Christopher Pyne: This year was a tale of two very different local AFL teams
For most South Australians the season came to an end much earlier than the weekend – but we still had some things to be proud of this year.
Opinion
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It was AFL Grand Final week last week. Did anyone notice?
For most South Australians the season came to an end either when the Adelaide Crows lost to Richmond in the last game of the minor season or when Port Adelaide lost to Richmond in the preliminary final.
What is it with Richmond? That dream-killing team crushed the Crows in 2017. Having hardly troubled the scorer in decades, they now seem to be both South Australian teams’ bete noire!
Such is our parochial attitude to the AFL that despite us crow eaters regarding AFL as the national game, the Adelaide media didn’t exactly turn over every media opportunity to Geelong or Richmond in the lead-up to Saturday.
That’s as it should be. What do we care which Victorian team wins a grand final at the Gabba in Queensland?
That said, I barracked for Geelong at the Crown and Sceptre Hotel in King William Street on Saturday afternoon. I wanted Patrick Dangerfield to win a Grand Final. Unlike many South Australians, I didn’t blame him for wanting to return to his home. I also have a soft spot for Geelong. They hold the distinction of being the only country club in the competition. Anyway, Gary Ablett is a star. So that’s where my allegiance lay.
South Australians can be proud of one thing in Grand Final week — we dominated the Brownlow Medal count. Lachie Neale might play for the Brisbane Lions, but he’s a Kybybolite kid from the South-East and he went to Saint Peter’s College, Hackney*.
The medal count was hosted by Hamish McLachlan, another Saints boy, and his brother Gillon McLachlan is the CEO of the AFL. He too went to Saints — not a bad trifecta for Saints and for South Australia.
This year was a tale of two very different local teams.
The Adelaide Football Club had our worst season ever. We were handed the wooden spoon for the first time in our history.
Port Adelaide had one of its best seasons, finishing minor premiers. Congratulations to them. They aren’t my team, but I don’t think that’s a revelation.
Significantly for the Crows, the chairman, Rob Chapman, retired after 12 years at the helm.
He did a mighty job. Chapman took the Crows to the Grand Final in 2017 and the wooden spoon in 2020. He invested in a women’s AFL team and with it the Crows won two Grand Finals in 2017 and 2019. One of the worst calls of his life must have been the night he was told that Phil Walsh had been brutally murdered by his son in his own bed. Chapman had to reset the team and get them though it, which he did. He achieved full independence from the SANFL and weathered the controversy of the infamous Crows Gold Coast camp.
It should never have received such attention, and wouldn’t have but for the football-mad nature of our population.
While being chairman of the Crows sounds like the role of a lifetime, it isn’t all beer and skittles. If you think everyone has an opinion about education (because they’ve been to school) or politics (because they vote), try dealing with football fans.
Every fan is an expert on football. No matter that most football fans never played past school or old scholars. They all know better than the coach and the board how to win and manage a club.
While being chairman of the Crows looks like a great job, it’s also a thankless one.
John Olsen, a former SA premier and chairman of the SANFL, will be a worthy successor.
I’m looking forward to getting behind him and his team for next year and the year after, as we continue to grow the team and get back to where we belong — on top.
Across town, David Koch, chairman of the Port Adelaide Football Club, took over in 2012. The Power was in the doldrums and many regarded the chairmanship as something of a hospital pass.
To his great credit, Koch and his coach, Ken Hinkley, have slowly rebuilt the playing list, the team spirit and the club’s ethos.
Their adopted song and slogan, “Never Tear Us Apart”, is clever and memorable. It plays to the sense that they are the team of the battlers from the Port.
Koch had to put up with the barbs and quips from his cross-town rivals for years before the Power could say they were genuine contenders.
This year, they proved the naysayers wrong. Port Adelaide had a cracker of a year.
While it pains me to admit it, they are the better team right now. But it won’t stay that way forever.
One of the great things about football is there is always the next game or the next season to look forward to.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Brisbane Lions were the easybeats of the competition.
Greater Western Sydney played in last year’s grand final, having not been in the competition for long. For years, Richmond couldn’t win a trick, now they are a powerhouse again.
Just like politics, everyone is only as good as their last performance. Bring on 2021 I say.
*The writer’s sons both attended or attend St Peter’s College.