Adelaide won’t get a look in to host AFL grand final after SA Government turned its back on footy during its hour of need
South Australia’s decision to oppose hosting Victorian teams in a football hub was “selfish and small-minded”. And it has all but ruled Adelaide Oval out as an AFL grand final venue, writes Graham Cornes.
Graham Cornes
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South Australia is a proud football state. Nobody can argue with that.
Our history started one year after the game was codified in Melbourne. We didn’t have a Tom Wills or an H.C. Harrison, but the game took hold in our free-settler colony as strongly as it did in convict-stained Victoria.
Indeed, the SANFL is the oldest surviving football code in Australia, and one of the oldest in the world. But we shouldn’t brag.
The Vics claim the game as their own but it is as much ours as it is theirs, even though we’ve been afflicted with a football inferiority complex over the years.
They’re Victorians, so we hate them – purely in a football sense, of course.
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However, as that state struggles with a second wave of the COVID-19 virus, the narrative surrounding Melbourne and Victoria has descended to an ugly level of ridicule.
It’s times like these we need to be reminded we are Australians first and foremost.
Secondly, we are one football family and despite Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ childish, supercilious denigration of Adelaide, we have a responsibility to assist them to emerge from their current crisis.
We’ve sent a flying squad of medical experts to help, but we can do more.
It’s hard to be critical of our State Government as it has handled and controlled the pandemic as well as any jurisdiction in the world, but its decision not to allow Victorian AFL teams to establish a football hub in Adelaide is selfish and small-minded.
It’s more than football because it deprives the South Australian economy of much-needed revenue.
While Queensland, NSW and even the zealously protective Western Australia have stepped up to the plate to host Victorian teams and AFL matches, our State Government has gone to water.
Our politicians are always quick to jump on football’s bandwagon, but in this instance they’ve displayed a distinct lack of courage and initiative.
The risk to our communities is minimal. AFL footballers are among the most COVID-19 insulated groups in the country and are constantly tested.
There has been much discussion about relocating this year’s AFL grand final given the uncertainty of when Victorian borders will be reopened.
Adelaide Oval has definitely been discussed as one of the options to host the grand final if it is relocated.
However, our reluctance to assist in football’s heavy-lifting will preclude us from any such consideration.
Adelaide Oval would have been a perfect alternative in terms of geography, convenience and the fact we are a passionate football state, but we don’t deserve it now.
We should have welcomed a couple of Victorian teams with open arms.
Hopefully, it’s not too late as there is sure to be another need for non-Victorian hubs when the future program is reconfigured. Let’s hope we step up to the plate.
Incredibly, the AFL has been roundly criticised for reviving its season.
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I normally like News Corp columnist Susie O’Brien’s musings, but in recent weeks she’s lost me.
First she doubled down on Daniel Andrews’ ridicule of SA with a piece that portrayed the MCG – that soulless, ugly concrete edifice – as the mecca of all cultural desire.
But then she had the audacity to criticise her own Victorian footballers for being sent interstate to sustain the AFL season. As if they had a choice.
It was a nasty, vindictive piece that exposes the prejudice that footballers often have to endure.
Or perhaps what it reveals most is the frustration of Victorians who once again have to be confined to their houses and deal with the inconvenience of restricted services.
Of course, we are all envious of young men who can escape the southern winters, but as the players who have opted not to go and the others who have done so reluctantly will attest, it’s no holiday.
Richmond star Jack Riewoldt’s description of his emotional departure from his wife and daughter was honest and raw. It will be no vacation for him.
Other players have made an even tougher decision not to go and stay with their families.
They face the double dilemma and emotional toll of abandoning their teammates and then dealing with the public criticism that they need to toughen up.
After all, cricketers, other global sportspeople and fly in/fly out workers often leave their families for extended periods.
It’s not selfishness on the part of footballers to want to continue the season under whatever circumstances they can.
They are providing a vital social service. While our lives here in SA are slowly returning to some sort of normality, Victorians have been effectively imprisoned.
We can feel O’Brien’s pain.
However, it’s a football-mad state. At least being able to watch the football provides some sort of escape – not to mention the economic benefit to the television networks, the communities and the venues that are hosting the footy and the footballers.
We had a great opportunity here in South Australia to share those benefits.
Now we don’t deserve to.
It’s worth reminding ourselves again. We are Australians first.