Sometimes we forget that, at heart, Aussie rules football is incomprehensibly silly.
It exists for two reasons.
Firstly, it gives the customer service people something to do on the weekend, and enough income to occasionally buy small cakes and flavoured drinks.
Secondly, it allows people the opportunity to quite aggressively abuse pleasant, oily and mostly harmless strangers, who run around for our amusement.
This fills a crucial role in our society, for without this, we’d all descend into barbarism and commit heinous crimes like, um, watching rugby league and stuff.
Everything else – the big silver cups, shepherding (of the non-cattle variety), posterior cruciate ligaments and David King – is a ruse. A subplot.
The people who say that AFL is defined by factors outside of these Big Two are more absurd than the absurdists who follow this perpetually dramatic absurdity.
But, there is one element of the game that reigns supreme in terms of its silliness. A small, ostensibly insignificant feature controlled by the banana people with whistles.
It is, of course, the manner in which the rushed behind and deliberate out-of-bounds rules are interpreted.
But to describe this I must, for reasons that elude me, go back to the start of the season. When the weather was warm, enthusiasm was in the air, and we were trying to figure out what role the irrepressible, ineffable Matty Wright would play in Carlton’s forward line.
The AFL Illuminati (more colloquially known as the Laws of The Game committee, or the Umpires Decision Making Society, or something like that) decided that the deliberate out-of-bounds rule would be more stringently enforced.
This led to much confusion and rabble-rousing, as players and fans alike lost control of the scenario playing out before their eyes. Oh, Robbo and Gerard pontificated for hours on end.
However, history will look back on this fondly. The tougher interpretation of the rule has added a certain intangible quality to the game. As the ball is theatrically coddled over the boundary line by some nondescript player, a guttural growl is emitted from the stands, and a single word becomes four syllables: “DE-LI-BER-ATE” slowly but quickly percolates across the ground. It splits the crowd into two, transforming it from a passive to an active entity.
It has also added a new degree of banter to the game. The calls for “DE-LI-BER-ATE” progressive become more facetious as the much wears on. And, well, that’s quite fun.
But.
But, but, but.
On both ends of the grass, the boundary line is interrupted up by big, cushy sticks. However, these sticks are not motionless. For folklore tells us that, until very recently, they possessed a distinctive ability. They could transform the rules of the game.
It seems a player could deliberately pass the ball through their own defensive goals, and the only consequence would be a point to the other team. But, if the same act occurred somewhere else across the boundary line, the player would be penalised and a free kick would be awarded to an opposing player.
The interpretation of the deliberate rushed-behind rule should, of course, be the same as the interpretation of the deliberate out-of-bounds rule.
That is logical. Any other interpretation is silly.
And serious things are based on logic.
And, at heart, football, and yelling at mostly harmless strangers, is serious.
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