After being put through the wringer for five days under harsh quarantine rules in Perth, Giants netball captain Jo Harten has been targeted by sickening online abuse following her side’s heartbreaking loss to the West Coast Fever on Monday night.

Giants coach Julie Fitzgerald said her side went through “every emotion” as they were subjected to harsh quarantine rules for five days in Perth — while Essendon’s players were free to roam the city after producing a single negative COVID test.

But emerging from the situation, which captain Harten said felt like being “caged animals”, the Giants went down by a single goal against the unbeaten Fever at RAC Arena.

Then in an ugly aftermath, Harten was hit with hateful messages on Instagram that was labelled “shameful” by some of her Fever opponents.

In a classy response Harten, a member of England’s Commonwealth Games gold medal-winning side in 2018, wouldn’t bite back.

“Love me or hate me, I compete hard for 60 mins, but no one deserves this,” Harten wrote.

Fever captain Courtney Bruce, who as goalkeeper marked Harten during the match on Monday night, was quick to throw support to the Giants skipper.

“This is NEVER ok! This behaviour is extremely unacceptable & shouldn’t be tolerated!” she wrote.

Giants netball general manager Tim Underwood condemned the online abuse.

“Behaviour like this is completely unacceptable and our athletes deserve better,” he said.

“Jo is an experienced player who will no doubt move on quickly like the champion she is, but she’s done the right thing by calling this incident out.

“Not every athlete has the tools to deal with such vitriol and abuse like this can do serious damage to the mental wellbeing of athletes.

“No matter what you think of the athlete or the result, behaviour like this has no place in our game or in sport more broadly.”

It had already been a tough five days for the Giants, who played the match after five days in hotel quarantine.

Their bid to scramble into Western Australia last Thursday before changes to border regulations fell just short after the state government announced restrictions as they flew across the Nullarbor.

Having been in Victoria from May 22-24 to play the Melbourne Vixens last start, Giants players and staff fell foul of Western Australia’s tough border restrictions and were confined to their hotel rooms, with only short breaks each day for training.

Their fate was starkly different to that of Essendon’s AFL players — who played a match at a declared COVID exposure site in Melbourne but were able to roam Perth freely ahead of their clash against West Coast on Saturday after arriving just hours before the Giants and beating WA’s lockdown.

Netball Australia interim CEO Ron Steiner hit out at the West Australian government over what he perceived as a double standard.

But Fitzgerald was unwilling to comment on the difference in treatment, not knowing the details of the Bombers’ circumstances, and simply praised her team’s handling of the situation.

“We went through every emotion on those first two days and there was just so much emotion because we didn’t know if we were going to have to stay in quarantine,” she said.

“Once we knew what our fate was, we did a pretty good job of accepting it, and we realised that we certainly wouldn’t have the preparation that we (would otherwise have) had, but we had six months of preparation and we had to call back on that.

“The fact that we did stick with them, it shows that we are in this competition and we can take on anyone.

“I think they are the benchmark of the competition, so if we can do that under these conditions, then I think we have every chance to go further ahead.”