On Easter Monday, the general consensus seemed to be that football was stuffed. Halfway through the third quarter of the Hawthorn-Geelong clash, the gentleman in front of me announced to the entire bay that he was going home. Ripples of applause broke out, for he had been an insufferable twit all afternoon. Hell, if an absurd 50m penalty was the price we had to pay for ridding him from our lives, so be it.
The Easter round had been a mix of the piddling, the bewildering and the infuriating. The crackdown on dissent meant the game was suddenly bogged down in the most pettifogging details. What angle were the player’s arms at? Did his facial expression hint at belligerence? Was there a curse word? It was grade 6 stuff. The old legends on the panel shows were bursting out of their Calibre shirts. Many still believe that the field is theirs – that umpires should get out of the way, know their place, and cop the criticism. Graham Cornes said it was “un-Australian”. His son said it was like bringing a rocket launcher to a water pistol fight.
