Dom Sheed’s grand final match-winner was barely 24 hours old before the footy talk had turned to the AFL trade period.
It’s 24 hours after one of the greatest grand finals ever played and what is sports talkback radio discussing? Trades.
That’s right, Dom Sheed’s goal and the epic contest between West Coast and Collingwood in the biggest game of the year was done and dusted. Apparently, it was already time to focus on who was going where next year.
And that wasn’t just for the next week – it was for a whole month.
Rumours of players seen having coffee with someone from another team, what are Dylan Shiel’s plans, trading picks here and there with nothing being done until the last day, and all of a sudden Essendon has won the 2019 premiership thanks to the trade period.
We, the fans, all lapped it up. One look at my personal Twitter feed and I was all over it.
The off-season dragged on, in fact it didn’t really feel like an off-season. The fixture announcement was drip-fed, and there was speculation about what would be the major rule changes.
The mere suggestion of changing the grand final to a best-of-three series stirred everyone, then there were not one, but three drafts – the national draft, pre-season draft and rookie draft. The media and the fans (like myself) ate it all up.
There was no time to take a break, miss football or heaven forbid – actually show interest for another sport. We had to have footy for the fear we might forget about it if it wasn’t dominating the headlines.
Before you knew it, the AFLW season had started up with a questionable conference system, the AFL attempted AFLX again, the annual will they or won’t they night grand final debate came around again, and the media and consumers like myself couldn’t get enough of it.
Round one of the home and away season hadn’t even begun.
AFL football is a year-long sport now, and for tragics like me, it’s wonderful. But it’s also causing a heap of angst.
Just about everything is reported in hysterical tones. Someone or something is in crisis. Every single aspect of the sport is analysed within an inch of its life – from how the game is played to how fans barrack in the stands.
Here’s a snapshot of how the AFL is covered in 2019:
* Team has loss in round two – “Season in crisis. Sack the coach”.
* Player has good game in round 4 – “Should be All-Australian”.
* Crowd boos player – “Somebody think of the children”.
* Ex-player has unpopular opinion on something – “Major breaking story”.
* Player seen having beer with mates on day off – “Why isn’t he thinking about football?”
* Identify a unique footy tradition – “Why don’t they change it and do what they do in America?”
* Bottom team has rare win – “This will affect their draft prospects”.
Footy has always had its scandals and big breaking news, but its scandals are heading into crying wolf territory, and if something actually scandalous happens, it turns into a bit of a blur.
To the point that Carlton’s recent sacking of coach Brendon Bolton was actually kind of therapeutic for the news cycle. This actually was real football news.
Footy opinion and news shows are everywhere. We all watch them, but many seem to be looking for the next controversial opinion rather than just talking about or appreciating the footy itself.
There’s a reason “The Front Bar” is the most popular footy show on TV. The panel love and respect the game, are actual fans, and have a genuine laugh about it. It’s an escape from the “hot takes” and scandals that we’re forced to consume day in, day out.
There’s no longer a “Footy Marathon” on grand final eve, a review like “That Was The Season That Was”, or even weekly highlights show on TV now. There’s no time for that.
It feels like we can’t step back and reflect on what’s happened in the actual games. We’re directed to focus on whatever is the next big news scandal, knee-jerk reaction rule changes, or which ex-player turned commentator has a controversial view on a player or team.
And now, all of a sudden, it’s the fans themselves under the blowtorch.
Many of those “hot takes” currently are about the barracking in the outer (mostly from people who haven’t been in general admission for the best part of 20 years) and post-game analysis speculates as to why Gary Ablett got booed by some opposition supporters as opposed to the awesome football he’s playing for Geelong.
The angst came to a head when Marvel Stadium’s introduction of “Behavioural Awareness Officers” had fans worried whether they could actually barrack, taping their mouths, threatening a boycott of matches and displaying a level of anger directed at AFL House not seen since mergers were a very real threat two decades ago.
What the overzealous security measures and the relentless and often contrived media news cycles have in common is a lack of understanding of what drives AFL football’s fan base. To sum it up, “it’s the game, stupid”.
To quote the lyrics of Mike Brady’s footy anthem “Up There Cazaly” … “on weekends comes the time, you can do whatever turns you on, go out and clear your mind.” But right now, it feels like the mind isn’t clear at all.
As another round begins mid-week, barely a few days after the last one ended, so will there be another “hot take”, or something or someone in crisis. As usual, we’ll absorb every little thing about it.
And as is becoming more and more the case, the games themselves will not feel like the point of it all, but just another part of the cacophony of noise that is today’s AFL. And that’s sad.
