Culture

The Week In Footy: Eade Sacked, Eddie’s Back And A Fight Over A Cheese Board

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by Tom Clift  14 August 2017

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Welcome to Junkee’s first ever recap of the week in AFL! We figured if it works for Game of Thrones, The Bachelor and RuPaul’s Drag Race, why couldn’t it work for footy? After all, what is this game, really, if not an elaborate show about competitors in flamboyant costumes who always seem like they’re right on the verge of murdering one another?

Appropriately enough, this week the AFL even had its very own Red Wedding, with Rodney Eade cast in the role of Robb Stark. The Gold Coast coach was sacked on Monday night on account of all those games the team lost. The players responded to the turmoil in classic Suns style, by letting Brisbane kick their highest score in over a decade. Maybe Eade wasn’t the problem after all?

The other big off-field story this week was Eddie McGuire’s return to The Footy Show. 12 years have passed since McGuire last hosted the program, although apparently no one told Sam Newman that. McGuire had promised to let Newman “off the leash”, because apparently calling Caitlyn Jenner an “it” constitutes being on the leash.


In the lead-up to Thursday night, Newman went on Triple M and said that Barack Obama “had all the characteristics of a dog”. Personally, I liked Newman a lot more when he was on his weird silent protest. His remarks on radio were obviously designed to drum up interest in the re-vamped show — and I guess it worked, because the ratings were higher than they’ve been all year.

Either that, or people just genuinely want to hear McGuire talk about football, and personally I find that very hard to believe.

A Tale of Two Sydneys

The thought of an all-Sydney Grand Final makes me feel physically nauseous, but after this week it shapes up as an increasingly likely proposition. The clash between the Dogs and the Giants on Friday night was a hell of a half of a game of football, but after that it was all orange jumpers.

To make matters worse for non-Giants fans, Toby Greene is going to be available to play next week, despite kicking Luke Dahlhaus in the face. Yes, it looked like it was probably an accident, but given his record I’m surprised the MRP didn’t give him a week off for just for the sake of tradition.

As for what the Swans did to Fremantle on Saturday afternoon… well, if you’ll permit me another Game of Thrones analogy, they made last week’s battle between Daenerys and the Lannister army look like a fair fight.

Speaking as a Victorian, it’s not fun to be rooting for Adelaide to win the flag, but I’ll take them over either of the NSW teams. At least the Crows are based in a state where people actually give a shit about the sport.

The Claws Come Out

If a Victorian side does manage to steal it this year, it’ll probably be one of the two sides that met in Geelong on Saturday afternoon. Specifically, the side that is not the Tigers.

Full disclosure: I’m a massive Richmond supporter, and went into this game feeling confident after having been told by the media all season that Geelong could not possibly win a game without both Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood on the park (not to mention Tom Hawkins and Mitch Duncan).

I allowed myself to feel hope, and to be honest I should have known better. For that matter, so should have Caroline Wilson, who doomed her beloved Tigers the moment she wrote this headline.

Why you do this Caro? Pic via Kylie Maslen.

Despite the loss, Richmond should beat both Fremantle and St Kilda to hold on to a top four spot. Of course the fact that I wrote that means they probably won’t.

#CheesePlateGate

Demons President Glen Bartlett recently said he wanted his club to be to Melbourne what the Yankees are to New York, something that I can only assume the Presidents of Collingwood, Richmond, Carlton, Essendon and Hawthorn all thought was very, very funny.

Not helping Bartlett’s plan to make the Demons the team of the people was this photo from Sunday’s game at the MCG, featuring a typical Dees supporter chowing down on a cheese platter.

How did he get this past security? Pic via Brendan Maloney.

Melbourne fans get accused of being bougie at the best of times, so needless to say people on social media tore this guy to shreds.

People were so incensed about cheese plate guy that they barely had time to make fun of the fellow in the tweed jacket and fedora sitting next to him.

Jokes aside, this is what football should be. A group of people, coming together, regardless of gender, religion, colour or creed, to roast the absolute shit out of the rich.

Race For The Eight

While some fans were more interested in their brie and prosciutto, there was actually a game of football being held at the ‘G, between Melbourne and St Kilda. These two sides have been measured against each other all year, with the common wisdom going that only one of them can make the finals.

Notwithstanding the rather hilarious possibility that both teams could still miss out, the Demons’ four-goal victory seems to have put a bullet in the Saints’ September hopes once and for all. Alan Richardson’s men now need to win both their remaining games and rely on some fairly convoluted mathematics to scrape in.

Essendon are on the same points at the Saints, but have a much better percentage, and should be good enough to beat Gold Coast and the Dockers. I know this is a long shot, but can you imagine how the crowd would react if James Hird ended up presenting the Norm Smith to Jobe Watson?

The ninth-placed Bulldogs, meanwhile, are one match ahead of the Dons and the Saints, but could easily drop one or both of their games against Port and Hawthorn. Last year’s fairytale Grand Final feels like a very long time ago. Still, if the club’s history is anything to go by, we can expect them to challenge again in 2078.

Did I just dream this whole thing?

The good news for the remaining would-be finalists is that West Coast are on very shaky ground. They’ve got GWS followed by Adelaide to round out the season, and it’s hard to imagine them putting up much of a fight given their performance against the Blues.

Honestly, the Eagles have played mediocre football pretty much all year, so I’ll be pretty annoyed if they make it.

Especially because they’ll probably beat Richmond after we come fifth.

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Tom Clift is Junkee’s Morning and Weekend Editor. He tweets at @tomclift.