Victoria to offer state funeral for best on ground Barassi

This week the national game of Australian football and his state of Victoria will grapple with how to mark the life and loss of son and saviour Ronald Dale Barassi.

Football legend Ron Barassi before his beloved Melbourne Demons took home the 2022 Premiership Cup. The AFL is to discuss naming the cup after the game’s most influential character. Picture: David Caird

They paused for a minute’s silence at the Adelaide Oval before the weekend’s final and they stopped to process the news in all ports where Australian football is played this weekend, but this week the national game and the state of Victoria will grapple with how to mark the life and loss of its first-born son and saviour Ronald Dale Barassi.

The champion footballer, legendary coach and passionate football advocate died in Melbourne on Saturday at the age of 87.

Daniel Andrews’s government will offer the family a state funeral and the AFL executive will meet to discuss what to do to commemorate his passing and his career.

There’s a whole lot to consider, including the forthcoming grand final and the proposition that the Premiership Cup be named after the game’s most influential character.

His guardian and coach at Melbourne, Norm Smith, already has the player of the match medal named in his honour and many in the football community believe it would only be fitting to name the trophy after the apprentice who went on to outshine the master.

In Victoria, where Australian rules is a religion, he was its prophet and greatest proponent. A champion on the field and an innovator off it. It is no coincidence that a list of the greatest grand ­finals of all time feature mostly games he played, or he coached.

Smith and Barassi combined for a record six premierships at Melbourne between 1955 and 1964 after the coach invented the “ruck rover” position to accommodate the teenager who lived in a bungalow in his backyard. His efforts were so notable in one grand final that he was awarded three votes and two votes but had to split the last one with an ­opponent.

The Ron Barassi statue at the MCG the day after his death. Picture: David Crosling

Those feats as a player have seen him cast in bronze outside the MCG and in his home town of Guildford, but Barassi went on to coach Carlton to two premiership victories and North Melbourne to two more. Later, at Sydney, he turned around a 26-game losing streak that threatened to end the club and recruited Tony Lockett to give the outfit a template for the success it has enjoyed ever since.

Barassi passed away following complications from a fall. The most public of men for most of his life, he was also intensely private, and his condition had been kept from all but those closest to him.

The old guard knew something was not up when he did not turn up to the AFL Life Members function during the week.

He loved that room and the company of those ageing men.

Ron Barassi in action for the Melbourne Demons in 1964. Picture: Getty Images

John Nicholls, captain of Carlton in Barassi’s day, was one who had the chance to pay his respects before the game’s legend breathed his last “surrounded by his loving family” on Saturday.

The previous night, Melbourne had gone down to Carlton before more than 90,000 people at the MCG. Barassi had played and coached both clubs and both had invoked his legacy leading into the game, but he was absent from the stands.

Barassi, his memory failing and his body suffering the effects of his fearless brand of football, had been attending Melbourne games in recent years and was a focus of attention when the side won the 2021 premiership – the first since he left them last century.

Footage of him singing the club song before that match and then being presented the premiership cup at his home after it revealed an old man whose eye still twinkled with memories of another era and whose heart was always at the club where his father played before dying in the war.

Mr Andrews said he hoped the family would accept a public ­funeral. “The word legend is used a lot but nobody deserves it quite like Ron Barassi,” he said.

“He didn’t just play the game – he reshaped it. And how fitting that (Friday) night’s game was a cliffhanger between the Dees (Melbourne) and Blues (Carlton).”

Ron Barassi coaching the Swans in 1994.

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan echoed the Premier, saying “Ron Barassi has contributed more than an individual could possibly give to our sport and we give our deepest condolences to (his wife) Cherryl, all members of the Barassi family and their many friends”.

Eddie McGuire, too, added that Barassi was “the most important figure of football in my time”, adding that he was in favour of renaming the premiership cup.

Anthony Albanese may be a league supporter but he too expressed his sadness at Barassi’s death.

“There is no more famous name in football than Ron Barassi and there is no one who gave more to the game that millions love,” Prime Minister said.

“A fearless player and leader, a visionary coach and a tireless champion for the growth and success of Australian rules football. Ron’s name and his legacy will be remembered as long as footy is played.”