In a year of setbacks and letdowns, a dazzling quartet of matches gave the code a welcome shot of adrenalin
AFL football is dead. If not dead, then on life support. This is what we’ve been led to believe in a season sans precedent. It is not the barrow pushed by jaded curmudgeons of the press or snipers from rival codes – though listen to Australian Rugby League Commission chairman, Peter V’landys, and you’d swear the AFL is not gasping for air but in an advanced stage of rigor mortis – but by those in the thick of it. Season 2020 has demanded many things from followers of this great sport: patience, understanding, even a sense of humour. But above all it has demanded belief.
Belief that the game is not going the wrong way. The decay has been there for all to see: cautious, risk-free footy; armies behind the ball; low-scoring games; congestion where courage once was. More often than not in the regular season, it seemed teams played not to win but rather not to lose. In round four, Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson captured the mood of an industry when he said the game was in a “dreadful space”. In round six, the only person arguing with Damien Hardwick’s assessment of the Richmond-Sydney borefest as a “horrendous game of football” was his Swans counterpart, Paul Roos.
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