Australian football is notably richer when it's open to everyone

The Guardian

2 days ago

The 30th Australian Football Hall of Fame was a reminder that there's more to the sport than the AFL. It was a reminder that the talent in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania was at various times every bit the equal of what was coming out of Victoria. Last night's inductees included a five-time All Australian, a self-described 'little fat kid from Colac', and a man considered the best ever Tasmanian footballer never to play on the mainland. They included a man who took more marks than anyone else in the history of VFL/AFL football, a giant raconteur from South Australia who reflected that 'football was simply something I did on a Saturday,' and a seven-time premiership player in the WAFL who later umpired five grand finals. A goalkicking machine from South Australia during the Depression years was also elevated to legend status.
But last night's event did something very different to the preceding three decades – it inducted two AFLW players. Erin Phillips won two WNBA championships, a basketball world championship gold medal and represented Australia at two Olympics. But until just over a decade ago, the idea of playing Australian football professionally seemed fanciful. 'I never wanted to be a boy,' she said last night, 'I just wanted the opportunities they had and that was footy.' Her dad, Greg, a Hall of Famer himself, was a fine footballer for Port Adelaide and Collingwood. He had thighs like John Nicholls, the sort of legs that could prop up jetties. Last night he was a blubbering mess. 'I can't imagine what it would be like to tell your 13-year-old daughter that she can't play the game she loves any more,' his daughter said. 'Now she's standing next to you in the Hall of Fame.'
Daisy Pearce bashed down the same barriers. 'I'm a pretty determined bugger,' she said last night. She won 10 premierships and seven competition best and fairests at the local level, before becoming a key driver of the AFLW. There were dozens of Hall of Famers in the room last night but few of them finished their careers on such a high note. Her dad, Daryl, also her junior coach, suffered a stroke in recent years and missed her final game, a premiership. But he was in the room last night to see her inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Football's women, a correspondent wrote in The Age in the 1970s, 'are mere appendages to the game, extras in an all-male saga, tolerated but not taken seriously'. That sentiment prevailed until not that long ago. In some corners of the internet and the industry more broadly, it still does. But more than anyone else, champion players like Phillips and Pearce proved the folly of this. They reminded men that this game they were brought up to assume was theirs is now open to the other 50.2% of the population, and that it's all the richer for it. Nearly three-quarters of a million girls and women now play Australian rules football. Pearce and Phillips, one suspects, would be pivotal figures for nearly all of them.
Every inductee last night said a variation of the same thing. They looked around the room and they saw their childhood heroes. Garry Lyon had a poster of Tim Watson on his wall. Nick Riewoldt idolised Jason Dunstall. Phillips followed her dad everywhere, even to the premiership dais. 'To look around the room right now – these were my gods,' Pearce said. She and Phillips said they could never have imagined standing in front of a room such as this as fellow professional footballers, as fellow Hall of Fame members, and as equals.
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Nick Riewoldt, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame last night, was one of the great players of last few decades. Few made their direct opponent work harder or run further. Few deserved a premiership more. But few were so tortured by nerves and anxiety before games. He described it as like being on death row, awaiting execution. 'It was something to endure, not enjoy,' he said. He described it as a 'pit in your stomach feeling, fuelled by the fear of not performing perfectly and the judgment that came with it.'
For 24 hours before a game, he would sweat, struggle to sleep and eat, pace the house, snap at everyone and generally be a nightmare to himself and all around him. He would always be the first to arrive at the ground, whereupon he would warm up with a routine akin to Rocky Balboa training in Russia. The minute the ball was bounced, he was fine, and it was his opponent's time to start sweating.
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Western Bulldogs (including as Footscray) are part of the three longest streaks for matches played against an opponent without meeting in a final. Which club do they share the record with?
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Last week's answer: Which clubs have met in the most grand finals? Collingwood and Melbourne have played seven times with a premiership on the line.
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No team is better than Collingwood at adapting to the needs of the moment – and the ladder leaders keep on winning even if by the narrowest of margins against Melbourne.
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