printer friendly version

KICKING IT AROUND

Let’s talk about AFL football. Not the game. Not which teams will win or lose this weekend. Not whether or not Melbourne footie fans can support Collingwood because they are the last ones in the last man standing competition. And I won’t.

I’m supporting the Brisbane Lions. The Brisbane-Fitzroy Lions. It would be interesting to see an all-Adelaide final between the Crows and Port Power.

VERY interesting. And whatever happens –even if the Magpies are not there – there will be a huge crowd at the MCG for the grand final.

And why not? The MCG is the crucible of this game. It is not like football in America, The Super bowl is held in a different city every year and rarely does the host city have a team in the final showdown.

But places like the MCG or Wimbledon are the sporting churches and they remain the home of the event whomever is playing.

But that is not why I am talking about football. In fact the point I am going to make is more about life and loyalty and commitment and honesty than the game we love.

I want to speculate and ruminate on something that happened yesterday. And I stress all of what I am saying is a Hinch Hunch. I have no inside information. None. No guru insight. None.

But I smell that I am pretty close to being right on the button. And what prompts these comments is the news about Paul Roos being confirmed officially as the coach of the Sydney Swans. Confirmed for three years.

Roos was dead in the water a few weeks ago. A piece of meat to be discarded. The poor schmuck who stepped in to fill the hole temporarily after the Swans bosses sacked Rodney Eade.

And I am sure the gurus had a plan. I suspect the Swans talked to somebody close to Terry Wallace at the Western Bulldogs and dangled a few carrots.

Such a big bunch that Wallace smelt the money and whatever and with a rush of blood to the head dumped on his team and his teammates.

Think back to the press conference. All his way. Had to go. No fire in the belly. But shucks I’ll deign to coach them for one last game.

But the Bulldogs got some spine and said, in the vernacular, Piss Off.

That shocked Wallace but there were still three teams out there begging for his high priced services. Maybe there were. There aint now.

And Terry Wallace will spend next year at least in the unwanted wilderness.

And it serves him right. Methinks he got too clever by half. Play two sides against the middle sunshine and sometimes the middle evaporates.

And why did Sydney stop wooing him? Why did they kick Wallace out of bed even before they consummated it once?

Because of two groups that get ignored these days in this supposedly big business world of football. Two groups. People I thought may have been important. Then supporters and the players.

And they told their board in no uncertain terms that the man thrown to the lions after their board sacked Rodney Eade was good enough for them.

And, taking over a tattered team, he won six of his ten games.

And he did it with a bunch of supporters and players who respected what he did and admired what he did and adored what he did.

For once a board listened.

That put Terry Wallace out in the cold. After the rubbish he served up at the press conference he got clobbered.

And to give you an example of how out of touch his people were when they planned this and ambushed the Bulldogs board and torched their supporters listen to this:

The Sydney Daily Telegraph ran a poll of supporters. Who did YOU want? Paul Roos or Terry Wallace? The result 1025 for Roos and 23 for Wallace. But the headline was the most damning thing. It said:

Run out of town. Wallace bows to public pressure and ends push for the Swans coaching job.

Why am I rapt about a team I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss about?

Because for once the real people, the grass roots supporters, let their opinions be known. And they won. Carlton take note.

Friday, September 20, 2002