Editor’s be aware: This text was initially revealed on September 24, 2022.
Like clockwork, each grand closing week nowadays options the identical debate: whether or not all gamers in a premiership crew’s squad, quite than simply the chosen 22 (or because the addition of the medical sub, 23), ought to obtain a premiership medal.
Naturally, as is the case with the most effective debates, each side have loads of advantage.
Each grand closing options heartbreak tales aplenty, gamers pressured to the sidelines via damage or type, having achieved a lot to make sure their crew received their probability to shine on the massive day.
Suppose Ben McGlynn in 2012, enjoying 21 of twenty-two home-and-away video games for Sydney, lowered to tears on the bench after pinging a hamstring within the qualifying closing, and solely watching on because the Swans secured premiership glory.
Or Nathan Jones in 2021, a stalwart of Melbourne throughout their darkest years who discovered himself surplus to necessities by the point the Demons had lastly wrested themselves out of the muck to assert a primary flag in 57 years.
(By the way, the best travesty of 2021 was the medi-sub’s introduction being timed completely to permit a participant like Jones being carried to a flag, after which him not being out there for it.)
Or this 12 months’s examples, Sydney captain Callum Mills and Brisbane ruckman Oscar McInerney, each with claims to be the best grand closing heartbreak story but – Mills because the Swans captain deemed not value risking on the largest stage of all after his mid-finals collection hamstring damage, McInerney with a dislocated shoulder sidelining him on the worst attainable time after six years as a walk-up choice every time match, having missed only one recreation for the season thus far.
Or maybe essentially the most well-known of all, Western Bulldogs captain Robert Murphy, who ruptured his ACL early in 2016 and witnessed a crew moulded in his picture surge to one of many recreation’s most memorable flags… with out him.
There are a lot of ways in which these gamers will be honoured by their golf equipment and the sport for his or her contribution to their crew’s victorious seasons.
However to take action by handing them premiership medals would devalue the medals themselves, function an insignificant gesture to these thus rewarded, and fly within the face of AFL’s traditions and tradition.
No heartbreak story is value sacrificing all that.
Bulldogs head coach Luke Beveridge offers his medal to the injured Robert Murphy through the 2016 AFL Grand Remaining. (Picture by Michael Dodge/AFL Media/Getty Photos)
Premiership medals are coveted exactly as a result of they’re so uncommon – solely 22 (or now 23) are handed out. And the heartbreak tales of McGlynn, or Jones, Murphy, or one among McInerney and Mills this 12 months solely add to their status.
It’s not at all times honest – sport seldom is. However neither is the truth that champions of the sport from Nick Riewoldt to Matthew Pavlich, from Brad Johnson to Robbie Flower, by no means received one both.
I’m adamant a state of affairs the place a participant like Swan Peter Ladhams, whose sole recreation in 2024 was their 112-point thrashing by the hands of Port Adelaide – no disrespect supposed to him, by the way in which, this may very well be any of a rating of gamers throughout the Swans and Lions – may end this season with a premiership medal would make them primarily meaningless.
Some will say that each participant on the listing who performed a recreation in a premiership season contributed to that final success – however certainly that’s solely in a Butterfly Impact sense the place if you happen to change one factor all the universe shifts.
A five-disposal Spherical 13 recreation in a loss to Sydney from Jarrod Brander in 2018, for example, had no impression on West Coast occurring to win the flag exterior of the broadest attainable phrases. Actually not an equal quantity to Dom Sheed, or Jeremy McGovern, or Luke Shuey, or any of the 22 Eagles out on the MCG who really did win all of it.
Everybody has a line they draw on this occasion – some do push for each single member of the squad to obtain one, no matter whether or not they’ve performed; whereas others advocate for it to solely embody gamers who’ve appeared no less than as soon as, or a set quantity of instances, within the home-and-away season; nonetheless extra say it needs to be reserved for gamers who’ve appeared in no less than one closing, the unluckiest of the bunch.
However any line drawn dangers – no, ensures – that somebody might be on the incorrect aspect of it. Finals exclusivity deprives Murphy of a medal; a ten-game threshold would go away Mills on the outer.
And if you happen to’re handing out 44 premiership medals yearly, and never 22, a few of that are going to gamers who’ve by no means performed a senior recreation and might be delisted in a fortnight, then their worth, each symbolic and precise, immediately drops via the ground.
I’d additionally argue the awarding of a medal to gamers watching their teammates win it for them would supply little comfort or significance.
The medal, whereas value a lot, has its biggest worth as a memento. It’s a everlasting reminder of the sensation of elation on the closing siren of the final recreation of the season, and realizing you’ve overcome any variety of obstacles and all the chances to win the premiership on your crew.
Have a look at any of those victorious gamers’ faces at full time of the 77 grand finals between 1945 and 2021 and inform me any of them are pondering ‘You magnificence, there’s a medal coming my manner!’
Utilizing Murphy for example once more, certainly no medal may compensate for being lowered to a spectator for what would have been an important recreation of his profession in 2016. No mere trinket may fill that void.
Because it occurs, Murphy was nonetheless honoured for his contributions to that Bulldogs crew: Luke Beveridge handing over his Jock McHale Medal to his injured captain was one among latest soccer’s most poignant moments.
It was stunning exactly as a result of it wasn’t part of proceedings: Murphy wasn’t given a medal as a result of it was normal protocol, he was given a medal as a result of his coach felt he deserved to be recognised for his function in getting the Canines over the road.
