On hallowed ground, Anzacs remembered

As the nation prepared for Anzac Day, the spiritual capital of Australian sport morphed into the church of the MCG last night.

Players from Richmond and Melbourne observe a minute’s silence before the Anzac Eve AFL match last night to remember Diggers killed in battle. Picture: Getty Images

As the nation prepared for Anzac Day, the spiritual capital of Australian sport morphed into the church of the MCG last night.

Tens of thousands of supporters used the most ubiquitous of 21st century technologies, the mobile phone, to shine their lights on the darkened ground as the LastPostdrifted across Yarra Park.

For half an hour last night, the Anzac Eve commemoration before the start of the Melbourne-Richmond AFL contest — won by Richmond 12.13 (85) to 6.6 (42) — reinforced the spiritual importance and impact of the day ahead.

Melbourne Football Club has lost 30 players to war and its ruckman Max Gawn channelled the Anzacs before the match.

“Obviously it’s footy and it’s not going to war, but to be able to have that spirit and feel what they felt in terms of mateship and togetherness is what I’ve grabbed from anyone I’ve heard speak about the Anzacs,’’ Gawn said.

The Anzac Eve contest, which has been held for five years, is in many ways the dress rehearsal for the Anzac Day match between ­Essendon and Collingwood. By game’s end today, as many as 170,000 people will have honoured the fallen at the MCG in less than 24 hours, with hundreds of thousands of others at marches around Australia doing the same.

The torch used in the MCG event was lit at the Shrine of Remembrance and delivered to the ground by shrine guards, who then passed it on to the Creswick Light Horse Troop. It was then carried for a lap of the ground before being passed to the parents of a fallen Digger to light the ground’s cauldron. While all the imagery was of Anzac Cove, the man honoured last night was 23-year-old Sapper Rowan Robinson, killed eight years ago in Afghanistan. His parents, Marie and Peter, had made the trip from northern NSW to help honour their son, a combat engineer. “He was an amazing boy who became a wonderful man,’’ Mrs Robinson said last night. Peter Robinson said his son had wanted to travel to Victoria to surf at Bells Beach, attend an AFL game at the MCG and the Boxing Day Test. His son, from Cudgen near Tweed Heads, would be ­honoured at being centre-stage at one of Australia’s main Anzac Day events. “He would be stoked,’’ his father said.