The Chaser Report - Melbourne Loses AFL Grand Final

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

In a pivot that nobody will be surprised by, Dom Knight and Charles Firth have become massive AFL fans. Tune in to hear their expert pre-match coverage of the Lions vs Swans grand final, with the kind of insight you can only get after dozens of minutes of experience. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And today we're going to do something that we very rarely do here on the podcast. Charles, we're going to talk about sport. Ah, yes, sport. And in particular, that one day in September. You know what I remember that, don't you, Charles?

That one day in September. The one day, the day that stops the nation, the Melbourne Cup. No, no, that's not the day that stops the nation. The state of origin, the state of origin, the day that stops the nation when everyone gets together and plays soccer, mate against mate, state against state. Charles, you don't need to come up with a comic exaggerated version of you not understanding sport because what you told me before the start of the podcast is funny enough when it comes to your lack of knowledge of sport.

I mentioned to you that, in fact, tomorrow is the AFL grand final. Now, do you know what AFL is? Let's just see where the baseline is on this. No, I know what AFL is. It's the aerial ping pong. It used to be called VFL back in the day. I'm open-minded. You don't need to pretend.

Back when I was interested in it. This is a safe space. What? This is a safe space for your lack of knowledge. No, but I'm not going to be insulted. Of course I know what AFL is. It's the one that. all the Melbourne people go on about.

Whenever you go to Melbourne and turn it on the radio, the only thing you can hear is talk back about VFL. Correct. That is all of that they talk about. Or as it's now called AFL. For some reason, everyone in Victoria, literally every single person loves AFL in a way that, you know, the vast majority of people in New South Wales in Queensland, I think do not love rugby league.

They don't care at all. Certainly women in New South Wales. Very few care about any form of football, except perhaps the Matilda's. But in some reason, in Victoria, they're all mad about this game. And this is why it's such a delicious thing to talk about, because we love a good chance to stick it to Melbourne.

Yes. And what's happening in the AFL grand final? No matter who wins, Charles, Melbourne loses. I'll explain why, because I know you don't know after this. So I am admittedly a bit confused about this whole AFL grand final thing story. Because I find it hilarious that today is a public holiday in Victoria. because they're going to play a game of football tomorrow. That's right.

Literally, that's the reason. That's the entire thinking behind the public holiday. Yeah, it's not even the day of the game. It's the day before the game. You've got to prep. You got to get in that. Well, there's a parade, you see. There's a grand final parade that happens.

But it's only in the CBD. And they do it for the Melbourne Cup. Melbourne Cup's a public holiday as well. So really, they love their sports-based public holidays in Melbourne. They should have a public holiday to celebrate public holidays. They should. I feel like that might actually be the thing that they love the most. And we get none.

We don't get any public holidays for sport here in New South Wales. Maybe Sydneysiders should affect an interest in sport. Maybe we should have a public holiday for cocaine. Because that's our, that's our white line fever. That's the equivalent of AFL up here is our love, our daily love of cocaine. That's probably true. Yeah, so that's a positive idea. And you could feel a football.

stadium with cocaine lovers in this. Oh, every day. You absolutely could. You would just, you'd need to just have a rumor and they'd all turn up. No, I mean, this is the thing, while you were away overseas, the number of news stories about the giant cocaine halls in Sydney. You missed a lot of them, and you would have wanted to talk about them every single day of the podcast.

It's been a huge thing. Well, in the same way that cocaine is Moorish, stories about cocaine are very Moorish as well. Very Moorish. So, yeah, I mean, six days ago here, drug bust shows Sydney is hooked on cocaine. This week, 120 kilograms of cocaine was seized during a raid in Sydney, Southwest. It's not the only one this year. It's just absolutely everywhere all the time. That is Australian quality cocaine, so it's probably about one gram's worth of actual cocaine.

I just don't know who is in this city, who A, has property and B can afford cocaine, or is it the people without mortgages who buy cocaine? Well, isn't it the Easton's, don't they buy it using their negative year? Oh, yes. The reason why they're in debt is big. because they've got these mansions that they go into debt to fund the cocaine. And then they can clave it on tax. And they reverse mortgage, don't they?

Their property is not. Yeah. There you go. So back to the AFL, though. The point is that when Melbourne has its public holiday today, it will be, I think, the second time, perhaps ever, but certainly in several decades, that the AFL grand final has featured zero teams,

not only from Melbourne, but zero teams from Victoria. They're going to be having a public holiday to celebrate it. their misery and their failure in their own sport. Yeah, well, that's also very Melbourne, if you think about it. That's true, actually. They'll probably enjoy that. Yeah. And, like, especially if it rains tomorrow, that'll be very Melbourne.

But it's funny that you mention this, because until, like, literally five minutes ago, I actually thought that the grand final was going to be between Fitzroy and South Melbourne. Because earlier today, I was chatting to a Melbourne friend about it. And... Do you have a friend in Melbourne? He made it from Melbourne, James Schleffel from The Shovel. He's been on the podcast before. And it was a three-way conversation with this other person from Sydney.

