The week in footy started, as this stuff do, with a Texan in protecting goggles tearing the Queens Birthday recreation to shreds. It proved that individuals are nonetheless keen to go to the soccer in massive numbers. It revealed all types of cracks within the reigning premiers. It noticed a rollicking end from Collingwood. It compressed the ladder, and threw the premiership race huge open. It raised tens of millions extra for Motor Neurone Illness analysis.
It then shortly moved, because the week in footy all the time does, to the damaging. It zeroed in on an 18-year-old No 1 draft choose. It emphasised the business’s obsession with bringing these younger males to heel, with ensuring they don’t get forward of themselves, with sucking each morsel of individuality out of them. It prompted Nathan Buckley to ask: “what are we doing to this child?”
It reignited the talk round medication. It embarrassed a footballer who's extra model than man. It elicited yet one more idiotic Jeff Kennett take – this time droning on about zero tolerance and two-year bans. It uncovered the delicate compromise that's the illicit medication coverage – half punitive, half hurt minimisation, half rehabilitative, half model administration. It landed on a two-week suspension.
It showcased the most effective of soccer on the Corridor of Fame dinner. It afforded lengthy overdue recognition to Nicky Winmar. It bestowed Legend standing on one of many nice South Australian footballers. It noticed a speech from a Rhodes Scholar, and an excellent higher one from a person raised in a mission dwelling.
It encapsulated, in a single photograph of Winmar, Mike Fitzpatrick, Brent Harvey, Invoice Dempsey and Matthew Pavlich – that champions of this sport are available all sizes and styles, from all backgrounds, and all cultures. It launched us to many males we could not have been conversant in – stars from the Melancholy, from West Australia and Tasmania. It reminded us that the historical past of this sport extends effectively past the AFL period.
It was then side-tracked by yet one more of Eddie McGuire’s stray concepts. It was a ‘reshaping’, not a relocation he mentioned on Footy Categorised. It was, by any measure, an insult to North Melbourne supporters, to the state of Tasmania and to the viewing public. It begged the query – has a tv present ever blown extra sizzling air, and brought itself extra significantly?
It drummed dwelling how resistant Tasmanians are to having a rented crew, and to being advised what is sweet for them. “It will be the only largest act of bastardry within the historical past of the sport for the Presidents to vote this down,” Gerard Whateley mentioned.
It shifted again, mercifully, to precise video games of soccer. It supplied a second likelihood for a mid-season draftee who learnt the Carlton game-plan off his MacBook. It then sidelined him for a month when his knee blew out. It drew greater than 50,000 diehards, in pissing rain, on a faculty night time. It escalated right into a scuffle between a former Xavier Collegian whose mum was a Sale of the Century mannequin, and a Noongar man who spent three years in jail.
It threw up beautiful moist climate abilities, the controversial rescission of a purpose, and a whole lot of tedious tut-tutting about purpose celebrations. It put the concern of God into any crew that pulls Richmond in a ultimate on the MCG. It was adopted up by upsets on the Docklands and the Adelaide Oval, and an almighty fright for Geelong in Perth.
It bid bon voyage to a person who was arrested in his bathrobe final yr, and who broke up his 2022 marketing campaign with some padel tennis, therapeutic massage remedy, bottomless margaritas and tequila throwbacks. It impressed a sometimes restrained Herald Solar headline – “De Goey is likely to be the dumbest participant of his era.” It noticed the participant in query hit again by way of social media, calling out “the relentless persecution of athletes”. It will finish in tragedy, he mentioned, if this form of harassment endured.
It ended, for this columnist, his frostbitten companion, his bewildered canine, and 1000's of different Melburnians, on the Reclink Neighborhood recreation at Victoria Park. Its genesis was a lunchtime kick-to-kick on the Sacred Coronary heart Mission in St Kilda. It has since raised tens of millions for Australians experiencing psychological sickness, dependancy, homelessness, household violence and social isolation. It was freed from construction, function gamers and Instagram statements, however wealthy in spirit.
It was simply one other week of soccer, one other week of rogues, blowhards and champions, one other week of all the things that's pointless, pitiless and wondrous concerning the sport.
Post a Comment