Going from WAGs to riches on the Brownlow blue carpet

THE blue carpet is no place for the timid - it's WAG versus WAG, a war waged with sparkles, sequins and impossibly white smiles.

Brownlow blue carpet

THE pressure is palpable on the Brownlow blue carpet.

The backlines are tighter than the players' pay talks. The forward press is in eye-popping overdrive.

It is no place for the timid - WAG versus WAG, a war waged with sparkles, sequins and impossibly white smiles.

It's enough to make battle-hardened players stand well back and out of shot.

For the increasingly-fabulous last Monday in September, no glitz is too much.

It gets really flash as a flood of fake-tan swishes in for the pre-count parade.

Sequins! What looks like snake skin! So many crystals there can't be an unstripped chandelier in the state.

There are all kinds of improbable dresses - and none of them cheap.

Is this why players need a pay rise?

"It is, mate," Gary Ablett says, all but ignored while the pack crushes around girlfriend Lauren.

"The shoes cost me a fortune. She got them at the last minute."

He looks across at the offending pair.

"Last time, Lauren!" he calls over, but she doesn't hear it, luckily for him.

Renae Wauhop, there with West Coast's Mark Nicoski, wears what might be silver sequins or chain mail.

Whichever, she must have been welded in. There are a couple of small (but not that small) opera house-shaped bits over her front.

"It is the only one ever made," she says, and no one argues.

Robert DiPierdomenico's niece Corey is asked "who" she is wearing, and is a standout for her savvy.

"eBay," she smiles.

Dane Swan stands well back from partner Taylor Wilson, reduced by the occasion to a bit player.

"He helped me with the buttons on the dress," Taylor says.

The bit of blue carpet gets crowded as WAGs walk slowly, hoping to be noticed.

Whatever the cost they want to be seen - and there can be a cost.

"She's got two bottoms, ew. And so pretty at the front, too," one catty critic comments.

Inevitably the carpet end becomes Platform 9-10 at Richmond after a night final, so crowded some players usher their WAGs through on the far side from the photographers.