Robert Craddock: Gabba shines for an AFL Grand Final we’ll never see again

The unlikeliest Grand Final in AFL history had drama on off the ground - which included boss Gillon McLachlan having his car towed away - but a once in a lifetime spectacle was delivered, writes Robert Craddock.

Dustin Martin celebrates a goal during the 2020 Grand Final. Picture: Getty Images

The game’s big boss had his car towed, the heavens opened up and at one stage a football was kicked over a drunken spectator tackled by security.

Yes, folks, it was a Grand Final day — sorry, night — like no other but in this of all seasons, would we have wanted anything else?

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The “never before, never again’’ AFL Grand Final at the Gabba became a metaphor for the season — threatening clouds everywhere yet clear skies when it mattered in a year when craziness became kosher.

Richmond beat Geelong in a classic struggle.

RECAP: EVERY MOMENT OF THE 2020 AFL GRAND FINAL

They had been sharing a resort for months, swapping coffees and fishing yarns, and went at each other like two desperate brothers in the backyard before Richmond broke free, as champions do.

The atmosphere was tremendous, the drama relentless and exhausting from the 34-minute first quarter that saw Richmond’s Nick Vlastuin knocked senseless and Gary Ablett sentenced to play with “one wing’’ for the rest of the match after a shoulder injury restricted his rattlesnake reflexes.

It was Ablett’s last game before retirement and a Cats victory would have made his “one-armed warrior’’ story one for the ages. It wasn’t to be.

Queensland will hand back the Grand Final — forever — feeling they didn’t let the side down.

Tigers fan Ella gets excited as Richmond hits the lead. Picture: Annette Dew

After more than 50 games in this state, the bottom line was that you can start and stop and start a competition, turn it upside down and inside out, take it around the Cape of Good Hope — but the system, madhouse though it was, somehow tossed up the best team as premiers.

The occasion felt big. Not MCG big but special in its own right. Normal at times. Delightfully different to others, as Ash Barty was chosen to present the trophy.

The challenges never stopped for the AFL right down to boss Gillon McLachlan having his car towed away on match morning, parked in a towaway zone outside his apartment.

He will fetch it from “quarantine’’ on Sunday.

Brisbane had not had a decent shower for months, yet it rained so heavily around 3pm that at one stage it appeared Noah may have to be temperature-tested had his Ark floated up on the swirling floodwater on Ipswich Road.

Gary Ablett walks off the ground after his last AFL game as Geelong and Richmond players form a guard of honour. Picture: Sarah Reed

“Queensland … perfect one day, precipitation the next,’’ McLachlan quipped at the pre-match function after Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said “we thought we would bring the Melbourne weather for you”.

The Gabba had that One Time Only feel you get at a major Games opening ceremony when you know the Big Dance had never been this way before and she ain’t coming back.

You could feel the history washing over you even if you weren’t quite sure what it all meant.

Hundreds of Melbourne-based fans had quarantined in Darwin en route to Brisbane and their first sight of the Gabba must have been like an oasis to a desert explorer.

The word was out a couple of hours before kick-off that a Geelong supporter in Vulture Street would pay treble face value for a ticket and was getting more desperate by the minute.

It’s true that 29,767 fans at the Gabba is not 90,000 at the “G’’.

The premiership cup arrives on a surfboard. Picture: Michael Klein

But with even rugby league’s State of Origin struggling to sell out in Brisbane, the ticket crush was a welcome contrast to the pioneer years of the 1980s when Robert Walls was offered 10 free tickets to a Brisbane Bears game with his McDonald’s hamburger before replying “I’m sweet — I coach them’’.

The pre-match and halftime entertainment was classy and, most importantly, had no Meat Loaf meltdowns.

Local band Sheppard thumped out Geronimo — the only national No. 1 song to be Brisbane-made, recorded down the road at McDowall.

The AFL’s first night Grand Final will probably be a ratings winner that will prompt the inevitable push for a permanent shift but the daytime slot still holds many aces.

It was almost as if the curtain were ripped off its rail at full-time as the AFL’s bubble burst and the players were allowed to roam for the first time in months. Free at last …

Originally published as Robert Craddock: Gabba shines for an AFL Grand Final we’ll never see again