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Opinion
The AFL has done some amazing things in recent years.
They fast tracked the development of the AFLW.
They have carnivals and programs for all minority groups within the game.
The inclusiveness is tremendous. The time and money the game pumps into ensuring they get as close to equality as possible is fantastic.
For just because you are from a minority should not limit your opportunities in the great game. Have they forgotten one minority though? A minority that has served the game for as long, if not longer, than any other.
Have they forgotten about the bush?
Country football is one of those things that helps county communities in the southern states run. The unifying effect that a home game has on a whole town is nothing short of palatable. It can at times be the only time a farmer sees anyone else for a decent amount of time during the week.
It also provides a ‘big night’ for the local watering hole. As the saying goes, lose your footy club and then your pub is on borrowed time. The bush needs footy.
The AFL needs the bush too. Let’s take WA just for an example. Check this out for a list of names, Patrick Cripps, Josh Kennedy, Mark LeCras, Harry Taylor, Nat Fyfe, Buddy Franklin, Jeremy McGovern, and Liam Baker are all AFL superstars of the last decade.
Three Brownlow medals between them, one of them has kicked 1000 goals, one of them kicked 700. six of them are premiership players, a couple more than once. All absolute stars of the game, and all, all of them, from the country. The game is better for them being there, the game needs more like them.
(Daniel Carson/AFL Media/Getty Images)
So how do we get more of them? How do we open the production line a little bit wider so we can see them all? Now granted this is a complicated question but I have a simple answer to start the journey. A National Country Football Championship, run by the AFL.
In an era when the AFL has pumped money into an International Cup in Melbourne to try and grow the game in communities it doesn’t have a strong foothold, how about they do the same to solidify the game in places where it does?
A National Country Football Championships. A carnival that the AFL put on that brings state sides from the four southern states where country footy is at it’s strongest.
It could be a week in one of the major cities where they play each other in a round robin situation then the top two play a final at the G or under the roof on the docks. It would be some event!
The argument against it of course would be cost, would be when do you hold it, would be whether players would want to go. Let me knock each of them down one by one. Cost! Really! Firstly, in the scheme of things it wouldn’t cost that much.
In a time where the competition is propping up clubs to tunes of millions of dollars and signing TV right deals in the billions, they could afford it.
When? It would need to be in August, for the simple fact that then most of the country people would be finished with the busy part of their year.
Lance Franklin. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
This needs to be tailored to them in every way possible. Then finally, would they want to go? You make it as professional of an event as possible, you put it on big grounds and make it as cost effective as possible to attend, they’ll go.
For every Buddy, for every JK, for every Crippa, there is always a story of someone they grew up with who was better. Someone who had the talent but didn’t chase the dream.
With a National Country Championships, we could see these fellas anyway. Live stream the round robin and televise the final and I can guarantee people would watch it. Plus, recruiters would love it.
So, in this wonderful time of inclusion and fairness. In this wonderful time of opening the doors and letting everyone in, of making the minorities in our community feel like the great game gives them every opportunity, lets open the door a little bit further.
Let’s remember the minority that has been so important for so long to the game of Australian rules. For while there is no denying that the bush needs footy, let us all never forget that footy needs the bush as well.
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