Rules suck but we can go to the footy
THE pointy end of the NRL and AFL seasons are upon us and while Cowboys fans have been able to watch their team play at home, footy fans elsewhere can only dream of the olden, pre-covid days played to the roar of packed stadiums, instead of canned crowd noises and a smattering of fans.
Logistics-wise, you have to admire the organisational skills of the admin departments that have managed to field teams for two entire seasons amid the whack-amole of sudden lockdowns, negotiating rushed flights and travel bubbles while securing new venues and practice fields have required the military precision of marshalling troops for immediate deployment.
All this, for an industry whose sole purpose is really our enjoyment.
And while most clubs have struggled financially without the usual gate takings, imagine if players hadn’t had ‘safe’ states to relocate to, and the season was abandoned?
The two most watched television programs in Australia in the past two years were football.
In 2020 it was the AFL Grand Final with 3.01 million viewers, and in 2019 the top-rated broadcast was Game One of the State of Origin Series, with 3.23 million viewers, probably much more when you consider finals are best watched with friends and family.
We’ve been living a ‘normal’ life up here in paradise, but for
Victoria and New South Wales particularly, televised sport has been one of the highlights of home confinement.
I facetime with my NSW AFL mates every week, we synch our on-screen timers, make snacks,
and chat like we’re at the game but if your team is based here, and you can see them play here, consider yourself lucky.
Nevertheless, there was criticism of our premier and chief health officer from members of the public and the media at the hypocrisy of hosting football teams and their families when residents were unable to return home.
Yesterday the Premier apologised for that, saying it “wasn’t a good look”.
Meanwhile, international actors and ‘celebrities’ have been allowed to fly in from overseas to star in movies and reality TV shows in NSW, but facilitating our own football codes to finish the season
in Covid-free states is apparently a bridge too far for some. So while the most criticism has arisen from people wanting to travel from Covid-affected places to be with sick or dying family members, there is one slight difference.
The last place anyone who is potentially carrying Covid should visit without quarantine, is a hospital or a nursing home.
Sure, these rules suck, but rules are why we can go to the football, and people in NSW and Victoria can’t.
NRL players, staff and their families from states with Covid outbreaks have to quarantine on arrival here for two weeks, they aren’t “taking anyone’s places on
flights or in hotel quarantine” because they’ve chartered their own flight and organised their own quarantine hub.
The other premier copping flack for keeping Covid out of his state is West Australia’s Mark Mcgowan, whose state is set to host its first ever AFL grand final.
Slamming particular premiers of Covid-free states seems to be the new national pastime, yet if we give in to Gladys Berejiklian’s manic insistence that we all have to “learn to live with Covid”, who’ll be hosting safe sporting events then?
She’d be better off taking advice from the premiers who have managed to do both.