Round 1: An Actual Round of Football

To the consternation of tens of thousands, the most interesting preseason in the history of the AFL was rudely interrupted over the weekend by the playing of an actual round of football. Those eagerly opening their newspapers agog to find out which one of the cavalcade of misbehaving West Coast Eagles would today be the one running away from the media with a jumper over his head uttering a muffled "no comment!" before being whisked away in a fast car driven by a grim-faced club official were instead aghast to find themselves reading match reports dealing overwhelmingly with kicks, marks and handballs. Nary a drug reference in sight! Blues fans tuning in for the latest installment of "Buffoonery in Blue: Road to the Carlton Captaincy" were shattered to find out little to nothing about the ongoing battle between Lance Whitnall's hilariously dysfunctional family relations. Nor indeed about the off-field antics of his erstwhile challenger for the top job down at the ground now somewhat curiously known as MC Labour Stadium (MC Labour apparently some deservedly forgotten leftist DJ of the early 1990s, possibly based at the John Curtin Hotel down in Lygon St) Brendan Fevola- Australia's finest Ambassador, at least to one headlocked Galway publican. Even the Collingwood FC division of the County Court took a break for the weekend (although normal service will no doubt resume shortly). The AFL commissioners must have been holding their breath- would a mere 8 games of footy be enough to satisfy a public spoiled by such a jaw-dropping off-season? Happily, the answer appears to be yes.
Round 1 turned out to be a great weekend for the cellar-dwellers of 2006. The aforementioned Blues proved that their stirring victory in the pre-season "Let's Throw the Victorian Clubs a Bone Cup", proudly brought to you by This Year's Minor Sponsor, was no fluke as they overcame the long-suffering Tigers. Over in the City of Churches the Dons stunned the Crows with a staggering 169 point turn-around from the corresponding feature of the previous year. And Fremantle, widely tipped to win the flag this year, fell short at home to lowly Port Adelaide, widely tipped to do bugger all in 2007.
Other games went more or less according to expectations. Brisbane was too good at home against Hawthorn. The Western Bulldogs showed that the buzz around their team is very much justified as they got up against Geelong, providing more misery for Bomber Thompson (I'm tipping him to go in Round 16). The Saints gave new coach Ross Lyon a win on debut in the season opener against Melbourne. And Collingwood made heavy weather of their encounter against the team once upon a time known as North Melbourne, more recently known as the Canberroos, now trading as the Carrararoos, but got up anyway.
But all eyes were in Sydney for the Grand Final replay and the latest installment of one of the best rivalries the game has known for...well, for ever really. The best thing about the rivalry between the Swans and Eagles is that it has developed purely on the back of a string of classic encounters on the football field. It isn't an AFL-manufactured rivalry based on ancient history (Carlton vs. Collingwood; Carlton vs. Richmond; Collingwood vs. Melbourne), or geographic coincidence (West Coast vs. Fremantle; Port vs. the Crows; Essendon vs. Western Bulldogs?!). The Swans and Eagles at the moment are writing their own bilateral history which no doubt the AFL will exploit for the next three decades, long after the cycle has moved on and both sides are cellar-dwellers once more.
The game itself unbelievably produced the exact same result as the Grand Final- a 1 point Eagles win. Who on earth could have tipped that? Full credit to the Eagles for overcoming the worst off-season possible to pull this one off. Bring on the rematch in Round 16.
So the footy is back, and this can only be a good thing. The Ashes were tedious, the one-day series and the NZ tour pointless, the World Cup depressing, and the swimming irrelevant. We needed footy. No doubt this season many more negative headlines will be generated similar to those which have swamped the media over summer, but as long as there's a close one on somewhere the game itself will still pack them in. Here's looking forward to Round 2.