So Collingwood’s Stacey Livingstone said in a media interview that Carlton’s Tayla Harris is “useless” if you can stop her in the air. Brilliant. Tell me more. What else does she think?

No hard feelings: Tayla Harris and Stacey Livingstone. Credit:Getty Images

Too often athletes are, well, boring, seldom telling us what they really think and loath to provide provocative opinions. Instead, they appear in stage-managed press conferences or interviews and roll out carefully crafted key messages that take us nowhere and add nothing to our interest in the game.

This comes from the old adage of never giving your opponent any ammunition along with the knowledge that if you ever did dare say something remotely provocative, it will appear in the form of a sensationalist back-page headline.

That’s why Livingstone’s comments were so brilliant. Not only was she honest, but in today’s image-driven sports media landscape, it was also wonderfully unexpected.