused on Twitter after a game and it’s particularly harsh, I’ll go into the person’s account and actually see some of the previous things they’ve written,” he said on SEN radio.

“That gives you a little insight into the person’s mindset and what sort of person they actually are.

“A lot of them are lonely people.

“Towards the end I struggled a little bit with it. When I was younger it didn’t bother me at all, and I think it was because I didn’t cop much criticism when I was younger because I could actually play when I was younger.

media_camera Adam Cooney leaves the field after a loss. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

“Whereas I was just trying to hang on the last few years of my career, so a lot of it was warranted.

“If it’s...constructive criticism you might take a bit of notice of it but a lot of it is people with say five to 10 followers.”

While he only had to deal with the criticism late in his career, Cooney said it would be hard for a young player to have to deal with it throughout their time in the AFL.

“I’d hate to be an 18-year-old kid copping that every week, it doesn’t matter who you are it wears you down.

“I would advise to not have a Twitter account.”