- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
Playing AFL, one envisions, is much like going to war.
Football players are said to be the gladiators of yesteryear, and one imagines each game means as much to them as life and death. Whether it truly does or not, I’m not sure, but I am sure that the qualities, skills and characteristics needed to win in battle are the same as those that are needed to win in our great game too.
With Saturday’s grand final decider between Richmond and Geelong in mind, let’s take a deeper look at what it takes to be victorious.
A soldier must have courage, heart and strength of mind. He must be able to lead and win the moments that count. He has to execute efficiently and decisively under pressure. He must have sufficient skill honed over years of practice. He must coordinate with and depend upon and trust his brothers. And he must be able to dig deep, driving himself further and further to commit and contest when he has all but nothing left.
When you take a team out on the field, you want to be confident in them and know their strengths and weaknesses.
It is integral not to overthink it, to keep a calm head and a determined mindset, to know what you have to do and how you’re going to do it and to then just do it, as John Kennedy famously said.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
It’s a matter of taking tasks you’ve done a million times and repeating them with high efficiency and efficacy, applied directly to the situation at hand. Experience and old-fashioned nous play a part. In the end it’s the ability to act under pressure that counts – and in these key pressure moments it will be skill, will, heart and courage that will decide things.
An army is nothing over above the brothers who make it up. In their loyalty is heart and team spirit. Soldiers must care for their fellow soldiers in order to be reliable. It’s about engendering the right heart and spirit, one which binds the team together and unites it in identity and purpose, cause and destiny.
Generals are a big part of delivering that bond, as are the on-field commanders and leaders. They will foster spirit and galvanise it, giving the men the right mindset to win. If a team feels it is the best at what it does and cannot lose, then that can be a mindset which is impregnable, creating a reputation and aura, a la Hawthorn 2013-15 and Brisbane 2001-03, that halfway wins the war before the battle even begins.
The Tigers, with double Norm Smith medalist Dustin Martin and having won in 2017 and 2019, have a bit of that aura, and the Cats cannot let that aura impress itself on them, or the battle will be lost.
A team must be a team of leaders. Each and every soldier, including the youngsters, must be able to step up and take the key role in true pivotal deciding moments, where all the pressure is on them, and they must be able to hold it together and deliver.
Your men must act in coordination with each other. Where most of the unit are winning moments at the same time or in connection, then the floodgates open.
(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
It is integral that where one soldier stumbles or falls, that another must rise to cover him. Each must cover the other while being confident in their brothers’ ability to do their job, allowing them to concentrate on their own. They are all each other has, and they will win or lose depending on their brothers.
Richmond, you would suspect, would be bound tighter than anything, knowing Damien Hardwick, but the same will be the case for the Cats under Chris Scott. Each side will be trying to implement its style of play and win the right of attack. The side that gets the other to play their style, puts the game in their own hands, paving the path to victory.
They must follow the chain of command and carry out the strategy of the generals but also be able to amend it on the ground and apply it to circumstances at hand. While strategy and command are important, thinking on your feet may often mean the difference between winning and losing.
Richmond and Geelong won’t have any problem following the chain of command. Their respective generals and commanders in the field, Chris Scott and Joel Selwood and Damien Hardwick and Trent Cotchin, are fearsome and influential and will ensure that the teams are organised in their approach and attack the ball with the pure channelled disciplined fury expected in the biggest game of the season.
Each team’s respective barometers and keys, Dusty Martin and Paddy Dangerfield, will be looked upon to inspire the men and lead with example. They have to be able to impose themselves on the game and in doing so instil the right all-conquering mindset in their brothers.
The key moments of the game are the lynchpins to victory. In a close game there is invariably also a pivotal moment that proves decisive. Each team will seek to own these moments, for it is these that decide whether you win the battle, and the war, or not.
This is the battle that decides the war, and both teams will definitely come to play. The generals must plan, strategise, coordinate and execute. The men must act with united heart, spirit and courage. They must dig deep and deliver in the key moments, keeping their heads clear under pressure and executing efficiently and decisively.
Those are the keys. Let’s see who does it best on Saturday – invariably they will be the team that wins and covers itself in glory.
In a reverse of the last time they met in a grand final some 53 years ago, I’m tipping the Cats to get over the Tigers by nine points, with Patrick Dangerfield winning the Norm Smith along with a premiership medal to complete his trophy cabinet.
Whatever happens, it will be a game for the ages.
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.