Brave Beserkers,
The Australian Football League has completely outdone itself in these difficult and uncertain times. Footy has gone from being a simple Satdee arvo game to an utterly meaningless sideshow...20 days straight, yep, football every day for 20 days, with 33 matches including double headers. That's more like a Big Bash cricket hit'n'giggle, but with rain. Too much confusion. If it wasn't in doubt before, it's now exposed for what it is - a desperate bid to keep the TV rights alive and some cash coming through the front door to offset the enormous cost of the bubbles - and we're not talking Bollinger here - and everything else. The stated aim of these shenanigans is to further compress the season by two weeks in order to prevent the Grand Final clashing with the Cox Plate. It will now be on the same day as the Caulfield Cup, which immediately prompts the question - which is the most important, time-honoured race? Remember, by now, we should be deep into the pointy end of the season and debate should all be about who will make the top four. As it is, the poor folks remaining in the ALF Fixtures Dept. are pulling the hair out of their scones in great tufts. Of course, all this has absolutely nothing, zilch, zip, to do with the fans.
The AFL did very well to implement the complete evacuation of Melbourne well before it became a super Covid hotbed in order to save the season, but everything remains a day to day proposition - anything could happen to entirely derail the comp tomorrow. Things becomes more farcical by the hour it seems, especially with the Ladies Football level of goal scoring seen at present. Week before last, the Swans posted their lowest score in several decades, but there's no way of knowing exactly when they kicked fewer goals, because the Stats Guru is asleep at the abacus as we speak.
Now, if you think you are the only one who reckons this is all bullshit, think again. According to several articles by well-respected sports writers seen mid week - you should ever underestimate tribalism and it's just so great to have the footy back, and fabulous football is the one thing that keeps the desperate, but Marvellous, Melbourne alive in winter, and there are legions of fanatics down Mexico way who's mental health literally depends on it, in an "anything is better than nothing" scenario.
Gawd crikey - we all know that Melbourne is the only city in the world where people will turn out in good numbers to watch two flies crawling up a wall, but this is well beyond a joke - given that Melbournians now have no chance of going to any ground anywhere in the world this year.
While the numbers in
at the SCG hasn't been published, some crowd figures are
starting to filter in - and the "open the gates and they will
come" theory doesn't stack up. Take the local derby in the
Golden West where the new Perth Stadium has a nominal capacity
of 60,000 and there were no restrictions as WA hasn't had a
case of The Covid in yonks - and yet only 25,306 turned up.
Over at Adelaide Oval (capacity 53,500) only 13,579 showed to
see the Pride of South Australia go 0-7 for the season to be
firmly rooted at the bottom of the table, running stone
motherless last (just behind the Swans).
SYDNEY: 2.1 5.3 9.3 9.6 (60). Goals: McCartin 2, Aliir 2, Papley 2, Hayward 2, Clarke. GOLD COAST: 2.3 6.7 10.13 13.14 (92). Goals: Weller 2, Rankine 2, Day 2, Anderson, MacPherson, Sexton, Lukosius, King, Swallow, Holman. At Sydney Cricket Ground. Crowd: Not published. The Rugby League is making a better fist of things being confined to the East Coast and NZ, and at least they won't need daily footy to scurry through it. Rugby Union, in contrast, blunders its way to bankruptcy and oblivion, and the less said about that code the better. It's always mightily pleasing to see the Mighty Tiges win to nil at the Spiritual Home, but the television commentary became very tiresome as the boffins kept moaning "it's just so, so, sad to see the legendary Bronco's reduced to a shadow of their former selves". That's true - Brissy is really struggling - but there was no "that's not to take anything away from the Tigers who are putting on a brilliant football exhibition here", which they did. Yet again, Balmain take for granted. Under normal circumstances in pre-plague days, folks would have been fighting with each other to get into Leichhardt Oval for this one. But with a nominal capacity of 20,000 (any more and Leichhardt is downright dangerous with the serious potential of crowd crushes), they couldn't even fill the 5,000 cap on spectators - there was no turning them away from the turnstiles, with just over half the allowed number of fans turning up and braving it. Nobody is in any great rush to expose themselves here. WESTS TIGERS 48. Tries: Luke Garner (2), L.Leilua (2), Grant, Marshall, McIntyre, Walters. Goals: Mbye (6). BRISBANE BRONCOS 0. At Leichhardt Oval. Crowd: 2,633.
