Gather Round? More like Blather Round if you ask me

He’s good, Peter Malinauskas, we’ll give him that.

In Gather Round, the South Australian premier has taken our share of footy and sold it back to us as if we’re the lucky ones. He’s selling our coals back to us here in figurative Newcastle, and the price we pay is a weekend without footy. On the way through, he’s getting a boon for his state’s economy and untold dollars worth of free advertising.

South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas (second from left) promotes Gather Round with Zac Bailey of the Brisbane Lions (to his right) , the AFL’s Josh Mahoney and North Melbourne’s Jy Simpkin.Credit: Getty Images

Usually, when you take something, you give something back. What did we get back here in non-Gatherland – that is, most of Australia?

A blitzkrieg about the charms of SA, after which we’re supposed to rejoice and be grateful that they’ve got the footy and we haven’t. Dreamy images of footballers and partners disporting themselves in exotic South Australian locations between failing to stick crucial tackles and missing to the near side, again. Our footy beamed back to us repackaged as a campaign.

Oh yes, Malinauskas is good. We’re guessing that’s a pretty high-grade merino fleece that he’s managed to pull over the AFL’s eyes.

Don’t get me wrong. SA is a lovely state – some of my best friends come from there – Adelaide’s beaut now that it has woken up and the Adelaide Oval is a treasure. You might have heard mention of all these virtues in various broadcasts and missives this past week. If you have a keen ear, you might even have picked up that they have wineries, too, and they’re really good.

At the weekend, you would have heard that the streets were teeming with people in all the footy colours and that there was a buzz about the place like no other.

You might have heard about all the food and the wine and the footy that you could have infused if you were there, which most people who would normally go to the footy weren’t.

Here’s what I don’t buy about all those coals that Malinauskas was selling:

* That Gather Round somehow promotes and builds the game. Where and to whom? SA is arguably the most parochial footy state of all. Propagation of the faith was supposed to be the rationale for Gather Round, remember, until SA swooped. It is doubtful that Gather Round in Adelaide has won a single convert.

We’re told that 38 per cent of the tickets were bought by visitors from interstate, that is, a fairly select group of people who would have gone to the footy anyway and had time, money and wherewithal to go to Adelaide to the footy. They’re not Sauls and Adelaide is not Damascus.

If Gather Round really was to spread the faith, it would be on the still hostile hinterland in the north – again – or in Tasmania, where the faith has been sorely tried, not to the converted.

* That the sold-out grounds were a marvel. Since every team was there, and a welter of fans, and only one ground held more than 10,000 people, it would have been a disgrace if they were not sold out.

At a time when the AFL thumps its chest about record crowds and bursting membership lists, fewer people than ever were able to get to the footy last weekend. Where was the net gain, except to the SA economy?

Sydney’s Isaac Heeney soaks up the intimate atmosphere at the Mt Barker oval in the Adelaide Hills, where his team played West Coast on Saturday.Credit: Getty

And don’t @ me that Gather Round is an extra round and so should be seen by fans as a bonus. It was part of the fixture, round five, matches played for premiership points, counting for ladder position. For the fans who weren’t and couldn’t be there – that is, most – it wasn’t a game that they would not have seen anyway, it was a game they could not and did not see.

* That staging footy back on cute little suburban and country grounds all of a sudden was a good thing again, except in Tasmania, where it can, and must, only ever be played in a brand-new stadium with a roof. Last week’s vice suddenly was this week’s virtue.

* That everyone was having a jolly good time. Of course, they were; they were on holidays. They had the means to have a good time, or they were in the vast official party, sipping the chablis and washing it down with Kool Aid. Did we mention wineries?

In Gather Round, fewer people get to go to the footy than in any other week of the season, but those who did got to drink medal-winning wine, as seen on TV, ad nauseam.

Malinauskas says SA will continue to beef up Gather Round, and now there are rumblings about more gatherings in other states. That’s terrific for some.

AFL chairman Richard Goyder exercised his talent for being out of touch with almost everyone by saying Gather Round would become a FOMO phenomenon.

The whole thing is predicated on COMO: the certainty of missing out. You know, like when flying Qantas in his time.

To all who went, Gather Round doubtlessly was the experience of a lifetime. To everyone else, it wasn’t even another weekend at the footy because there wasn’t any footy.

All that’s left now is for us to un-ram our throats and get back to the cost-of-living crisis. Only then will we be done with blather round.

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