AFL Grand Final: Melbourne erases 57 years of pain, Norm Smith curse with victory
Melbourne has been hit by tragedy like few other clubs, and an emotion-charged premiership came with a hint of sadness for the Demons’ last premiership captain, Ron Barassi.
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It’s a Grand New Flag for Melbourne after an agonising wait of 20,826 days.
Australian football’s oldest club and its long-suffering army of Red and Blue fans rejoiced on Saturday night after the modern-day Demons helped to wash away 57 years of heartache and tears by winning the club’s 13th VFL-AFL premiership.
They did it in style, backed by the sentimental sea of support around the country – not just inside a packed Perth Stadium, but from fans in a locked-down Melbourne who watched from living rooms.
One of those watching from his home in St Kilda was legendary Demon Ron Barassi – the club’s previous flag skipper from 1964 – who was happy to hand over the mantle to Max Gawn and the next wave of Melbourne premiership players.
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Barassi shed a tear for Demons past and present, including his late father Ron Sr, who played in the club’s 1940 premiership side before being killed at war less than a year later.
Bayley Fritsch, who wears the revered No.31 jumper worn by Barassi and his father, kicked six goals in a stunning forward display in the 74-point win.
“It means everything to me,” a delighted Barassi told the Sunday Herald Sun. “I only wish more of my past teammates and my father were here to see this.”
For so long Demons fans had been forced to celebrate the club’s storeyed past because the present hadn’t been palatable since that last triumph in 1964.
So much so that the Demons’ theme song – ‘It’s a Grand Old Flag’ – had often been a poignant reminder that the past seemed more cherished than the present.
Not any more.
These 2021 Demons produced the most remarkable of victories after the most remarkable of seasons for a club that had started the season under pressure – with a coach (Simon Goodwin) clinging onto his job, with a captain (Gawn) told to assert more of his leadership powers, and with a group of players under the heat.
They delivered in the most spectacular of ways, overcoming each and every hurdle that stood in their path to cement a place in history.
Simon Goodwin wasn’t even born when Norm Smith passed away in 1973; now his name will forever be connected to the legendary Demon coach.
He and Gawn held up the 2021 premiership – handed over by former Demon great Garry Lyon – to the roar of the crowd, and those back home.
Gawn is one of Barassi’s favourite players, and the pair are now joined as the last two Melbourne premiership captains.
In the time since 1964, the Demons have “won” seven wooden spoons, almost merged with Hawthorn 25 years ago this month; and they’ve endured the tragic, premature loss of some of the club’s brightest stars in Jim Stynes, Robbie Flower, Sean Wight, Dean Bailey, Troy Broadbridge and Colin Sylvia, among others.
Gawn spared a thought for them all, including former Melbourne coach Neale Daniher, who is fighting so valiantly in a battle with motor neurone disease, and for his now retired teammate Nathan Jones, who was watching from back home in Victoria.
Jack Viney won the flag that his father Todd missed out in 1988, with the Demons vice captain saying: “We were the laughing stock of the competition (when I started) and now we’ve won a premiership.”
Ben Brown was sacked by the wooden spoon side after last season; now he is a premiership player like his uncle, Collingwood 1990 flag member James Manson.
Tom McDonald was almost traded over the summer, but no one wanted him, and he played a key role in the Demons’ success.
Veteran defender Michael Hibberd was playing on behalf of his late brother, Geoff, who tragically went missing after a fishing trip in April last year, and the Essendon 34 who were banned by WADA for 12 months.
Luke Jackson became the first Rising Star winner to win a flag in the same year since Joel Selwood in 2007.
Steven May got through with his dodgy hamstring holding on, while fellow defender Jake Lever made up for the heartache of losing the 2017 Grand Final when he was with Adelaide.
And what about Jake Bowey’s first seven games of AFL football. He is now a premiership player and he has never played in a losing team.
That’s a sign of the new Melbourne, happy with the present, just as proud as it is of the past.
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Footy’s most turbulent period — as Covid wreaked havoc for 20 months across the game’s heartland — might just have resulted in the modern era’s most celebrated premiership.
