Footy. What a game. There’s nothing quite like it.
On match day it’s 100 minutes of absolute absorption. So immersed in the action can one become that your body makes involuntary movements as you ride the bumps of each contest. Your mind shuts out anything else.
Someone sitting just inches from you can attempt a conversation. You don’t hear them. You are completely shut off.
It’s a game that generates unparalleled passion. Sometimes, though, that absolute devotion to the game and the club can distort one’s perspective. Rage overrides love. We can become a little irrational.
Hand on heart, I’m not a good loser. Tough to be around when my beloved West Coast Eagles fall short of the mark. I get that people are so emotionally invested it’s difficult to be balanced when things are not going well.
And they haven’t gone particularly well in the last couple of years.
Right now we’re in a valley. We know the way out but the sat nav is showing a winding road rather than a straight run. Experience tells you to stay the course. Lock in the route and follow it. There will be some hair pin bends and some corrugations but stay committed.
There will be the ‘small wins’ Adam Simpson talks of. They need to be celebrated.
At times the faith of the faithful will continue to be tested. As it was last week against Port.
A focus on being better in the contest and playing with effort was definitely displayed. Playing the game in the Eagles front half, not so successful and there was a 50-point loss.
It would have been a bigger margin had Port been more efficient in front of goal. But they weren’t so it wasn’t.
Some players met their own expectations. Some did not.
Veteran Andrew Gaff was one who was down on output. He was subbed from the contest in the third term and the club revealed on Monday that he would not play in tomorrow’s game against GWS.
That decision was made public at that time to avoid a week of speculation. But it also opened the door for some on social media to get personal. Where people can at times be a little irrational.
Back where my football roots were set it country WA, the genesis for my love of the game, it was never like that. It was always us versus them. While the stakes are incomparable to those on the line in the AFL, that mantra is not.
The social landscape in the last 40 years has changed significantly too and a telegram is no longer the most immediate mode of communication, but some things have not.
Respect and decency for instance. Gaff did not have a good day last Sunday. He knows that.
But he has had plenty of good days in the last 15 years. Across 276 games he has been a wonderful contributor, his 7000-plus possessions the highest in club history and 11 times in his career he has finished top 10 in the Club Champion Award.
It is more than Ben Cousins (nine) and Glen Jakovich (seven) who have won a club record four John Worsfold Medals. Gaff currently sits with Jakovich as equal fourth on the club’s all-time games played table.
He has been an amazing contributor. Remarkably consistent. Hopefully there is more in what has been an inexhaustible tank.
The loping left-footer is nearing the end of a stellar career. Just as the small things should be celebrated, so should the big. And Andrew Gaff has been big for this club.
