The day after
For sixty years, this day has always been a day of reckonings and resolutions. The morning of mostly mourning. A few, of elation. All, change. And all, eventually, a melancholia, regardless.
For it is the finish. The whole season, gone. All that work. All that enjoyment. All those Tuesday nights. All that circle work and cheering and calling, and running and marking and kicking, in darkening, grim evenings.
Week after week. Coaches calling you all in and blathering on when all you wanted was the Sherrin in your hand and to kick it beautifully…to someone leading. Or, through the big ones. To time it right. On the run. A drop. A stab pass. Or get on to a torp. Or take it in one grab. That’s all. That’s all I wanted. A Billy Goggin stab or a Billy Barrott drop on the run. The perfected drop kick. In the evening. In the still evenings. When it was cold, and you were warmed. When it was chill. And damp. And you’d be out there. Circle working. Leading. Marking. Kicking. Bumping. Dodging. Sprinting. And driving it onwards to a leading player. And turning, to lead again. On the run. A handball, a feint, this way thataway and the perfect pass.
And this day, once more, is the finish of all that.
How can it be contemplated, standing at fine leg in 40 degrees in a pair of long white trousers, a white shirt, white sandshoes and a floppy hat, waiting interminably for the bloody cricket ball to come your way?
A leg glance or a slips catch is so far away.
Bathurst next week would sit in the hiatus. A limbo of petrol heads roaring around a mountain circuit making noise in a vain attempt to fill a vacuum.
‘To everything, there is a season.‘
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OK, what can be done? At the moment I am watching all the replays, analysis, tea leaf reading and the head scratching from all the footy pundits at Channel 7, Fox, Channel 9 and the likes of Jessie at True Footy to try and work out what actually happened on Saturday. This will continue for a week or so.
Last year was the first time in 13 years when the entire summer was sweetness and light, catching every bit of celebration and triumph. It all went like a blur right up until cold hard reality set in with our first post grand final defeat in March against GWS.
There is a hell of a lot of football left in this year. English Premier League has kicked off, with Arsenal and Liverpool desperately trying to knock Manchester City off their perch. Major League Baseball from America is reaching a climax, and the Super Bowl in American football is due in December.
So worry not sports nuts, March ain’t that far away. In the mean time we have trade week, the draw and the draft to get us intrigued…