Just when you think you’ve seen everything in footy… along came Friday night at the Gabba.
In remarkable scenes, the stadium’s lights suddenly failed to plunge Melbourne and Brisbane players into darkness midway through the last quarter.
Loud bangs were heard around the Gabba as a transformer reportedly blew its fuse, with commentators scrambling to work out exactly what had happened.
The confusion, though, was manna from heaven for AFL Twitter, which lit up (metaphorically speaking) with everything from comedy to staunch criticism of the Gabba.
Comparisons were quickly made to a similar incident in a 1996 match between Essendon and St Kilda, where the lights failed at Victoria’s Waverley Park.
Others were instead searching for a scapegoat, with Victorian Premier Dan Andrews of course copping a mention.
But for many, there was only one possible culprit: NRL head honcho Peter V’landys, determined to ensure the Queensland derby match between the Brisbane Broncos and new franchise the Dolphins had no competition on Friday night.
Others, though, had more serious issues on their mind.
This is the third time in recent years the Gabba has suffered a dramatic power outage.
A BBL match during the 2018/19 season was abandoned mid-game after a number of floodlights failed, while commentary systems and TV coverage were badly affected during a day’s play in the 2021/22 first Ashes Test.
It has led to concerns the stadium may need a serious upgrade to be fit for purpose by the time the 2032 Brisbane Olympics arrive.
The match had 60 minutes to resume before it would be prematurely ended under AFL rules; fortunately, before that threshold was reached, stadium officials had restored sufficent light for play to continue.
The Demons would surge home with five goals to none after the unscheduled break, reducing a 40-point deficit to 11 at the final siren… but surely the best thing to come out of the post-outage period was this quip from Channel Seven commentator Brian Taylor.
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