David Penberthy: Aussie rules cannot really be described as a national game as long as the VFL/AFL keeps running it this way

Last year’s MCG turf spectacle was absurd but this season’s grand final hysteria has me reaching for the sick bag, writes David Penberthy.

Last year saw the absurd spectacle of a 3m x 1m square of “hallowed” MCG turf being trucked to Brisbane as a matter of urgency so the sacred surface could be at the Gabba on AFL’s biggest day.

This year it was the creation of an emergency compensation package of extra MCG games and an extension of the MCG exclusivity contract to 2059 on account of the grand final being played outside of Victoria for a second year in a row.

Cue the violins, or more appropriately, pass me the sick bag.

It really is remarkable how the VFL/AFL and the state of Victoria are utterly devoid of self-awareness when it comes to their baseless sense of ownership over the national game.

Taking time out from his usual schedule of ordering toddlers out of playgrounds and threatening people with the full force of martial law lest they breach an unnecessary curfew, Victorian Premier Dan Andrews was in full unctuous mode on Tuesday when he announced the saddest news.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews gives a daily Covid update to his state. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Melbourne was again surrendering its unquestionable and God-given right to host the grand final.

“I know that finals footy and the grand final is a spiritual thing. It’s part of our soul as a city and state but no football match is worth putting people in hospital, it just isn’t,” Andrews said, mournfully.

To offset that shattering news, the Premier and VFL/AFL were quick to reassure that a special “hurt feelings” package had been crafted to ensure the MCG hosting rights contract be extended from 2058 to 2059.

In addition, an extra four games will be played at the MCG next year, on top of the four already added through last year’s contract alteration.

It has taken nothing less than a global pandemic for the VFL/AFL to surrender what it regards as its birthright, despite the fact the game is played in the same per capita numbers and receives the same level of support elsewhere in Australia.

If many a true word is said in jest, the most candid demonstration of the Victorian mindset was on the front page of Melbourne’s Sunday Herald-Sun in 2004 after Port and Brisbane won the preliminary finals.

“NIGHTMARE AT THE MCG,” the headline thundered, illustrated with a graphic of a Scream mask wearing Lions and Power scarfs, capturing the true horror of the looming grand final, the first not to feature a Victorian side.

We now have a situation where one of the likely non-Victorian grand finalists in Port Adelaide could actually play a grand final at home but even that hasn’t been a consideration because money and crowds trump tradition.

Port Adelaide fans celebrate a goal during the 2021 AFL Second Qualifying Final match between the Port Adelaide Power and the Geelong Cats at Adelaide Oval. Picture: Sarah Reed

Port fans celebrate winning the AFL Second Qualifying Final at Adelaide Oval. Picture: Daniel Kalisz

You can imagine the hue and cry from the Melbourne Demons (and the rest of Victoria) if the grand final ended up being played here.

It would give Port the exact same home-ground advantage that clubs such as Richmond, Hawthorn and Collingwood have had in grand finals over the past two decades. Not that the need to avoid hypocrisy or maintain consistency have ever troubled Victoria when it comes to matters of a footballing nature.

To make the point further, when Richmond and GWS squared off in the 2019 grand final, it was just the 20th game the Giants had played at the MCG in their entire history, versus the 113 appearances Richmond had made at the ’G in the same period.

It was also Richmond’s seventh game in a row at the MCG for the 2019 season, whereas the Giants had played there that year just three times in the minor round and once in the preliminary final.

This is what a national competition and level playing field looks like at AFL House.

If anyone deserves compensation for the MCG not hosting the grand final, it’s not Victoria, it’s the rest of Australia.

Hearing the hysterical commentary out of Victoria over the past few weeks as the state clung desperately to its hopes of hosting the GF was something to behold. Eddie McGuire made as much sense as Robert De Niro’s character in the final scenes of Cape Fear, foaming at the mouth on Triple M about how it would be easy to set up rapid testing stations inside huge medical tents so that quick turnaround Covid tests could be conducted for 100,000 fans on the day, and proof of vaccinations checked by MCG staff.

The game must go on, even if it looks more like the movie Outbreak than a sporting contest.

Aussie rules cannot really be described as a national game as long as the VFL/AFL keeps running it this way. My view – hope is slightly too strong a word – is the game risks long-term marketing growth and limited growth to other sports as a result of its Victorian-centric management.

An annual roadshow where the grand final tours the nation Super Bowl-style would surely be a marketing dream. At AFL House it’s the concept that dare not speak its name.

Look at its shabby treatment of Tasmania.

In continuing to deny Tasmania a stand-alone team, the VFL/AFL is punishing Tasmanians for liking Aussie rules too much.

Tasmanians already watch the game, buy tickets to matches in Hobart and Launceston, follow a Victorian side or interstate side even though they would love their own. They have made the fatal tactical error of liking the game too much.

The AFL would rather set up shop in western Sydney, where a few hundred footy-starved expats and some NIDA graduates pretending to be a cheer squad form the bedrock of a made-up club in NRL heartland.

If you keep up this treatment for people who actually like the game, and who have every bit as “spiritual” a connection to it as Dan Andrews claims for Victoria, the VFL/AFL might find that in the longer term people take their affections elsewhere.