The death of Phil Walsh cast a shadow over the round, but not a pall.
The football played was uniformly fierce and committed, business as usual at the very minimum on the field.
The opening minutes of the Hawthorn vs Collingwood match on Friday night were a bit quieter than usual, people within the crowd not exactly sure of their place after a day consumed by such unthinkable tragedy.
This was also reflected in the game itself, both sides feeling each other out in the opening 10 minutes, without ever really trying to land a telling blow.
It didn’t take long for normal service to resume for supporters, predictably in the form of an umpiring injustice. Travis Cloke juggled a mark, appearing to complete it before the ball crossed the line, but no benefit of the doubt was given by the boundary umpire. United in vitriol and rage at the decision, the passionate and emotional Pies fans were away, and so too was the round.
On Saturday, Richmond and Greater Western Sydney played out a spiteful encounter, in line with their recent history. It was hard fought from the first to the last.
As the round of footy progressed, it became clear that this would have been a wasted weekend if all matches had been cancelled. It had been suggested by many, a point of view that was absolutely fair. There were no right or wrong answers on Friday in the hours after the Walsh news broke, only shared feelings of shock and disbelief.
Domestic violence and tragedy are an unfortunate, unthinkable and appallingly common everyday occurrence in society within Australia, and while we all grapple with it internally when it is writ large in such high-profile circumstances, life does in fact go on.
Football is a major part of life in this country, and John Harms put it well on this week’s episode of Offsiders when saying that the AFL had a societal responsibility to ensure that particular lesson was observed here. It was in no way disrespectful to Phil Walsh or his family to do so.
The Adelaide vs Geelong match was never going to go ahead as planned, and rightly so. It was only a question of postponement or cancellation, and the latter felt intuitively right. The response from all parties involved in the decision was emotional, empathic and entirely appropriate.
The Hawthorn and Collingwood players, led by and inclusive of coaches Alastair Clarkson and Nathan Buckley, joined arms and linked up in post-match remembrance and respect for Phil Walsh around the centre circle after their Friday night match. The images were both haunting and uplifting, and will stay with us all for some time.
It was worth wondering if all matches should follow suit, or whether less was more in this particular case, and the gesture from that game should stand alone. But there has been something cathartic about seeing opposition players embrace in this way at the completion of every match; a sign of unity and strength for the entire AFL community – players, officials, broadcasters, spectators.
It was hard to escape comparisons and juxtapositions with the tragic death of Phillip Hughes not that long ago.
Writing for Fairfax on Saturday, Greg Baum wrote “the numbness and shock runs deeper even than at the passing of cricketer Phil Hughes last November”, but it’s a hard claim to reconcile in absolute terms. Perhaps it was so for Greg, a similar age to Walsh, and with an adult son of his own.
For me personally, the Phil Hughes death left me emptier, a feeling of numbness that took a number of days to overcome. I’m not quite sure why this is, but I am certain that again, there is no right or wrong in our respective reactions. Everyone reading this will have processed each loss of life in their own ways.
The horror of the Phil Walsh death was to think about a man being murdered by his own son, stabbed multiple times. How is that supposed to make sense to any of us? It doesn’t bear dwelling on his final moments. The internal torture of Meredith Walsh, Phil’s wife, even less so.
How do we marry it all up with the charming, funny, passionate, energetic man we’d come to know in his short time at the helm of the Crows? Words don’t get more hauntingly poignant than those from Walsh about his son in an interview with Mark Robinson from the Herald Sun earlier this year.
The Hughes death hit so hard in part because it came about as a consequence of playing the game. Who among us hasn’t bowled a ball or faced up to one at some stage in our lives? It was easy to put ourselves in that position. He was also so young, and so full of life, both in personality and the way he played his cricket.
What is beyond dispute is that two men in the prime of their respective professions were taken from us far too soon. Effervescent spirits, both of them, the epitome of larrikin Aussie humour.
Talk of the AFL ‘family’ can appear trite at times, but it has certainly rung true over the last few days. The compassion and respect shown by all has been incredibly moving, just as it was from the global cricket community last summer.
The scenes at Adelaide Oval on Sunday, where people gathered to respect Phil Walsh’s memory, added another layer of tenderness and raw emotion to the weekend.
Sport binds us all, connecting us to strangers, and often strengthens bonds between friends and family, without any of us ever stopping to consciously acknowledge it.
Have you ever high-fived a stranger in the next row at the footy when your team has hit the front late in the game? Gone to the cricket with a family member? Does a day go past when you don’t discuss sport with someone? We certainly have our own community here at The Roar.
Phil Walsh was taken too soon, in circumstances incomprehensible to us. The show went on though, as it always must. And we could at least take solace in the warm and dignified way in which it did.
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Round 5 of the AFL provided plenty of action, from big scorelines to upset wins and pressure starting to build on some clubs and coaches already.
