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The 2023 grand final falls between the death of Ron Barassi two weeks ago and his state funeral on a date yet to be announced. Doubtlessly Saturday’s rituals will include some homage to Barassi, but in many ways the fact of the game itself will be its own mute tribute.
Not only was Barassi a superstar as player and coach, he was a true visionary. He foresaw, sometimes by decades, a national competition and international expansion, Sunday footy, ground rationalisation, extra umpires, zones on the ground, caps on spending in the interests of a more even competition and provision on the bench for injured players – not to mention a proper women’s competition.
Collingwood skipper Darcy Moore and Brisbane Lions co-captain Harris Andrews with the premiership cup.Credit: Eddie Jim
In these prophecies can be discerned the framework for footy today – and for Saturday’s game, pitting against each other two of the oldest clubs, but in their modern guises: Fitzroy as the Brisbane Lions, Collingwood as, well, some say, likeable. They first met in a grand final 120 years ago.
Grand final week began on a bum note when thousands of Collingwood fans who paid handsomely for club memberships in the reasonable expectation of tickets to the grand final found themselves empty-handed. It’s a staple of grand final week, magnified this year by Collingwood’s participation. It would be impossible to meet even half of Saturday’s demand, but it is clear that not nearly enough tickets are made available to members and supporters on whose loyalty the game depends. This needs redress.
The ticketing fiasco also begs a question about whether the game has sacrificed too much of its soul to its corporate mission. Record crowds, ratings and memberships suggest that the people still regard footy as their game. Saturday will make a fifth 92,000-plus crowd at the MCG this finals series. Outgoing AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan indulged himself for a moment at one of many lunches this week to say that the game had never been in better shape.
At one level, he has a case. The riches from last year’s mega-bucks broadcast deal are starting to flow, a future new Tasmanian team has at last been ticked off, as has a long-waited new players pay deal which among other things opens the door a little wider for the slowly evolving women’s competition. When McLachlan finally hands over the CEO’s reins to Andrew Dillon on Monday, they will sit slackly in his hands at first; the immediate hurdles seemingly overcome.
McLachlan also claimed that the game as a spectacle had never been better. We’ll grant him that it continues to furnish us with drama on an operatic scale. The season began with a draw between Richmond and Carlton and a theme was established (at least in the higher reaches of the ladder).
All four of the full-house finals at the MCG came down to barely a kick. Collingwood won two of them, reinforcing their surprise standing under coach Craig McRae as the team from which you dare not turn your eyes. Premiership fancy Melbourne lost two of them, tipping them out of the finals; Barassi would have been displeased with that.
A good Collingwood season is axiomatically good for the AFL, and Carlton’s stirring recovery from the mid-season doldrums to reach a preliminary final for the first time this century added further frisson. Even before this season ends, next season cannot come soon enough for some.
The season was not flawless, however, and there are ongoing, pressing issues for the sport to address. Between the AFL and Hawthorn, they were ham-fisted in inquiring into historical allegations of racism at the club, leaving both accusers and accused – including current coaches Alastair Clarkson and Chris Fagan – feeling bruised by the process. Clarkson and Fagan have denied any wrongdoing.
Nor was Barassi all-knowing. He could not have foreseen the vexatious issue of concussion and the conundrum at the heart of it: how to make the game safer without filleting its essence as a contact sport.
In his time, and until very recently, concussion was an occupational hazard, not the pressing public health issue it has become. The AFL has long claimed that the head is sacrosanct. You can debate whether this is so in practice, but the working principle henceforth must be a cultural shift whereby it is seen as smart rather than timid to keep your head out of the line of fire. This will be the No.1 issue for the AFL into the forseeable future.
Perhaps all that Barassi would have disliked about the 2023 grand final is that Collingwood are in it. And perhaps not. For all his rivalry with the Magpies, he was always generous, writing after Melbourne had beaten Collingwood by a kick in the 1964 grand final that he would have been proud to play for the Magpies that day. Would that all our public figures were so gracious in their engagements now.
Patrick Elligett sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.
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