See all that? Upwards of 10 million television viewers witnessed an extraordinary opening round of AFL and NRL playoffs that had this viewer flipping from one match and code to the next as if Gill McLachlan and Peter V’landys had conspired to write a particularly fast-paced novel, as if every storyline had another storyline hidden inside it, and inside that storyline was yet another storyline, and somehow Chris Fagan’s Lions would end up playing Trent Robinson’s Roosters on grand final day.
See all that? An exhilarating blur of million-miles-an-hour finals football that reinforced the notion we’re damn lucky to have these codes in this country; that we’re spoiled rotten for sporting entertainment now the plague is sort of under control; that there’s a few footballers in Australia who could win an Oscar or a Grammy or a Tony if they were in the actual entertainment business.
From the off-field highlights of Ash Barty’s schooner and Robinson’s cage-rattling to the on-field highlights of Charlie Cameron igniting the Gabba and Ryan Papenhuyzen running around Suncorp Stadium like he was trying to beat Fernando Bale to the line at Wentworth Park … that was a round of footy to remember.
Every game was a beauty, was it not? Feel the wall-shaking atmosphere in Brisbane when the Lions beat Richmond? See Cameron’s goals? What a player. What a player.
Those rev-your-motorbike celebrations are the best in Australian sport since Lleyton Hewitt’s vicht and Greg Inglis’s goanna crawl.
If I was 12 years of age, I’d be doing it in the living room, in the back yard, in the playground at school. I’m 50 and I still want to do it. There is magic in that man.
Lions coach Chris Fagan’s roar after Hugh McCluggage’s matchwinner has been powerful and priceless, as has the sight of Tigers fan Barty with a beer in her left hand, punching the sky with the other after a Richmond goal.
Barty looked less intense when she won a major, and perhaps we’ve see her real reason for ditching the French Open. The footy finals are on in Australia, and they’re better.
See Jack Wighton? What a player. What a player. See Melbourne beat Parramatta? What a club. What a club.
The New Zealand Warriors have been applauded for living away from home all year, but the Storm has basically done the same, based in Queensland, hardly an eternal torment but a challenge nonetheless. What a franchise.
The Storm’s Cameron Munster has played with enough old-school cunning and skill to warrant a cigarette out the back at halftime. Wighton gets my vote as the most valuable player in the NRL, but if I was going to swap him for anyone, it would be Munster.
He’s as pure a rugby league player as a rugby league player can be — dodgy knee notwithstanding.
A day must come when rugby league reaches peak physicality and speed, in terms of getting to a point where it’s not humanly possible for players to be quicker or bigger or stronger or faster. Perhaps that day is now.
In the NRL we had 320 minutes, plus all the stuffing around by the bunker, of human demolition derby. To watch every minute was to spend your time well. We had 256 minutes in the AFL, totalling more than nine hours of riveting viewing that sent the poor old Cronulla Sharks, and the poor old Newcastle Knights, and the poor old West Coast Eagles, and the poor old Western Bulldogs to their graves.
Everywhere from Fleet Street to Holt Street to the cover of a Stephen King novel it says, “If it bleeds, it leads”, and while this might be true for the nightly news on the idiot box, it’s not necessarily the case in the sports sections of newspapers.
This very page has a smile on its face. If it bleeds in sudden-death football it leaves — and is quickly forgotten.
The last word on the Sharks, Knights, Bulldogs and West Coast Eagles? In 2020, they have made up the numbers.
Robinson’s constant outbursts have been priceless. His hollering at Penrith’s Josh Mansour — “Get up, you soft prick” — is the fervour of finals football in all its fist-clenching, full-throated glory. Good on him.
If a bloke from the other team is playing down the clock by feigning injury … get up, you soft prick. Every non-Penrith supporter has felt and yelled the same. That’s the off-field theatricality of it all.
The on-field pinnacle has been a 51-second passage during Collingwood’s 76-75 sudden-death victory that killed off the Eagles.
Jack Darling had kicked a goal for the one-point margin. One minute and 17 seconds remained. The ensuing passage was desperate and breathless enough to warrant a paragraph with too few full stops.
Darcy Cameron got the ball from the bounce but he was tackled by Nic Naitanui before Taylor Adams was hit by Luke Shuey while he tried to kick and so the ball went loose before John Noble grabbed it and tried to kick, but he too was tackled and the ball shanked backwards to his own goal.
A general air of bedlam accompanied the fist of the ball by Andrew Gaff before a handball from Isaac Quaynor to Adams, who reefed it downfield while two Eagles players crashed into each other and went down like ninepins. And then Adam Treloar launched into a shot at goal from about 45m and the ball landed just inside the goal line, but then it bounced backwards instead of forwards and so the Eagles still had hope even if they had only 46 seconds to go the length of the field.
There was a kick and a mark and then another kick and another mark and then another kick and another mark and then a handball but Adams smothered the next kick from Tom Cole and then Scott Pendlebury sent a neat left-footer to Will Hoskin-Elliott and that was that.
More Coverage
Police ‘wanted to teach Kerr a lesson’: jury deliberations start
Before the jury in Sam Kerr’s trial retired, her lawyer told them issues of privilege and power were too weighty for the footballer to convey and her reference to a policeman being ‘white’ wasn’t harassment.
Five grand finals, no flags: Papley, Grundy open up on brutal reality
Tom Papley and Brodie Grundy have five losing grand finals between them without premiership success. The star Sydney pair reveal how they are bouncing back ahead of 2025.