One Week at a Time

Thoughts on the footy season

In the modern incarnation of our great game, football’s off seasons have seemed as short as a Mick Malthouse press conference after a loss. While the players and coaches do take a break from the actual playing of the game, in their place, the football media seems to play a game of their own, a game not so much steeped in tradition but hysteria.

You know, I don’t believe in omens, but it’s just after 11am, Grand Final day 2008. My wife and I are already at the ground, waiting for a coffee. We notice some commotion just outside Gate 3. Security men are frantically making a path for someone. It’s Glenn Archer. Although I’m not sure Arch needs much protection, so perhaps it’s what he’s holding that’s the focus.

Fifteen days passed between our qualifying final win against the Western Bulldogs and the preliminary final against St Kilda. It seemed an eternity so you can imagine how long the seventeen years since the Hawks last made a grand final has felt. Incredibly it had been the third longest grand final drought with only Richmond at 26 years and the Bulldogs at 47 to have waited longer.

As we left the MCG on Friday night, with a preliminary final berth confirmed, a footballing companion remarked that he had picked up a few bruises of his own from the game. He’d been sitting next to me, front row, third tier of the Southern Stand. The combination of the constant whacking of his knees on the harsh concrete barrier in front of us as he slid to the edge of his seat and my continual bumping of his arms and legs as I rode each contest out in the middle meant that he walked away pretty sore but certainly not sorry. He also barracks for Hawthorn.

“Don’t kick it to Buddy, don’t kick it to Buddy.” As Cyril Rioli grabbed the ball just outside fifty, shrugged his man and surged towards goal, this is what I was thinking to myself. I could see Buddy was free. He was only one goal away from his hundred. But I didn’t want him to have the ball in his hands. Not now anyway.

Maybe I shouldn’t be writing this, but it’s time I came clean. I’ve found the last few weeks of football a bit boring.

Twenty rounds down and just two to go. As the finals inch closer than a Beijing security guard, eleven sides have a mathematical chance of making the finals although for a couple of those sides, Stephen Hawking may be required to make the calculations. Let’s take a look at what lies ahead for your side over the next fortnight.

Geelong has a lot to answer for. Not only are they proving to be one of the most successful teams in history, a course of action they took last year seems to have started a worrying trend. The trend disturbs me on a number of levels, none moreso than the terms that accompany it such as, “leadership group”, “player empowerment”, “core values” and that old chestnut, “culture”. Even more worrying is that I have to employ quotation marks when using those terms. Let me explain - about the trend, not the quotation marks.

It has been pointed out to me that I hadn’t posted a blog after Hawthorn’s Round 16 game against St Kilda. I think it only right that I clarify the reasons for this.

Maybe it was the backdrop, a luxurious suite with ridiculously beautiful ocean views, but I’ve never enjoyed a Hawthorn loss as much as the one last Friday night. Don’t get me wrong, I was disappointed that a few critical errors at vital stages cost us the game, but it’s amazing how quickly you get over it when you have a sumptuous dessert and settling nightcap on the balcony waiting for you.