Premiership medallions for all: Why every member of the winning team deserves a trophy

In this year of all years, it feels like the time is right to embrace the full squad nature of modern AFL, and award premiership medallions to more than just the 22 who play on grand final Day.

The Western Bulldogs are a revelation. They’ve picked themselves up off of the canvas twice this season, when injury threatened to push their surge up the ladder out by at least a year. Early doors, the Dogs tortured their way to a string of wins, and continued to eek out victories as their injury toll mounted.

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They were supposed to have been brushed aside by an in-form West Coast Eagles on their home deck in the first game of the 2016 finals series. They are now playing in the last game of the year.

The ‘scrays (seriously guys, just start calling yourself Footscray again) have dipped as far into their list as any grand finalist in recent times. Fremantle used the same 39 players that the Dogs have turned to in 2013, but eight of these were given a game in Restapalooza I (Fremantle’s first Round 23 mass resting). No one else comes close.

Dipping so deep into a playing list is usually a sign of weakness. Indeed we lauded Adelaide’s rude state of health coming into September as a key advantage of theirs. The Dogs disagree. It seems an eternity ago that the likes of Easton Wood, Jordan Roughead, Jack Macrae and Tom Liberatore were “underdone”.

The Dog train is-a rolling, you can’t say you weren’t warned it was coming. We discussed their prospects in Round 2, ahead of their Round 3 date with the defending premiers, Hawthorn. I ended that piece with a stat I dredged up in the pre-season:

Since 2000, of the 15 teams that increased their percentage from 85 or less to 110 or more in a single year, 13 went on to play finals in the following year. For the Dogs, that surge was last year, and they have certainly backed up their rise in 2016.

One of those teams that made good on a single-season surge was the 2008 Hawks, who stunned the Cats, one of the best teams of modern times, to win the flag. Those Hawks were young, and thought to have been a few more years of development away from contending for real.

Sound familiar? Anyway, that’s for another day – Friday to be exact. In this grand final week, one that will be characterised by the notion of “team” more than most, I have a radical notion.

As it stands, the playing 22 that are fit enough and good enough to play and win on grand final day are awarded premiership medallions. This year, if that’s the Dogs, 17 players who have donned the tri-colour won’t be given that same level of recognition. They will be in the photos and their names etched in some obscure record book, but they won’t be awarded a physical token that represents their efforts and achievements in helping their team win it all.

To me, that seems like something that is ripe for change. Every player on the squad of the winning grand final team should be given a medallion or some other form of trophy – it should not just be bestowed on those who played in the game itself.

Australian rules football is the largest team sport in the world in terms of number of players that are active on the field at one time. It is one of the largest in terms of squads, too, with only American football rivalling it on some quick research. Games are won and lost on the field, but in this increasingly professional era, games are won and lost off of it – training, tactics, team building are all sources of competitive advantage, and they all take many hands to hone.

Every player on the list contributes something; curating the post-game play list, acting as a tackle bag for the bigger, stronger veterans, having their mates’ backs while they’re out on the town after a win. Knowing some of the stories Jay Croucher has shared with me of his tropes around Melbourne, the role of wing man extends beyond the boundary of the ‘G.

Winning extends beyond the players, too.

In the 2015 NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors were staring at a 2-1 deficit against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Warriors were being ground into the hardwood by the big bodies of the Cavs, and looked set to concede the title. Then the Warriors switched out centre Andrew Bogut for then-sixth man Andre Iguodala, who was much smaller than Bogut, in the starting line up and they proceeded to win the next three games relatively convincingly. Small ball was born, and we all know what happened next.

Where did the idea come from? The Warriors video guy: Nick U’Ren, who according to Sports Illustrated writer Lee Jenkins is most known on the team as the guy who sets the shoot around play list (along with cutting up game footage for coaching sessions).

In all of the major American sports, the victor isn’t just the guys who played in the last game of the season. The whole squad gets rewarded; the 14th man on the NBA roster who plays 30 seconds of garbage time a night, the back up punt returner on an NFL squad, the pitcher so deep in an MLB bull pen that he is more beard than man.

It’s not even about aping the Americans, for whom we seem to learn so much about pro sports. It is about recognising that in modern pro sports, the team is so much a sum of its parts that the parts matter far less than we think.

I’m as sceptical of society’s creeping tendency to dole out accolades for the smallest of achievements as anyone. When I was running around in junior sport, winning a participation trophy was a backhanded compliment. You’d have rather come away with the coaches’ award and nothing else than that tacky, generic plastic dude playing a cover drive beyond the ability of the version of yourself making hundreds in your dreams.

That’s not what this is about. You do not get on and stay on an AFL list without being incredibly good at what you do and making a contribution to your team. The Bulldogs personify this.

It’s too late for this year – it’s too late for injured captain Bob Murphy, who other than Matthew Pavlich and Nick Riewoldt stands alone as a champion player that deserves one of those medallions. Should the Dogs win it all on Saturday afternoon, among the raptures there will be stories tinged with sadness.

As we move forward, it is surely time for the AFL to recognise that it takes more than 22 players on grand final day to excel in the largest team sport in the world.