Saturday was glorious. The result defied logic and history and time and space and speed and depth and the very framework of our society.
Our vernacular changed. For a day, a week, a month! A “dog act” was a term of endearment, rather than an insult.
Septuagenarians and octogenarians and nonagenarians hugged strangers and wept and called it the best day – the culmination – of their life.
Their grandchildren also cried, but an infinitesimal, quite broken piece of you also questioned why you have never seen grandpa and grandpa cry before. You questioned why they remained disinterested at your under-12 basketball championships (the silver, runners up trophy still sits on your desk) but enraptured and quite genuinely moved by Joel Hamling receiving a medal from some auskid.
This seed of insecurity will grow into a more solid source of tension and this will eventually erupt in some odd biological pattern into a hurricane of jaundice. Your family will become estranged over the argument which expanded from the discussion about the legitimacy of Johannisen’s disallowed goal and the would-we-have-won-if-buddy-had-two-good-ankles and why you have never received the same level of affection that Bontempelli receives from his worst enemy (though Bontempelli has no enemies. What a champion.)
And also, how we all laughed when a beverage was poured over Beveridge.
And did anybody see when Bob stole Bev’s medal and they ran off together into the sun?
And did you hear about Morris crushing it with a broken back and cramping calves and a scratched cornea and a ripped rotator and a torn hamstring and a stretched meniscus-fibrotic-semimembranosus-liverspot and PCL tear and an ACL twist and a TBC bend?
The point that I’m trying to make is that the grand final has ended.
There are only so many ways, and for only so long, that we can evaluate performances out of ten.
And so, close to our chest we hold the residue of that grand final. It is all we have left. The broken bottles that haven’t been picked up in Footscray. The spots of red and blue that haven’t been painted over the walls of the brick-and-mortar bookshop. The final chuckle over Tom Liberatore being loose.
What comes next is trade season, where we make ridicule and call ludicrous our neighbours because they think that Vickery is worth a fourth rather than a fifth round pick.
The reporting for this will be overblown, and the media and the football clubs and the players will yell into the wind because it gives them something to do, and it gives us something to do and so we will also yell into the wind for a bit and have a good laugh at the meaningless of it all.
And after this there’s a dull, pernicious absence of football related activity.
It gives us time to watch a replay of Shawshank Redemption on ch7.
It also gives us time to think about that collective ubiquitous moment. It happened at some point in the second quarter. We all nervously laughed, and then we paused and shuddered and cast our eyes downward.
“(insert expletive)”
“No football for six months!”
What will become of Friday nights?
What will become of small talk?
There’s only so much enthusiasm that can be mustered, and only so much patience that can be exhibited by interlocutors over the talk about pre-season training.
The “Jed Lamb ran a career best time trial and his shoulders are 6cm bigger and he’s going to come 28th in the Brownlow” holds very little social currency.
So, if The Roar will allow me, I hope to sporadically diarise my descent into insanity during the off-season.
Hopefully the coping mechanisms that I employ manages to be of interest.
I can’t imagine they will be.
—
Day 6 (depending on when this is published).
I’m feeling optimistic.
The cricket season is around the corner, and this post-grand final buzz will last forever.
And so forth.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.
Beautiful to see from Charlie Clarke.
Last, year in the second showdown, Adelaide destroyed Port by 47 points with a staggering 20 marks inside 50 with Tex Walker the main star.
There’s no disputing that Cam Guthrie will be important against Melbourne, given Patrick Dangerfield is set to miss due to injury.
Multicultural round was changed in 2018 showing that the AFL have not been as committed to multiculturalism as they should be.
Collingwood led by a point with minutes to go, Kyle Langford had the chance to be the hero with a set shot, however, he missed, and we saw the first draw of the season.
Former Adelaide captain Rory Sloane has been forced into immediate retirement by the threat of further eye damage. Sloane, 34, had a second bout…
