Dane Swan announced his retirement from league football this week. The premiership player and Brownlow medalist did so in what was ostensibly a press conference but may as well have been a roast. It was in keeping with a career taken less seriously than most.
Collingwood’s preparation was so thorough the auditorium, festooned with “DS36” branding and a nifty hashtag, was unusually packed. Someone even managed to cajole Eddie McGuire, Mick Malthouse and Nathan Buckley into joining the cabaret. Never mind Kevin Rudd, whoever the diplomatic mastermind behind that particular supergroup was should throw their hat in the ring for UN Secretary General.
For Swan and the Magpies this was a curtain call six months in the making. Most footballing farewells aren’t so well scripted. Just ask North Melbourne.
North began the season knowing they would end it with nine players on their list aged 30 or above. A day of reckoning was inevitable.
The Kangaroos deserve credit for trying to crowbar open a premiership window that was in reality barely ajar. In recent years they topped up a solid but unspectacular list with senior bodies to help them through September. You could bend the logic to suit your bias: under Brad Scott the Roos have finished no higher than sixth on the ladder, but consecutive preliminary finals indicate their best was almost good enough.
Moreover, 2016 always loomed as an intermediary season – somewhere between the ageing Hawthorn dynasty and the GWS juggernaut – one worth putting a few extra eggs into the basket.
While Swan was recovering from surgery and gathering his retirement thoughts, North rollicked along at a rate of knots, unbeaten after nine rounds and still top after 12, in what was a shaping as a premiership free-for-all. List management discussions in June would have to have seriously considered the implications of winning a flag.
As we know, things unravelled dramatically and rapidly thereafter, robbing the Roos of the time and uncluttered airspace to prove the ground for difficult decisions. They weren’t helped by the visible decline in performance of club legend Drew Petrie, the ill-tempered struggles of Michael Firrito nor the lingering impression the modern game with its press at all costs mantra had passed Nick Dal Santo by, despite the occasional glimpse of his undoubted class. Perversely, Brent Harvey’s consistent excellence was an even greater headache.
It must be assumed during that period between round 12 and round 23, Arden Street was a hive of protracted negotiations. The club figuring out what their future looked like; veterans weighing up Faustian pacts. All the while results drew blackout curtains over that pesky window.
By August the prospect of being overtaken by St Kilda or Melbourne had sharpened the focus, and the writing must have been on the wall for a number of senior players. The list had served its purpose and now it was time to move on. It was just a question of who, and how.
The who, in the short term, is four of North Melbourne’s five oldest players – all out of contract at season’s end. The pithy if perhaps reductive question to ask at times like this is: “Will any of these players feature in North’s next premiership?” The answer has to be a resounding “no”. As painful as it is to confront, that reality bites every player at every club at some point. Even Harvey, a performer as close to Peter Pan as the AFL has ever seen.
The “how” didn’t go according to plan. An unexpected press release on a Wednesday morning before the final home and away round of the season, followed by a hastily convened press conference with Brad Scott seemed deeply unsatisfactory for the haemorrhaging of over 1300 games of experience. If Swan had his sellout one-man show on Broadway, Harvey, Dal Santo, Petrie and Firrito weren’t even busking in Bourke Street Mall.
But as Shane Casley, the manager of both Petrie and Harvey, made clear in radio interviews on Thursday, the timing of the decision privately, as well as its public execution, was a consequence of players pushing for clarity over their futures. The club’s preference was to hold on until the end of the season. “I don’t know what else the club could do,” Casley told SEN.
So North had a choice: delay their decision until after the season and risk a finals campaign waylaid by player insecurity, or announce their decision in the week of round 23, to mass outrage, but affording their departing stars a farewell opportunity in front of their home fans and – this is debatable – perhaps engender a last hurrah spirit in the camp for one final flag push. Damned if they did, damned if they didn’t.
The path they’ve chosen seems from a distance to be in the long term interests of the club, and the short term interests of the players involved. Cold comfort for North fans mourning the departure of a club legend or three.
Photograph of the week
Penny for your thoughts, Eddie and Bucks...
Quote of the week
It’s sad that racism still exists in our game.
All manner of quotable lines were spoken this week on the subject of racism in Australia but those of Eddie Betts bear repeating: racism still exists in football.
Refreshingly, the response to the latest ugly incident was decisive, and Port Adelaide’s administrators deserve credit not only for their swift response but also for putting education and awareness at the heart of it.
Bits and bobs
In case you’d forgotten there’s some football taking place this weekend, some of it pretty important too. Like on Friday night at Adelaide Oval where the in-form Crows – minus Rory Sloane – take on the in-form Eagles, who are without Nic Naitanui. It’s a battle that will have a major bearing on the first week of the finals with Adelaide a chance to finish anywhere from first to fifth and West Coast still an outside chance to make the top four. It will be a major test for how each coach copes without arguably his most important player.
The other top four contenders all face home matches against opponents they’re expected to beat, but all have their challenges. Geelong can’t underestimate a Melbourne side that recently thrashed Hawthorn, Sydney have a score to settle with Richmond, while the Hawks host Collingwood off the back of a chastening defeat last week in Perth.
The remaining all-top-eight clash between North Melbourne and GWS took on even greater significance this week. We’re in for three hours of pop psychology on Saturday night as the performance of the Kangaroos will, for a weekend at least, provide an answer as to the merits of a tempestuous week at Arden Street. The full impact of those decisions won’t be known for years of course, but that won’t stop forensic analysis of the banner message, Boomer’s body language, or the crowd’s response to a Brad Scott close-up on the Etihad Stadium big screen.
