AFL RULES AUSSIE RULES

Some dramatic, sad, even shameful events concerning football in the past 48 hours.

The latest is the sudden death of West Coast Eagles dual premiership star and club stalwart, Chris Mainwaring overnight. He apparently died of a drug overdose. He was 40. Friends said he was depressed.

Before that, two shameful events from Saturday’s Grand Final which finally saw Geelong secure its first premiership in 44 years. One involved Port Adelaide. The other: Geelong’s Administration and the AFL.

First Port. Not taking anything away from the Cats stunning massacre but how can a team of highly-paid, coddled and worshipped, so-called professional, sportsmen go into a Grand Final and get beaten by more than 100 points?

It’s like somebody going into final at Wimbledon and losing 6-love, six-love, six-love.

What these guys do all year is play football and dream and train and think and prepare for this day. Off the field some of them get pissed, get into barroom brawls, drink and drive, sexually assault women, associate with criminals, sleep with other player’s wives, and use and sell illegal drugs, but that is another story.

Port Adelaide were a disgrace. And speaking of disgraces: Who will put their hand up for making the worst football call of the year? Why were the Cats, Geelong’s footy heroes, in Melbourne at Crown on Saturday night and not at home in Geelong with their legion of long suffering fans who had waited more than four decades and several generations for that moment?

It was only a bus ride down the road and yet there they were pooncing around at Federation Square and Crown in another city. I was told about the plan to stay in Melbourne earlier in the day at the Grand Final Breakfast at Jeff’s Shed and couldn’t believe it.

I know former Premier and life-long Geelong fan Steve Bracks couldn’t believe it either. They said it was an AFL decision. After all even the Cheer Squads had to submit and re-submit their banners for AFL approval. And I said: Stuff the AFL. If you win, go to some AFL function with the corporates for half an hour if you have to and then go home to your roots to those thousands who couldn’t get tickets to the MCG and watched the victory at Skilled Stadium and at pubs throughout Geelong.

The Geelong Road would be heavy with traffic, they said. Big deal. Charter a bus. I know Police Commissioner Nixon would have given them a Police escort.

I actually left that Head Table on Saturday morning convinced that Geelong was publicly sticking to the official running sheet so they wouldn’t look too cocky. But if they won then they’d rebel. That Frank Costa or the skipper or the players would say: Our hearts are where our home is. Let’s get out of here.

The faithful fans would have happily waited long into the night to greet them.

Can you imagine the homecoming?  Can you imagine the emotions –for players and their families and their supporters? It would have been awesome. Geelong legend Bob Davis, who coached the Cats to their last Grand Final victory in 1963 was pissed off about it. He said on Saturday  ‘By tomorrow morning some of the euphoria will be lost’. And he was right

They can try to weasel out of this and exult that the Cup came back to Victoria. It didn’t. It came back to Geelong.  Apparently the Geelong team bus did leave Melbourne around 11.30 p.m. and they snuck back home for a private celebration for players, families and friends. But not for all those fans.

So two questions remain: Who made decision that the Cats would remain in Melbourne Saturday night? And why did the Cats go along with it?  After all, it was their trophy. They should have been allowed to take it where and when they wanted. This has AFL Bully Boy ‘do as you are told’ written all over it.

Monday, October 1, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007