The same second between Longmire and Mills on grand closing day, ought to the Swans rise up and the coach really feel so inclined, can be simply as poignant and simply as iconic, and in a far larger and extra significant sense than being awarded a premiership medal ever may very well be.
Murphy, because it occurs, handed the medal the subsequent day. I feel he understood that it wasn’t the medal that actually mattered: it was the sensation of being included that gave it symbolic worth within the current.
“In that single second of generosity, Bevo introduced me into the sunshine,” Murphy later wrote in his autobiography, Leather-based Soul.
“The excruciating double act of hiding my apparent emotional ache and celebrating my membership’s biggest triumph was soothed. I didn’t need to faux anymore. Honesty units you free, and that’s what my coach did for me that day.”
I’m unsure McInerney, as one other instance, would see a premiership medal as something apart from a everlasting reminder of his undoubted devastation at being injured for an important recreation of his life, ought to the Lions rise up.
Or Mills, having suffered via the ache of two grand closing defeats beforehand – is a medal going to compensate for the ache and heartbreak of getting to look at from the sidelines on Saturday, with out the possibility to do as Jarrod Berry so emotionally put it after the Lions’ preliminary closing win, and atone for earlier disappointment on the largest stage?
The fact is that successful a premiership is about greater than only a medal. It’s about moments like Cameron Ling in 2011, sealing a 3rd flag and first as captain with the game-icing objective along with his closing kick earlier than retirement.
It’s in regards to the crowd’s roar filling your ears when your title is named to obtain that medal, and getting the possibility to cry out ‘That’s what I’m speaking aboooooout!’ like Shane Crawford in 2008.
They could have a premiership medal, however for these not chosen, the additional stuff that offers it its which means, its significance, simply doesn’t evaluate.
A major instance, from over within the NRL, is Nathan Hindmarsh, a Parramatta Eels champion who performed of their grand closing loss to the Melbourne Storm in 2009.
When requested in 2010, following revelations the Storm had been rorting the wage cap and would have the premierships stripped, whether or not the Eels needs to be awarded a retroactive premiership, and his teammates retroactive rings, he answered:
Who’s going to present us that feeling of successful after we are up by six when the siren goes?
Who’s going to present us that feeling of satisfaction, reduction or satisfaction, or give Nathan Cayless that grand closing lap along with his youngsters?
All that feeling is lengthy gone, which means the most effective we will hope for is a bizarre little asterisk subsequent to our title within the document books, which is why I don’t care in regards to the wage cap scandal.
Melbourne can maintain their premiership trophy for all I care.
This ties into my closing level – a elementary a part of Australian Guidelines soccer is that the existence of a grand closing makes that recreation THE deciding second in a participant’s profession.
I’ll concede that Murphy, in Leather-based Soul, had this to say in regards to the debate, which very practically swayed me:
“AFL premierships are at all times sprinkled with disappointment. Forty-four gamers and 22 spots isn’t an important framework for good concord. The unfortunate ones who miss out really feel an act they carry with them for the remainder of their days. I’m unsure that’s the way it needs to be.”
However I nonetheless don’t see how a premiership medal may change that heartbreak. If something, a everlasting memento of that disappointment would certainly solely improve it.
The AFL isn’t just like the Premier League, which doesn’t have finals, so each single second of the season is essential to a crew successful the title. It’s not just like the NBA, the place so few are in a match-day crew that it wouldn’t make sense to limit championship rings to solely them.
Footy tradition, for higher or for worse, revolves round ending one’s profession with ‘premiership participant’ on the CV.
It’s why Patrick Dangerfield had a single-minded obsession with successful one, why he went on the document in saying he wouldn’t really feel ‘fulfilled’ with out a flag, why many pundits argued his standing as an all-time nice rested (unfairly in my opinion) on whether or not he finishes with one… and why he celebrated so heartily upon reaching that lifelong dream in 2022.
Altering one thing so baked into the sport and its values isn’t a mere matter of awarding a number of further premiership medals to gamers who lack the related experiences to totally cherish them.
And you may’t presumably persuade me that, ought to the Swans rise up this weekend, Taylor Adams would have the heartache of getting to look at his crew win a premiership from the sidelines having been ignored in consecutive years in any manner mitigated by receiving a medal which at finest is a meaningless token with out the related reminiscences and moments that make it particular, and at worst is a everlasting reminder that on an important day of the 12 months, his groups didn’t deem him worthy of choice.
Adams, in addition to Magpies teammate John Noble, was spoken of glowingly by fellow Pies within the aftermath of their grand closing win, with many, together with Mason Cox, calling for them to obtain premiership medals or some type of commemoration of their achievements.
However that doesn’t conflict with my view – that wanting such gamers lacking out to be honoured for his or her contributions is a wholly pure factor to need for another person that missed out.
Would another choice – such because the mooted plan mid-season to award all members of a victorious squad a premiership ring – be higher? Maybe, however once more, is it something greater than a mere trinket, particularly for these like Adams, Mills and McInerney who’ve come so near the mountaintop solely to have their desires dashed?
I don’t imagine so. What our recreation values, historically and completely, is the fortunate few chosen to seem in a victorious grand closing. The mystique with which we maintain premiership medals is a mere extension of that.
Mills, or McInerney, or Adams, won’t be seen as premiership gamers by anybody after Saturday, no matter whether or not they have a medal to point out for it.
It’s a harsh, unfair system, and injustice is an ever-present a part of it.
However that’s why it’s going to be so extremely candy for the 23 gamers who step up on the stage on the MCG to obtain their premiership medals: all of them know simply how bloody exhausting they’re to get.
