Bill Casey sports column
The game's not worth a candle, winning's the thing.
A time honoured deflation. The cynical thought behind all sport.
Deplorable.
Of course it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, only that you have competed fairly.
But.
I was at the Sydney Cricket Ground last Saturday night. The Swans won by three pointswith a goal kicked by Daryn Cresswell after the final siren.
From a controversial free kick. Has there ever been a free kick which was not controversial?
Only umpires consider free kicks are always not controversial. They are always acceptableto one team and considered unfair by the other.
Take that winning goal from a free kick last Saturday night, for instance.
The difference it made to everyone at the ground was amazing.
Firstly the Swans supporters went from being filthy dirty angry with their team, homicidaltowards the umpires and disenchanted with the game of Australian Rules in particular togiving their team a standing ovation, forgetting all past considered or imagined wrongsby the umpires, and generally considering the night had offered them the greatest of allplatforms of sport imaginable.
The North Melbourne supporters went from barracking for the greatest bunch of fightersand battlers imaginable to being emotionally tied to the worst collection of losers ever,from considering the umpires sound, unbiased men of experience to consummate cheatingdills, and from cheering, mad, proud supporters to wondering if the words of the teamsong should be changed to Boo, Boo, the blue and the white.
They completely forgot their team members had been the beneficiaries of some astoundinglysoft umpires' decisions, only to be eventually robbed of a deserved victory via what theyconsidered the most outlandish, pedantic action by an umpire who was obviously taken in.
If at first you don't succeed, cheat.
Nearly as popular as the one about the game not being worth a candle.
Cresswell had seen his team drop marks at the drop of a hat, kick points when the goalswere open and generally throw away a game that was there for the winning.
Put it this way. Cresswell definitely wasn't succeeding by just playing football withhis teammates.
Afterwards rival coach Dennis Pagan accused him of cheating.
"He gave my player one, and my player gave him one back," Pagan said. "The umpire didn'tsee the first one, but he saw my player retaliating."
How many times have we said it's the retaliator who gets caught?
How many times do we see stars like John Coleman, Tony Lockett or Greg Williams getreported for finally losing patience with a tagger who has done everything except rapethem. That tagger who never seems to be reported. The one whose actions seem completelycondoned by the umpires.
If at first you're not as good as the other man, cheat, perhaps?
The star is different.
It is almost as though the umpire thinks he has a super scalp.
"I've pinged the most famous player in the league," he almost announces.
"The one everyone thinks is as fair as a summer's day. I'll prove them wrong. No specialrules for him. He can be got."
How many Brownlow hopes have been dashed by a retaliatory report?
Former player Bernard Toohey was a great man for getting a free at the right time.
"I wonder how Crezza milked that one," he said at the celebrations.
Good grief. I didn't think Toohey was a cynic!
We all agreed that Cresswell was experienced. No substitute for experience, we said.
The resultant free had won it for the Swans, hadn't it?
So did Cresswell cheat or was he just too experienced?
"You've got to get free kicks when you can," he said. "Particularly in a situationlike that," he said.
The Swans' crowd thought they had won despite the umpires.
Yet an umpire's decision was all that won it for them.
North's supporters saw the other side. The umpire had lost it for them.
How silly. 22 players from either side trying their hardest, competing against eachother and it is an umpire who wins or loses the game.
But the most salient fact is that only the result counted.
Nothing else. Not two hours of football. Not star against star. Not player againstplayer. Not straight kicking or poor kicking.
Just an umpire's final decision created or changed the mood of 24,000 people at the match.
It made the night a success or a failure.
High spirits or deep dumps.
Stacks on the mill of success or a gloomy walk off the ground.
I tell you.
The game's not worth a candle. Winning's the thing.
ends
KEYWORD: CASEY SPORT
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