Melbourne swept to that drought-breaking flag as a Grand Final that was on the brink of becoming an AFL epic inexplicably turned into a victory march.
As a 57-year premiership drought was broken in 45 perfect minutes of Melbourne football, history was made and Demons legends were forged.
A contest that was slipping from Melbourne’s grasp as Marcus Bontempelli grabbed one hand on the Norm Smith Medal was wrestled back with Grand Final history’s most incredible 12-goal burst.
Melbourne fans would have taken a flag anyhow, anywhere and any time.
So many were denied the chance to watch this game live but the pure unadulterated joy as those goals rained down – seven in 16 minutes alone – was surely some kind of compensation.
This Covid pandemic has tested every Australian, but for football it has shredded financial bottom lines, resulted in barren stadiums and broken the hearts of AFL traditionalists.
Last night as the club’s drought broke in twin locations – in an explosion of joy across Melbourne households and from the brilliant Demons who performed those deeds live – it was impossible for fans of every persuasion not to cheer them home as well.
This was a five-decade curse cast to the wind.
A premiership achieved while club greats Neale Daniher and Ron Barassi are still here to bask in the glory.
The Curse of Norm Smith gone forever.
A contest that banished the ghosts of past failures, purged the epic disasters including the tanking disgrace and the 186-point Kardinia Park bloodbath.
And finally, one that allowed the families of fallen Demons Bailey, Wight, Broadbridge, Sylvia and Flower to celebrate together as they basked in the radiating glory.
“After 57 years of pain, it’s coming home,” roared Max Gawn on the victory dais in a perfect postscript to this glorious red and blue season.
There were many magical movements on the field — Petracca’s glorious coronation as footy’s most damaging player, Clayton Oliver’s sheer will to compete when all seemed lost.
As Melbourne swept to what was eventually a 74-point annihilation of the Western Bulldogs, it was hard not to believe this could be the start of a Richmond-style dynasty given the talent on display.
But the moments that must have unfolded as Barassi and Daniher and all those famous Melbourne names hugged their families tight might have rivalled them for emotion too.
Max Gawn knew the score post-match amid the reflected glow of this side’s victory.
“Dean Bailey, Jim Stynes, Troy Broadbridge, the list goes on, what Neale Daniher is going through at the moment, these guys are the real heroes, we are just out here and trying to play our role,” he said.
On a glorious Perth day, the Demons played the perfect first quarter of football in what was shaping as a perfect finals campaign, their bone-rattling tackles leading Dogs like Bailey Williams into critical mistakes that cost Luke Beveridge’s side telling goals.
Adam Treloar, whose ruthless exit from Collingwood was the soundtrack of the summer, was the unlikeliest of lightning rods to kickstart the comeback.
His series of snapped goals at the fall of the ball — where he has lived his career — were followed by Bontempelli’s glorious pair of goals to bookend halftime.
By the time he kicked his third goal midway through the third term the Dogs looked home and the pundits were starting to quantify the magnitude of the Demons’ disastrous choke.
But Simon Goodwin’s last message to his players before the final siren was: “Let’s be us”.
It is a message that taps into the club’s ferocious brand, into the spirit of individuality led by the quirky captain Gawn, into the determination to nail this chance instead of squandering it like so many Demons sides before.
When Goodwin looked his players in the eyes post-match he would have realised they executed that mission to perfection.
There was Norm Smith Medallist Christian Petracca, whose improvement has defined this club’s improvement, capping a dominant display with an exquisite dribbling snap from the boundary line and a hand in every key goal.
There was Clayton Oliver lighting up the first quarter with his own Sherrin, then roaring across the 50m arc to kick one the defining goals in that seven-goal run to finish the third term.
There was Bailey Fritsch, who coach Simon Goodwin had backed to the hilt as an unlikely spearhead slotting six magical goals.
For all the advances of the truly national competition where it was never harder to win a flag, this has been a golden century for the true believers.
For Sydney, smashing its 72 year drought, to Geelong (44 years), then Richmond (47 years) then the Western Bulldogs (52 years) and now the Demons.
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Originally published as AFL Grand Final: Melbourne erases 57 years of pain, Norm Smith curse with victory
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