Jimmy Bartel ‘infuriated’ by calls for clubs to be stripped of standalone matches, Eddie McGuire reveals Queen’s Birthday, Anzac Day backstories
AFL great Jimmy Bartel has hit out at calls for clubs to be removed from a standalone prime time fixture following bad losses, calling it “lazy commentary”.
Bartel pointed to segments of the football world who questioned whether Hawthorn should lose the right to play the Easter Monday game against Geelong after copping an 82-point loss to the reigning premiers.
The 2007 Brownlow Medal winner said teams needed to be allowed to build traditions, as Collingwood and Essendon have done on Anzac Day since that showpiece game’s inception in 1995.
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“You know what grinds my gears? The fact that whenever we get a team either beaten badly on a standalone game or a crowd slightly under (expectations), (people say), ‘Take it off them’,” he told Nine’s Eddie and Jimmy podcast.
“Would people stop that lazy commentary? It infuriates me. We’d only have three clubs in the game if we kept that philosophy. You’ve got to give them something.
“The whole point I’ve got is traditions are formed, there’s ups and downs, but it’s the consistency of it. I find it lazy and boring commentary.”
North Melbourne has also been subjected to similar commentary over the last few seasons regarding its spot in the Good Friday clash. After facing the Western Bulldogs on Good Friday in previous seasons, the Kangaroos faced Carlton this time around.
Bartel’s point was echoed by Eddie McGuire, who presided over Collingwood for 23 years as it played showpiece games on Anzac Day and Queen’s Birthday.
McGuire said the AFL played a role in the discussion, too, revealing that he’d been approached to get Melbourne out of the Queen’s Birthday clash on multiple occasions before the Demons’ rise up the ladder.
“The AFL half wind this up too,” he said.
“I’ve had two entreaties, well a number on Queen’s Birthday, to get Melbourne out of it as (I was) president of Collingwood.
“They came to me and said, ‘What do you reckon?’, and I said, ‘Leave it alone’. I said, ‘This game produced the highest attendance for a home and away game back in 1958. Melbourne are ordinary at the moment, but you’ve got the MCC members, you’ve got to give them something’, and we kept them going and we let them be the home game as well for years because that was their major fundraiser.
“From my point of view, it meant we had another game at the MCG, so it didn’t worry me so much, and that was my tactic in what I was trying to achieve: to play as many games at the MCG.”
McGuire said he’d also been approached about the prospect of replacing Essendon on Anzac Day in the aftermath of the club’s supplements saga.
“I had my coat pulled asking whether we should maybe put Richmond into Anzac Day, to which I responded very quickly, ‘No that’s not a good thing to do, we don’t kick teams when they’re down, we’re in it together’,” he said.
”It is ridiculous, but the AFL they all become too much kumbaya over there at the headquarters and you get people who don’t know the fabric of football.
“It’s a simple mathematical equation: don’t put two small teams in. Get a team, but give them a chance.
“Why did it work on the weekend? Because Carlton is back in town, it’s as simple as that.”
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