Opinion: What if Declan Mountford makes his Eagles debut but nobody knew? The day integrity and the AFL parted company

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago the AFL announced that games will be played when they are scheduled no matter how many players have to be excluded by contraction of Covid-19 and its associated protocols. The integrity of the season demands it, they said.

 

Grand final week 2022. Melbourne are out to defend their 2021 title and this time at the MCG. Excitement is growing across the city when suddenly on the Wednesday before the game it is revealed that 12 of the Demons’ best players have Covid. Surely the game cannot proceed!? Already carrying a number of injured players, the Demons have only 18 players from their list available. Petracca, Oliver, Gawn, Pickett, May, Fritsch and Lever are all out on seven day protocol compliance.

 

But it’s OK says the AFL. Melbourne can pick some top up players to play.  A number of the Casey Demons could be picked as well as a bunch of former AFL players and a few other VFL guys. There are a few rookies on the list who have never played an AFL game yet. Bring ‘em in. Doesn’t matter if most of the fans have never heard of them. Doesn’t matter of the Demons chances are destroyed. The game will go ahead and bad luck if it’s no contest. Really?

 

It is impossible to imagine that the game would go ahead. It would not  be a fair or even contest and the title which would inevitably be taken by the other team would be forever tainted and undervalued. There would also be the risk, of course, that by playing, players who had covid which hadn’t yet shown up positive on tests might infect opponents and others.

 

The problem could be solved by delaying the game a week.

 

Well what about if it was a preliminary final? If the principle is to be honoured, it shouldn’t matter when it occurred. What about if a team needs four points to make the finals in the last round? What if it happened in Round 2?

 

Well, on Sunday that last one did happen. And it seems the AFL were keen to show it was not for flexibility.

 

Already saddled with injuries to Gaff, Sheed, Allen, Cripps, Cole, West and a bunch of  others, and with Darling and Shuey coming off rehab and ideally not to be rushed in, the Covid diagnoses began mounting out west; Naitanui, Barrass, Kennedy, Redden, Rotham, Langdon, Dixon, Waterman, Jones, Edwards, Winder, Dixon and Hough all tested positive or were close contacts. The West Coast Eagles had to travel to Melbourne. They eventually did so on the day before the game.

 

There is no way that game should have gone ahead in those circumstances. How could it possibly be a fair or even contest? How could it ever be a proper exhibition of AFL football? Over the last two Covid-infested years, the AFL , so agile, flexible, pragmatic and nimble when it came to making arrangements to ensure the integrity of games (turning flights around, creating bubbles etc) suddenly became hidebound and dogmatic.

 

And the result was an AFL team – North Melbourne – playing against a team with 14 changes from the previous week, five guys who had never played in the AFL before, and a couple of former AFL players brought in as top-ups. Which became 15 and three by the bounce when Jackson Nelson strained his knee in the warm up and had to be replaced.

 

The game was difficult to watch live at the Marvellous stadium. It was a beautiful sunny Melbourne day but the roof was closed making it the first time many of the visitors had ever played any game inside. It was so gloomy that the ground announcer at least twice talked of things happening ‘tonight’ when the game started at 1:10pm.

 

Credit to North – last year’s wooden spooners – who had to win, and did. No other result was ever likely given how their opponent was constituted. Tarryn Thomas did some clever things before being injured and Larkey showed real marking skills in kicking six (although he may need to tone down the over-celebrating when the contest is a bit tougher). Hugh Greenwood got lots of the footy. Xerri looks like he might be a real improver in the ruck although it was a bit difficult to judge against the two young Williams boys.

 

And no doubt the Eagles were brave against the odds and fully committed to doing the hard things like tackling and chasing which kept them in the game until mid way through the last quarter. And the young and top up players tried their hearts out. Twenty-nine year old West Perth stalwart and Sandover Medallist Aaron Black gave us a heart warming moment when he kicked a fine goal in his first AFL game. But, with a few notable exceptions,  the team often looked like an amateur outfit when precision kicking and contested marking skills were required. Targets were missed. Marks were dropped. Players were caught with the ball when they played WAFL pace in an AFL contest.

 

In the end it was the veterans who shone for the Eagles. McGovern was like the big kid playing in the Under 16s in the West Coast backline. Willie Rioli who kicked four goals was sublime with a searing lesson on what the Eagles had missed in the last couple of years of his self-actuated absence. And it was great to have Luke Shuey back – albeit a week or two earlier than ideal – but doing what he does best with skill and courage. Jack Darling, not so much, but no doubt, better for the run.

 

If there was one thing that underlined how farcical this whole day was, it was the fact that about five of the Eagles were not listed in the Record and wore unfamiliar numbers. Surely the least that footy fans who go to AFL games can expect is some identification of who it was they were watching wearing their team’s colours.  Someone was wearing 36 but it wasn’t Connor West. Former Hawk Angus Dewar might have been playing but who knew? Was he wearing Greg Clark’s 39?

 

My WAFL team is Claremont and the captain of that team is Declan Mountford who had played a dozen or so games with North Melbourne a few years ago. I had noticed that he was named as an emergency top up player by the Eagles last week but it looked unlikely he would get a run. When I read The Age this morning, the day after the game, I learned that he had played for the Eagles, coming in late for Jackson Nelson. Would someone who wasn’t at the game mind telling me how he played? I’d appreciate it.

 

And could someone ask Gillon McLachlan to confirm that the Grand Final would go ahead in similar circumstances? If he cannot confirm that, then why did we have to endure that poor facsimile of a proper AFL footy game on Sunday? Well done to the Kangas on the win. Good on the old Eagles and the new Eagles for turning up and having a crack. And congratulations to Declan Mountford. Wherever you were.

 

 

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