Team that wins 2020 AFL premiership amid COVID-19 crisis should be praised for adapting best during time of crisis

The team that wins this year’s AFL premiership should be lauded for adapting in the most trying of circumstances. There must be no doubts over the legitimacy of the season, writes Michelangelo Rucci.

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No-one will forget AFL season 2020 ... but how will everyone remember the winner of this year’s premiership?

There is no doubt the AFL, as its chief executive Gillon McLachlan repeatedly says, “will find a way” to fit a premiership season into this year, even if it takes until Christmas to determine the winner of the league’s 124th flag.

The question is just how the campaign to crown the champion will unfold in the most challenging season haunted with a level of uncertainty not known since 1942-43.

Then, in the face of World War II, the fixtures were cut back, venues were lost and some teams did not compete or finish the seasons.

In the early 1940s, the enemy was visible.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic is masked – and loaded with so many unknowns that the AFL, its 18 clubs and its teams are to be tested beyond normal benchmarks on leadership and physical and mental standards.

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Richmond and Carlton players during Thursday night’s opening game of the AFL season, which was the first to be played with no fans present. Picture: AAP Image/Michael Dodge

Is it really a compromised season that will lead to some putting as asterisk next to the eventual 2020 premier?

No, it is a season of extraordinary circumstances that should have the premiership club (not just the 22-man team on grand final day) hailed for conquering the demands of adapting amid apprehension and unpredictability.

A 17-round home-and-away fixture – that could be restructured many times this year – ends a compromised AFL program with five “double-up” games for blockbusters, derbies and to put more cash in the game’s treasury.

And still, many will note that the non-Victorian AFL clubs will travel more often than their Victorian rivals for their eight “away” matches.

What does the final series look like – and if it is a top-10 or top-12 series with wildcards, how does this resonate between the trigger clauses in Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley’s contract that expires if the Power does not play finals?

Richmond’s Josh Caddy fires off a handball during the match against Carlton. Picture: AAP Image/Michael Dodge

There are so many unknowns, and they just keep piling up to make 2020 the year that changes how McLachlan’s tenure at the AFL is defined.

Until now, the legacy was being measured on the record $2.5 billion television deal signed in August 2015 and McLachlan’s decision to advance the start of the AFLW from 2020 to 2017 (how that reads better today).

But the one answer that divides opinion is just whether the game should go ahead at all.

Not even the players are unanimous on this front, and this applies well beyond the AFL as noted with Melbourne Storm champion Cam Smith’s call for the NRL to pause to find greater certainty to ease growing anxiety.

During World War I, the SANFL (but not the VFL nor the WAFL) stopped amid the argument it was wrong to play sport – and have young men in games rather than war duty.

By World War II, it was clear continuing with sport was uplifting for public morale ... and for fundraising.

Whoever wins this year’s premiership likely won’t be able to celebrate it with fans. Picture: Phil Hillyard

But then the fans could go to the games.

And there was no threat to the players – other than the usual physical injuries – on the field.

So far, the supporters have dealt with the disappointment of being locked out of venues with the promise of seeing games on television (and for Crows and Power fans there is the bonus that all their AFL matches must flow to free-to-air Channel 7, even if this might be on delay).

The grandest gesture from many club members – recognising the financial strain to come to their clubs – was to waive the thought of seeking a refund on ticket sales.

The money they had dedicated (and sacrificed) for a seat at Adelaide Oval or the MCG or Kardinia Park was best kept in football to keep the game afloat.

But no matches – after a summer of hope being rebuilt and grand anticipation for the Port Adelaide fans in the club’s 150th year – appears a torment worse than being caught without enough toilet paper.

This is a moment like no other.

And this is why the eventual winner of the 2020 AFL premiership should be lauded with more than the usual fanfare that comes with being the best team in the toughest competition in the land (if not the world).