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The first weekend of September is a great time of year for a few reasons.
(1) If you live in the Canberra region like I do, the start of spring brings eternal optimism;
(2) Commencement of footy finals – flowering plants and fresh-cut lawns give off the recognisable scent that come September we have reached footy’s business end;
(3) Generally the end of the Bledisloe Cup (or other nightmares); and
(4) Father’s Day. As a Dad you face the potential of stray shell in your scrambled eggs and marshmallow in your flat white. But amidst the highs and lows of the well-intentioned Sunday morning breakfast in bed, generally a footy tragic would have some say on the remote for the Saturday evening / Sunday afternoon over the course of the weekend.
So, opportunity presents itself for the blokes to sit back, relax and watch the first week of footy finals, without contending with Rapunzel or Elsa.
Courtesy of the bye round, this weekend for an AFL fan somewhat channels the old Bruce Springsteen song 57 Channels (and Nothin’ On).
“We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on”.
After such a wonderful month leading into the finals, where the fight for the top four at times felt like a nuclear arms race for the highest percentage, the make-up of the top eight was not determined until Collingwood significantly shook up Hawthorn in the second last match of the year.
The season had momentum, excitement and people were hooked. The ageing yet redoubtable Hawks, the attacking murder of Crows, the new brash Sydney and their mini-me GWS, the Jekyll and Hyde West Coast, the injury-hit Bulldogs who keep finding a way, and the North Melbourne retirement village.
Even if this was a glorious ‘reverse marketing’ strategy from AFL HQ to get Australians to watch how bad our current Wallabies side are, they are also caught in a week off in the Rugby Championship (I think many would call this the mercy rule).
The Age’s Rohan Connelly has already focused in depth from a purely football dynamic, this week likening the strategy of having a bye as taking a ‘sledgehammer to a walnut’.
Like a good cop drama, it is a case of follow the money and you will find the answer to the question at hand. In this instance the AFL have become paranoid around the integrity of their product with gambling, with mass “restings” of players from Fremantle and North in the final rounds over the last few seasons.
This is not a football problem – if coaches want to rest players at the end of the season to freshen up that is their perogative if they are in a position to do this. After all, their hard work has rewarded them with that opportunity. History would suggest it isn’t a recipe for premiership success in any case.
While filled with good-will to take a deep breath before plunging into finals, I would argue that the AFL’s attempts to have a week off before launching into its month of premium product has been curtailed significantly with the following road-blocks.
– GWS are embroiled in illicit drug taking innuendo, again highlighting the hopeless nature of the current testing policies – difficult to understand and hard to see how it helps potentially vulnerable players or clubs.
– to fill the void with no on-field action, media trading gossip has show-cased Tyrone Vickery and Travis Cloke as apparently the greatest things since sliced bread.
– the promotion of the women’s game has shown that behind the great news of a footy pathway for women, most players will be paid $5,000 and have to fork out their own private health insurance. Hardly persuasive to give up the day job let alone take up a handy second one.
– Also, did I say no footy?
So, yes we had some exclusivity around the All-Australian, and even a ‘scoop’ announcement on some grand final entertainment from the AFL CEO, but as a fan the experiment should be put to bed.
Put simply, the game sells itself.
Back to the Boss:
“I can see by your eyes friend you’re just about gone
Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on”
Hope all the dads out there enjoy their day.
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