Traditional stupidity threatens to make a farce of the 2023 AFL Grand Final due to a winter competition reaching its most important game in the middle of spring.
The heat of the contest may be more characterised in the weather than the capacity for players to maintain intensity across 120 minutes of footy.
The 2023 AFL Grand Final is, as per tradition, scheduled for Saturday afternoon and according to the BOM (I still use this acronym) we’re expecting 28 balmy degrees.
Once upon a time every VFL match was played on Saturday afternoons. The scheduling of the Grand Final in that time slot made absolute sense. And granted we can have warm Saturday afternoons right through September; and the finals. If that’s when they’re played.
Can playing a Grand Final during the day influence the result? (Photo: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
With the introduction of light towers at the MCG in 1985 a new ‘dawn’ (or ‘evening’) of footy was ushered in. It took a while to catch on with many regarding night footy as inferior; the yellow balls weren’t quite as good and the dew was a big issue, let alone Melbourne winter nights were deemed unappealing. Many retained visions of midweek night comp matches out at Waverley Park.
Through the 1990s, North Melbourne in particular made Friday night at the ‘G their ‘niche’. Five Friday night games annually at the MCG in 1986 and 1987 was still five come 1993 (West Coast had 3 at the WACA), then to 8 in North’s 1996 premiership year (plus a Friday game at the Gabba). As the North Melbourne form line improved, so too did the Friday night fixture improve in the estimations of footy fans.
Come 1998 North had 7 regular season Friday night games at the MCG, as well as night games in Adelaide vs Port and Adelaide, vs Freo in Perth, then into the finals series where the Roos played both their Qualifying and Preliminary finals on Friday nights at the MCG.
That year, of the 9 finals matches there were four 2.30pm start times and four 7.45pm start times, a 50/50 split on day/night finals, then a 2.50pm start for the Grand Final on a warm and windy late September afternoon in Melbourne. The Kanga’s last 6 games before a losing Grand Final had been night matches.
(Ryan Pierse/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)
Were they hard done by? Arguably yes, although in 1998 the AFL industry had yet to fully mine the TV Broadcast landscape. We still had rounds like Round 17 1998, with 3 games in Melbourne starting Saturday 2.10pm and 2 more on the Sunday, with another afternoon game in Brisbane. There was still overlap and a day focus and a need for ‘around the grounds’ updates including concise half time discussions.
There’ve been other Grand Finals with temperatures up around 30 such as the 1987 and 2015 matches. The 2015 game was the first Saturday in October. I don’t think anyone would assert that to be ideal. But how magical would those warm balmy evenings be for at very least a twilight game?
Fast forward 25 years – a quarter of a century from 1998 to season 2023. We have a forecast high of around 28. The game is still an afternoon game, ironically scheduled for 2.30pm so earlier than the 1998 2.50pm start.
This year’s finals series and seen just one afternoon game, the St Kilda vs Giants MCG elimination final. All other finals matches have been either a full night match or the twilight Gabba match with a 5.15pm start. So from 1998 with a 50/50 split; it’s now more like a 87/13 split for Twilight/Night vs Day.
And plucking that random Round 17 for comparison; in 2023 there were 4 night matches across Thursday, Friday and Saturday as well as a 4.35pm twilight game and other matches starting 1.10, 1.45, 2.40 and 3.20. The days of a traditional 2ish o’clock start are long, long gone. The 4 night matches all beginning between 7.10 and 7.50. Thursday night fixtures ensure the creep of the night match and moving forward it seems we can expect more Thursday night clashes.
The 2021 Grand Final was a great spectacle at night. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Surely then, now is the time to at the very least consider a 5pm-ish twilight Grand Final.
A major benefit of a twilight or night Grand Final is that it reduces the superiority of the Cricket Club seating. For a day game in September with the sun behind them, they get by far the best seats in the house. The nearer to night and there’s far less of a distinction between the best and worst seats other than distance back into the nosebleeds.
The other benefit would be avoiding the disconcerting shadows that project across the ground since the completion of the Northern/Western/Members stands back in 2006. The previously roofless Olympic and Ponsford stands now project shadows across swathes of the ground, making TV viewing less than ideal.
Granted, it’s not as bad as Docklands, but it’s not showpiece quality!!!
We also saw the examples of the ‘Covid Grand Finals’ at the Gabba and in Perth that a night Grand Final looks brilliant. Granted we can consider ourselves fortunate that the lights held on in 2020.
And the final pitch… How good would Kiss look performing at around 6.45pm rather than 1.45pm?
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