Opening round was just not cricket
“I don’t want to see you Mr Warner. There are two teams out there; one is trying to play cricket and the other is not. The matter is in your hands, Mr Warner, and I have nothing further to say to you.” I’M feeling bad for the AFL this week, which is a sentiment that has rarely if ever been uttered outside the confines of the league commission. When you’re cashed up enough to buy not so much a stadium’s naming rights as the actual stadium itself, public sympathy does not always side with you.
Still, AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan must have been feeling pretty good a week ago. The 2018 season had opened the night before with a Round 1 record crowd of 90,151 see Richmond embark on its premiership defence; the NRL had kicked off its own season two Thursdays earlier before with just 14,457 fans.
By the end of last weekend, more than 375,000 fans had been to an AFL game, an average of just under 41,680 — despite Gold Coast hosting North Melbourne in a virtual flood and attracting just 3722 hardy souls. The NRL’s round one average was 17,835, allowing for the fact that the round’s biggest crowd of 38,824 was for the double header that christened Perth’s newest stadium. The “battle” of the codes already seems as one-sided as ever. And it’s not just the bottom line that would have thrilled Gill. The Cats won with Gary Ablett. The Suns won without him. Hawthorn’s Tom Mitchell had the greatest case of leather poisoning in league history. And yet what is the one sport that everyone is talking about? Cricket. Yet again the sport has managed to give itself a monumen- tal black eye. And it still can’t seem to take the hint.
The quote at the start of this column could easily have been uttered to Dave Warner in South Africa this week. But it is 85 years old, famously spoken by Australian captain Bill Woodfull to English manager Plum Warner during the Third Test in Adelaide at the height of the “bodyline” infamy.
Now we are being asked to believe that no other Australian player has been involved in the ball tampering exposed last week. Just like we are being asked to accept that the ALP believed its 2014 election “red shirts” strategy was above board.
Faith has always been a strong part of religion. This Easter it seems to be in even greater demand.