As a member of both Collingwood and the Melbourne Storm, I have been to numerous AFL / NRL ANZAC Day double headers.
This year there was a third sporting event, that turned the day into a sporting triple header.
Collingwood Magpies hosted Sunshine Coast Lightning in a Super Netball match at John Cain Arena. This was a great initiative by Collingwood to try and piggyback off the big crowd that would be attending the Collingwood v Essendon game at the MCG later in the afternoon.
This is the second public holiday double header involving the Netball and the AFL in Melbourne with the Melbourne Vixens playing Collingwood prior to the Queen’s (now King’s) Birthday AFL match between Melbourne and Collingwood.
ANZAC Day is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of Australian and New Zealand service personnel that have enabled people in both countries to live the lives we currently do. All three events provided respectful and dignified ceremonies.
The black out at AAMI Park for the commemorations is absolutely brilliant. Attending this match and watching the ceremony on ANZAC Day Eve at the Melbourne v Richmond game makes me want to attend the Melbourne v Richmond encounter in the future.
The only tip I have in relation to the three ANZAC Day ceremonies, is at the netball next year the New Zealand national anthem should be sung. It is ANZAC Day after all, and the NZ anthem is one of the best national anthems.
In terms of on the netball court, the Magpies started well and the match was close for the first 10 or 11 minutes, Then Steph Wood took the game by the scruff of the neck in the first Power 5 / Super Shot period (FYI, I do not like the Super Shot, it is not “real” netball). The Lightning led by 9 goals at quarter time.
Apart from a couple of small periods, including at the start of the second quarter, where Collingwood were able to wrestle momentum back, the Sunshine Coast Lightning were too strong for the remainder of the match and ran out 15-goal winners.
Collingwood players were out of play too often being penalised for contact on 47 occasions compared to the Lightning’s 21.
The final quarter Power 5 was a mess with Collingwood trying to shoot Super Shots to reduce the margin and not connecting and at the other end even Steph Wood missed at least one Super shot during that period.
The fourth quarter was the only quarter that Collingwood won for the day but by that stage it was too little too late.
South African defender Karla Pretorius was one of the stand outs for the Lightning. Pretorius had the most gains (10), most intercepts (4) and most deflections (7) of any player on court. Pretorius was sorely missed by the Lightning in 2022, when she missed the season to give birth.
Annie Miller with 35 feeds and 18 assists and Laura Scherian with 25 feeds and 19 assists and Cara Koenen with 39/40 in the circle also played well for the Lightning.
The Magpies’ best players were Shimona Nelson shooting 38/42 and 2/3 super shots, Geva Mentor with 6 gains, 1 intercept and 6 deflections and Molly Jovic with 22 feeds and 17 assists.
At the AFL, I sat near the behind post at the Punt Road end in amongst predominantly the Essendon faithful. It was a day that provided plenty of banter and laughter amongst the crowd (and that was just me laughing at my own jokes).
I find it interesting when the same incident results in different supporter bases wanting a different decision, one decision from the game I remember a Collingwood supporter near me calling for “in the back” and the Essendon supporters calling for “(holding the) ball”.
When I woke up the morning after the match, I definitely knew I had been at the Essendon end of the ground because I had the “We Are Essendon” chant in my head.
Being at the Punt Road end meant I was at the scoring end with 20 goals 10 behinds kicked at that end of the ground and only 4 goals 13 behinds being kicked at the City or Ponsford Stand end of the ground. Plus, the behind post in front of me tried to wipe out a player from either team.
Sam Draper of the Bombers celebrates a goal. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
With Essendon having the best of the third quarter they took a 28 point lead into the last quarter and as a Pies fan I was a little worried. But there were a number of Essendon supporters around me saying I think we will lose from here.
Those Essendon supporters were correct. The Pies came storming home with a 7 goal 2 behind to 0 goals 3 behinds final term. Beau McCreery kicked a goal after the siren to extend the Pies winning margin to 13 points.
The Daicos brothers combined for 70 possessions – Nick 40 (and 2 goals) and Josh 30. Steele Sidebottom had 30 possessions and Jordan De Goey had 28 possessions and kicked 2 goals. Darcy Moore was important across the backline with 11 intercept possessions.
Billy Frampton (28 hit outs) was also tireless in the ruck against the duo of Sam Draper (25 hit outs) and Andrew Phillips (25 hit outs). Beau McCreery laid some important tackles, bumps and broke a tackle to handball to Elliott who set up Nick Daicos for the goal that put the Pies back in front in the last quarter.
