KICKING ON FOR GRIM DEATH
It was a dirty day in June, 2019 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Under slate-grey skies, Essendon beat an underwhelming Carlton side by 41 points. That margin would typically be cause for celebration, but the game was another dire spectacle – endless packs, rushed and poor kicking, dropped marks and not many goals. Swathes of the 50,423 attendees had departed long before the death rites were administered to the Blues. A small group of Bomber supporters stood together afterwards, grim-faced and taciturn. “A win is a win,” muttered one. “No,” said another, “that was hell.”
It had become an all-too familiar tale. By the end of the 2018 season, scoring rates had plummeted to levels unseen in half a century. The first two weeks of the ’18 finals series featured bleak, relentlessly dour struggles. By the prelims, the average halftime score of each competing team in the finals was a meagre 31. More tackles being laid than points scored became the norm. The game had been reduced to a tactical slugfest, alternating between keepings off in the back half and brutal, in-close rugby-style affairs.
Such change – teams are scoring four goals fewer per game than 25 years ago – has been a long time in the making. But this debate is not simply centred on scoring rates. Close, low-scoring contests can be gripping contests; last year’s grand final thriller rescued September, while the 2012 grand final between Sydney (14.7.91) and Hawthorn (11.15.81) was extremely captivating. Rather, it is the manner of play, the game’s style
