Clockwise from left: Willie Rioli, Adam Goodes, Jaidyn Stephenson, Toby Greene.
An imperfect grand final match-up for a sport light on recent good news stories … such is life.
And yet sport is not meant to be life, but rather an escape from its everyday clutches. At its best, sport is a dreamland from which we are desperate not to wake. Perhaps Saturday’s AFL premiership-decider will take us there, a classic hiding in plain sight.
But one can understand the reservations.
The Tigers are only two years’ removed from their fairytale 2017 premiership, a near-universally welcomed triumph for a club that had spent the previous 35-odd years in the far reaches of football wilderness.
But it only takes about 24 months, a whole lot of winning, poaching a superstar forward in Tom Lynch and a few contented clichés after a preliminary final victory for a big Melbourne club like Richmond to lose its shine for anyone not cloaked in yellow and black.
And then there is GWS, the club that fooled us.
Just when a player exodus coupled with an injury crisis had eased our fears of the AFL’s own Frankenstein’s monster enjoying an inevitable period of dominance, the Giants broke their grand final duck.
That their run to the big dance has coincided with a return to the kind of anti-social football that marked their early ascent – headlined of course by Toby Greene’s antics – has done little to win the club friends outside of western Sydney.
And that’s not to mention the looming perfect storm that is enforcer Shane Mumford’s potential last game falling on grand final day when suspensions are a non-factor.
Think Brisbane’s Alastair Lynch infamously going out swinging in the 2004 grand final if you are looking for a worst case scenario.
The Giants’ biggest crime, however, was hardly their fault. It was to rob us of the mouth-watering Tigers v Pies blockbuster on Saturday afternoon, complete with the historical baggage, big Victorian club buzz and next (and perhaps even final) chapter in the Nathan Buckley redemption story.
But of course, disappointment is something AFL fans have grown accustomed to of late. If it’s not the AFL administration’s penchant for rule changes, it’s the failings of the score review and disciplinary systems it oversees.
While the extent of the disciplinary system’s flaws were on full display during the sorry Greene saga, it wasn’t alone in emerging with a bloody nose.
For it’s hard not to think that the Giants and Greene’s manager, Paul Connors’ indignant reaction to Greene’s preliminary final suspension spoke to a general enablement that has informed Greene’s recidivism.
And the tortured Gold Coast experience continues to frustrate, particularly for those that feel it has come at the expense of Tasmanian expansion.
Disappointment, too, in the wake of the release of the Adam Goodes inspired documentaries, “The Final Quarter” and “The Australian Dream”, which held a mirror up to certain sections of the AFL community with more than a few cracks showing.
Throw in the conflicts of interest associated with multiple club officials doubling as members of the media that continue to blight the game.
The sight of Collingwood president (and Fox Footy commentator) Eddie McGuire completing an uber-public victory lap of the MCG following Collingwood’s first-round finals victory was a particular lowlight.
There was the Willie Rioli drug testing mess on the eve of West Coast’s finals exit and the Jaidyn Stephenson betting scandal that came before it. Then, of course, the tragic passing of St Kilda favourite son, Danny Frawley.
And so a game that often floats detached from reality has been pulled back down to earth. But it will endure. It always does.
If we needed any reassurance, the gripping last quarter of Saturday’s preliminary final – as the Pies mounted their furious, yet ultimately futile, comeback against the Giants – was testament to a proud game that will not be bowed by human folly.
And now we await the big one. Grand final week, life is still good.
