A scary look at the possible future of football

[valleys07]

A mate of mine posted this on FB- A futuristic look at our great game:

The beginning of the 2020 Grand Final is just minutes away. The Gold Coast Suns are playing in third straight grand final after demolishing Geelong in the preliminary final. 36 year old captain and five-time Brownlow Medallist Gary Ablett led the charge for the Suns in that match, booting three goals whilst gathering a lazy 58 disposals in front of 13,000 spectators at Metricon Stadium.

Awaiting them are the Swans, who narrowly edged out Port Adelaide in the other preliminary final in a match where Lance Franklin, still with three more years on his contract remaining, booted four majors. The Power were filthy at losing in the prelim, especially as they had finished the season as minor premiers in what was a strange year of football.

2020 marked the return of a seventeen team competition after the GWS franchise folded and saw Essendon win the Wooden Spoon for the second year in a row. It was always going to be a hard year for Bombers after losing their entire AFL list back in 2018 when ASADA finally released their sanctions.

The entire off-field administration and coaching staff were sacked, except for senior coach James Hird. The Dons fans are still rallying to the Queen for Hird to be given knighthood but so far her majesty has not responded.

Jesse Hogan won the Coleman Medal after kicking a whopping 40 goals for Fremantle. This is the most goals anyone has kicked in a home and away season since 2016 when Lance Franklin booted 52 goals and was met with wild celebrations from the crowd who ran onto the field to celebrate.

Up in the commentator’s box Brian Taylor has finished pronouncing all the names of the players wrong while Luke Darcy asks him to say them again. The siren sounds and the game is ready to begin.

The umpire throws the ball up for the ruckmen to go at it. The fans applaud the throw up which has now permanently replaced the bounce after it was deemed ‘too inconsistent’.

Tom Nicholls wins the tap and gets it down to Dion Prestia who boots it forward only for the umpire to blow his whistle after spotting something in another part of the ground. It appears a Swans player has committed the cardinal sin of stepping out of his zone. A free is paid downfield to the Suns against Tom Mitchell, resulting in Prestia having a shot on goal on the 50 metre arc, right in front of Zone 2A.

Mitchell is pulled off the ground by angry coach Ross Lyon, now at his fourth club, who threatens to sub him off with one of the other three subs.

Dragging him to begin with is a risky move by Lyon, who now can only make eleven more interchanges for the rest of the match.

Prestia kicks it quite well but it appears to hit the post. The three goal umpires at that end chat to each other but cannot come to a conclusion and ask the field umpire for a score review. Each of the three goal umpires have cameras strapped to their hats, legs, arms, shoulders, necks, feet, hands and backsides and a total of 47 cameras are now fixated on the footage.

The fans boo, arguing that 47 cameras is excessive and that there was nothing wrong with when they used only 30 cameras back in 2018.

Two of the cameras find that the ball hit the post while the other 45 are deemed ‘inconclusive’. Nevertheless a goal is given as two of the three goal umpires originally thought it was a goal and the Suns are on the board.

The ball goes back to the centre and the umpire tosses it up again. The ruckmen scrap and the football spills out into space. Ablett and Josh Kennedy go hard at it but Ablett gets there a split second earlier and ducks his head while Kennedy accidentally crashes into his skull. Ablett gets up with a huge bruise starting to emerge from his head and Kennedy is reported by the umpire.

Kennedy knows he now faces the prospect of missing all of the 2021 AFL Season under the Barrett Rule.

The Barrett Rule was an initiative come up with by renowned journalist Damian Barrett in 2016 and introduced a year later in 2017 and states that;

“…any contact of the head, however accidental, whether it be a bump, a brace, a push, a slap, a pinch, a lick, or a kiss, will result in the suspension of a player for the entirely of the next season and the remainder of the current one –unless they play for Tasmanian Kangaroos.”

2020 saw Nathan Fyfe, David Zaharakis, Christian Salem (or Jimmy Toumpas as he is known by Brian Taylor) and Cyril Rioli ruled out for the entire year.

Jack Viney has also been banned for life.

The game continues on and soon the Swans get a grip on the game and eventually end up winners, winning 4.9 33 to the Gold Coast’s 2.10 22. The Swans fans cheer while the Gold Coast supporters are nowhere to be seen –not that they were that visible before the game either.

The commentators laud it as one of the great spectacles of our time. The game has come a long way, and it is agreed by all the football was the real winner, along with the food stores that were charging $30 for a drink and a pie.

[prowling panther]

The year 2012.

It wasn't a bad dream after all.