JLT, eggs and where is everybody?

Scrambled eggs are made and ruined by heat and time.

Like most things in life, if you leave them to cook on the pan for too long or at anything upwards of a low-medium heat, they shrivel and die.

They lose all of their flavour and take up a tough, rubbery texture. No amount of seasoning, butter, love, tomato sauce, milk or gold will save them.

And scrambled eggs can be joyful. Demonstrate a bit of patience and they can be silky creamy and delicious. But who can be bothered waiting? Breakfast is for the frenzied and, done poorly, scrambled eggs are still (mostly) better than the alternatives. If they can be consumed pronto, then taste, smell, texture and contentment can be damned!

I was one of the 7262 people at Etihad Stadium on Thursday night. Partially because I wanted to watch Troy Menzel and Josh Caddy and the development of sculpted shoulders and gangling legs (let’s not pretend that pre-season isn’t some erotic vacuum), but mainly because of the money.

The stadium needs a buttoned up stiff to say, “Excuse me sir, yes, I know the seat is empty, I’m sorry no, you can’t sit there. Yes, it’s silly I know, but those are the rules. Please don’t yell sir, if it was up to me you would be allowed to sit there, but only senior management and God can make those decisions. And I’m no senior management.”

But, anyway. On this wonderful sunny evening I watched as the crowd dribbled in. Across the ground – mainly the wing and behind the goals – small pockets quickly filled with exuberant Tigers fans. Body language and words converged to communicate a message of ‘I can’t quite remember the disappointment from last year, I’m not allowing myself to foresee the disappointment that inevitably follows. This is as good as it gets, and look at Dusty’s quads!’

However, the match wasn’t marked by these busy pockets or high spirits, nor was it marked by especially good, bad or indifferent skills. Rather, it was defined by the sea of unoccupied blue-gray seats. By periods of silence punctuated not by tension or anticipation, but by a dull emptiness. The high squeals and low grunts of the players, the drunken discussions over the prospects of Big Ivan were clearly audible.

Usually, these elements are drowned out by indistinguishable static. Of everyone yelling at once.

Worse still, this is the yellow and black! The feverish Tiger cauldron that chokes the opposition and makes the travelling fan-base feel nervous was totally absent.

There are a squillion reasons why this is the case. It was too hot. The game is a glorified exhibition with no premiership points up for grabs. Understrength squads. Unripe players, full of fat and bones and sun.

The most significant outcome that can be drawn from a JLT match is a) no injuries, b) a bit of game fitness and c) that X shows something. That is to say, the difference between an incredibly successful JLT match and nothing at all occurring is pretty marginal. It’s just a practice run.

And yet, I saw players straining and aching and wheezing and gut-running and hitting targets and missing targets. To be honest, it seemed pretty similar to a run-of-the-mill AFL match. As if premiership points aren’t some abstract academic concept. As if I care if Dion Prestia is going at 65 per cent. As if we are just going to pretend that 7262 isn’t a totally underwhelming, ludicrously embarrassing crowd for the first Richmond game of the year, in a non-suburban ground, in Melbourne.

But back to my ham-fisted, inappropriate analogy (which I have realised far too late, but I’ve come this far).

I won’t turn up the heat on my scrambled eggs because I want to dish them up faster. Scrambled eggs making is my only real skill and it is the only thing that separates me from a useless, empty husk.

But I will absolutely take overcooked, underdeveloped AFL if it means that I get it in February rather than March. I’ll happily join the busy pockets as a patron because football is football is football.

And also because football – like most things in life – is nothing like scrambled eggs.