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What a week it has been for Western Sydney’s favourite concrete monolith ANZ Stadium. Firstly, it gets dudded out of the 2015 Cricket World cup final by the MCG, on accounts of the technicality that the Victorian venue is an actual cricket ground.
Now it’s gone and got itself all double booked like some shonky small town Mexican restaurant.
However, unlike Dodgy-Brothers Cantina where Senor Davo can always just squeeze in another card table next to el Boggos, it turns out that re-organising the schedules of major sports competitions is more complicated than offering a complimentary bottle of watered down Sangria.
By politely explaining to regular tenants the Canterbury Bulldogs that their home ground would instead be hosting the Swans versus Hawthorn AFL match on August the 30th on account of the fact that they had a previously unmentioned deal, Stadium operators have poured the petrol on Australian sport’s never ending feud.
Jersey versus Guernsey. Sherrin versus Steeden. Willie Mason versus Brendon Fevola (although I’ve yet to see the two in the same place at once).
On the face of things this latest act is likely to stir up a fair bit of angst for rugby league fans, but should it really?
For starters there’s the fact that we have the unusual situation where sports seem to squabbling over ANZ Stadium, the stadium rugby league fans generally speak of in the same tone they do new obstruction interpretations.
That’s also assuming Swans fans are happy with the move, and considering they’re giving up their beloved SCG and adopting the occasional home of their pilot fish cross-town cousins, that’s probably not the case.
Secondly while the scheduling issue is definitely a pain in the butt for the Bulldogs, the date in question is almost a month away, and whatever decision they come up with I’m sure they’ll remember to send the tab to ANZ.
Perhaps we should be questioning why the Bulldogs versus Penrith game is even a Friday night match that round anyway, when Manly are drawn to play Melbourne and the Warriors host Canberra, two games likely to have a bigger impact on the finals that are on Saturday the same weekend.
While the Dogs have hit their straps and the Panthers are still in contention, the Brett Howland Cup is defiantly the smallest out of all the Western Sydney derbies.
And finally the Bulldogs have shown themselves to be pretty shrewd operators over the past couple of years with regards to promotions.
If anyone can turn a Ben Roberts into a Benny Barba it’s them, and this hitch in their plans just gives their marketing gurus a chance to come up with something special for an otherwise run-of-the-mill match.
Why not think outside the Steve Walters here? Swap the Eels for Monday night, reinvent Fitzroy’s 1978 ‘Festival of Football’ or play Penrith at Belmore on a Sunday afternoon so punters can cheer when the ball gets booted into the side of a passing train.
Or, maybe in addition to being the problem, the AFL may also be the answer in this case.
I presume the Bulldogs old stomping grounds of Skoda Stadium is free that evening?
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