And it was not the NRL.
The AFL has now had two glorious years in a row with fairy tale victories for long-suffering local clubs embedded in their communities. The Western Bulldog’s and now Richmond Tiger’s triumphs have revitalised the game, not because it has itself improved, and despite the code’s management, because each has pulled the heart strings of cultural myth. Battlers made good, working class losers rising up, Australiana stomping all over the silver spoons.
The best thing that could have happened to the AFL is that its ill-begotten progeny, the Western Sydney Giants, were thrown out in the semis. Replete with an army of talent, list dispensations galore, number one draft picks to burn and a corporate cash flood, they failed and so the AFL succeeded despite itself. It can take at least some credit given its equalisation policy played a role.
Sadly for the NRL the story is the opposite. The Melbourne Murdochs destroyed the North Queensland Cowboys. A team transplanted into a hostile body and only kept alive by a permanent transfusion of corporate cash to expand the ratings footprint, destroyed a team that rises from an intrinsic rugby league culture that sees its lower numbers whip NSW every year in the State of Origin.
The game itself was a dead bore. The Melbourne Murdochs play their genesis out on the field; a cold and unflappable machine that grinds down oppositions with system over talent or spirit.
All sports codes should take note. The AFL’s expansion team’s failure is its real success. The NRL’s success is its failure.
And there’s a warning here as well for Australian elites.
You can only fake it for so long before the people demand what’s theirs.