Darcy Parish again enjoyed a game against the Pies with 27 possessions, although this was nowhere near his previous output against Collingwood. Mason Redman had 23 possessions and Will Setterfield had 22 possessions. Kyle Langford 3 goals and Sam Weideman 2 goals were important in attack for the Bombers.
Darcy Moore’s speech after the game was magnificent and was praised far and wide. I even saw a headline “Classy Collingwood Captain” and said to my wife you don’t see classy and Collingwood in the same sentence too often.
At AAMI Park, the crowd was packed in with plenty of Warriors fans in attendance as usual. The Warriors fans included some people who are Storm members and support Storm every other week except for against the Warriors.
The Warriors came flying out of the gates. Some great ball movement from right to left from Shaun Johnson, Tohu Harris and Dylan Walker helped set up Jackson Ford for the first try.
Then the Warriors moved the ball from right to left through Freddy Lussick, Shaun Johnson and Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad to send Dallin Watene-Zelezniak over the line. The Warriors were keeping time with the clock, leading 12-0 after as many minutes.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
A brilliant 40-20 from Cameron Munster helped get the Storm get back into the game. This resulted in a try for Justin Olam following a wonderful offload from Trent Loiero. Warriors prop Addin Fonua-Blake was the next to score bursting through some tired defence from Christian Welch and Tariq Sims. This restored the Warriors 12-point lead.
The Storm were next to score with Harry Grant putting Cameron Munster through a hole between Tohu Harris and Freddy Lussick, for Munster’s 50th career try, and the Storm were back within six points.
Leading up to half time Warriors five eighth Dylan Walker was sin binned for a head slam on former Warrior Eli Katoa. Katoa missed the rest of the game with concussion.
Amazingly, after half time while Walker was still in the sin bin the Warriors were next to score. The Storm turned over the ball with a poor pass from Nick Meaney, possibly his only mistake of the night, resulting in a Reimis Smith knock on. The Warriors took full advantage of this error sending a flying Watene-Zelezniak into the corner for his second try.
Just as Walker’s time in the naughty chair was about to expire Nick Meaney threw a cut out pass for Xavier Coates to create space down the wing. Coates then put in a sublime right foot kick back in field for Meaney to score a diving try. This pulled the score back to 22-18 to the Warriors.
The Warriors were showing plenty of fight. They lost one of their best players up until that stage, former Storm player Tohu Harris to a knee injury after thirty-eight minutes.
Prop Jazz Tevaga only played 22 minutes suffering calf and achilles issues. Full back Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad left the field after 55 minutes suffering a head knock and Bayley Sironen also left the field with a head knock.
With his second try Meaney gave the Storm their first lead of the game. Jahrome Hughes put in a kick and Reimis Smith contested the ball with two Warriors. Meaney picked up the crumbs and was awarded the try. A number of fans were adamant that Smith knocked on at the contest.
The video referee reviewed the contest and with arms going everywhere determined that there was insufficient evidence to overturn the decision.
With five minutes left on the clock and the Storm leading by two points, Cameron Munster made a break which resulted in a gain to the Storm of more than 40 metres. Later in the set Harry Grant ran from dummy half and despite the best efforts of Watene-Zelezniak, Grant was too strong, scoring to wrap up a 30-22 win for the home team.
It was the day of the Nick’s with Nick Meaney winning the Spirit of ANZAC medal.
Something that Victorians shouldn’t take for granted is how great the Melbourne sporting precinct is. All these events happened with ten minutes’ walk of each other.
The crowd at the MCG was an ANZAC Day record of 95,179, which is the second highest AFL Home and Away attendance ever, with the biggest Home and Away attendance occurring for a Melbourne v Collingwood match in 1958.
The crowd at the Storm game was 23,469. Whilst I do not know the crowd number at the Collingwood v Lightning game, it looked bigger than the crowds at other Collingwood home games against interstate teams. Scheduling the match against the Lightning, who are owned by the Storm, was also a good idea given the Storm also played on the same day. I think this netball game should be continued next year.
If you usually attend the AFL and NRL double header, I encourage you next year to attend the netball and make it a triple header. If you have seen either or both of the AFL or NRL game and have thought I want to go to one or both of those matches, again I say go the whole hog and attend all three games in one day.
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