Grand Final doesn’t need Pies or Blues to be great

Dynamic small forwards: Brisbane’s Charlie Cameron and Giants skipper Toby Greene. Photos: GETTY IMAGES

Ahead of the penultimate weekend of the AFL season, there’s four potential grand final match-ups, but it feels like there’s only one in which everyone’s interested.

The prospect of a Collingwood-Carlton playoff has the pundits, the overly-parochial and no doubt (at least privately) the head honchos at league headquarters drooling.

The Blues and Pies haven’t met in a final of any description for 35 years, let alone a grand final. And those of us old enough to remember the famous grand finals between the two of them in 1970, 1979 and 1981 know how storied those games remain more than 40 or 50 years later. A modern-day revival would be unmissable, a football romantic’s dream.

But what if that doesn’t happen? Well, I’m here to play salesman for those other potential pairings, including THAT one being roundly rubbished as the other end of the attractiveness spectrum.

Yep, Brisbane v Greater Western Sydney might not have the history or rivalry attached to the Blues and Pies, but as a game of football to decide a premiership, there’s a fair argument it would be better to watch.

They’ve already played out a free-scoring, fast and entertaining contest this season in Canberra, eventually won by 21 points by the Lions with Charlie Cameron booting seven goals. You can have very short odds that a rematch would be, for the football purist, every bit as good to watch.

Collingwood v Brisbane? Well, the Pies and Lions have been the two best-performed teams in 2023, duked out a very entertaining clash only a bit over a month ago, and do have plenty of grand final history of their own, their 2002-03 grand final battles still regularly discussed and debated.

And Carlton v GWS? They’re officially the two best-performed teams of the second half of this season, the Blues with 11 wins from their past 12 games, and the Giants 11 from 13. If you drew up a post-bye rounds AFL ladder, they’d be Nos. 1 and 2 on it.

There’s not one but four grand final match-ups all bursting with possibilities. And to be honest, I’m a little miffed even to still be having to play spruiker for games other than those between traditional rivals 33 years after our competition was officially renamed the AFL from the Victorian Football League.

It’s now 32 years since a non-Victorian team first played in a grand final. It’s 31 since they won a premiership. It’s 19 years since the first grand final played between two non-Victorian teams. Who between them have now won 11 flags. It’s not like we’re not used to it. Yet still we’re doing “jokes” about the Lions v Giants?

PLEASE HELP US CONTINUE TO THRIVE BY BECOMING AN OFFICIAL FOOTYOLOGY PATRON. JUST CLICK THIS LINK.

I remember well in 2004, the first non-Victorian playoff between Port Adelaide and Brisbane, and the Sunday Herald-Sun on its front page cynically offering lists of activities locals could pursue on grand final day rather than watch two “interlopers” going at it for the premiership cup.

Of course it was tongue-in-cheek, but it still came across as petty and provincial. And that was nearly two decades ago. Have we not moved on at all?

So is it about parochialism? Depends on your definition. I’ve long held that non-Victorians often misunderstand the way our allegiances work. They’re definitely not geared towards supporting a local rival against a non-Victorian team.

Take it from me, folks, if, say, the Pies are playing the Lions next Saturday, a conservative 80-90 per cent of Victorians who don’t barrack for Collingwood will be vociferously supporting their opponents.

Will they be as engaged, though, as they would were the Pies and Blues squaring off? Most unlikely.

Put it this way. For many Essendon fans (not this one, I hasten to add), for whom the prospect of either a Collingwood or Carlton flag is unpalatable (the Pies stand to equal the Bombers’ 16 flags or the Blues go past them), there’s nonetheless still an appreciation of the levels of emotion and arousal likely to be reached in this town when they collide in one almighty car crash.

But that’s really all about the story rather than the game itself. The Pies and Blues have met twice this season for an unremarkable 1-1 scoreline. And the first of those meetings, particularly, even allowing for the poor form Carlton was in at the time, was a pretty mundane affair.

Forget the colour of the jumpers for a moment. If you’re unaligned, don’t you want to see a memorable grand final full of spectacular moments, end-to-end football, a decent amount of scoring?

Which isn’t to suggest a Collingwood-Carlton clash won’t offer that at all. But I do genuinely believe the other three potential pairings might indeed serve up potentially even better games from a purist’s perspective.

And, look, let’s be honest. If you’re a Melburnian who doesn’t barrack for the Pies or Blues, at least you won’t have to fear for your personal safety in the bedlam which will ensue if the greatest of rivals do meet again in the big one.

This article first appeared at ESPN.