And James was saying it's between Fitzroy and South Melbourne. And the other guy seemed to think this was funny. And I was thinking this is a very factually sports-based conversation. This is why I love this anecdote because you just went, I can't comment on this. I'm just going to let this pass. I realize there's some sort of amusement going on here, but I've no idea what it is. Yeah, and I certainly didn't know this because neither Fitzroy nor South Melbourne had made it into the grand final.

And I assumed that, were they the bottom-ranked teams or something? No, no, Fitzroy and South Melbourne are competing in the grand final. He was absolutely right. It's just that there's a small detail about Fitzroy and South Melbourne, Charles. See, the thing is, and I know this is going to shock you, this is big news. There is not a Fitzroy football team, Fitzroy Lions. There is not, and here's a clue, there's not. a South Melbourne Swans team, Charles.

Those are the two teams that due to their financial failure and the ambitions of the AFL moved first to Sydney and then to Brisbane. It is an origin. It's a state of origin. AFL grand final. It is Sydney versus Brisbane in Melbourne. And so there are a few fans, a few long-term fans. And I know some fans from South Melbourne.

They call them Bloods fans from the old team who still support the swans, even though they're based in the city that they hate the most because they love South Melbourne so much. But it hasn't been in South Melbourne since the 80s. Right. Okay. So this is back when it was the VFL's. This is the last time I paid attention to it. Right. Okay. And they still pretend that there's a connection. So there's an article on the ABC news website today saying, yeah, okay, two non-victorian teams are vying for the AFL premiership for the first time in 18 years, but their roots to the state still run deep. And you know how deep the roots are, Charles? I went to the last two swans games, right?

the last two swans finals at the SCG, because I'm a bandwagon fan, baby. I'm on the bandwagon. They have written on their jerseys, SMFC, South Melbourne Football Club, in small letters on the back of the jersey in little white print. That's how deep it goes. It's an acronym that most people wouldn't have a clue what it meant.

Just as a tiny token little line there about it. That's nice. But I feel like this isn't a game that's going to bring the nation together. Because you're right, it's state of origin plus AFL grand final. You think it'll bring us together? I think so, don't you think? It will bring us together to celebrate the abject failure of Melbourne at their own sport. This is the thing I'm keen to emphasise.

Is it, let's not pretend. I mean, there are a bunch of AFL fans in this city. There's probably, I don't know, maybe one or two hundred thousand at most. Same in Brisbane, probably fewer in Brisbane. And so for Sydney and Brisbane to be better at something, we don't even really care about. Care about, yes. That is a religion in Melbourne.

It's almost like, it's delicious. Imagine if Sydney or Brisbane even got good at laneways. Imagine, oh my God. The Brisbane suddenly became known as the city of laneways. I mean, they've tried. Sydney's tried to copy Melbourne-style bars. In Brisbane, they can't even attempt it. It's too hot.

I mean, I've always said the Brisbane River is the Yarra of the North, really, isn't it? It is. It's actually a more interesting river. It snakes around. It floods. I mean, imagine if the Yarra flooded. That's something Melbourne should work on. Imagine if the Yarra regularly flooded into Crown Casino.

That would be kind of awesome. Yes, yes. And I've always said that Fortitude Valley shopping mall is the Federation Square of the North. Well, except if you imagine a Federation Square where you can get glassed very easily, that's pretty much what it is. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There you go.

As I say, I've been on the... the Swans bandwagon now for about two weeks. Ask me my favourite player. Who's your favourite player? Isaac Heaney, amazing player, took the most incredible mark in the qualifying final, one of the best things I've ever seen. Ask you my second favourite player? You don't have one, do you?

I can't remember any of the other ones. Certainly there were some people I were cheering when they, they did very well. I sort of understand the rules, kind of. But, yeah, Isaac Heaney and the other teammates. Any other? Cheer, cheer, the red and the white, Charles. Are you doing a bit of the sort of, you know how when the Matildas were all successful last year? Everyone suddenly became a man.

We were. We both were. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went out to Homebush. We both went to the semi-final of the World Cup. We were so on the bandwagon. So you're doing the same thing with the AFL.

I can't get to, I can't actually get to the grand final. It's too hard. But if I could, I, if I had a ticket, I would. I'd go down and I'd be on the bandwagon. Wait a minute. So they don't even play it. Surely they're playing it in Sydney or something. They should. They should play it in Melbourne. So that all the Fitzroy and South Melbourne loyalists can pretend that it's still their team. So no one's going to turn up.

I bet they will. But also that people are flying in for it. You know, it's so popular that they actually added a train carriage to the XPT. I once took the XPT to Melbourne. It's the shittiest experience you could possibly imagine. And another train carriage worth of people are signing up to be shaken around by the train. for 12 hours on the way down. What, an extra 40 people? Yeah, but it's just that it's so shit that you wouldn't think anyone else

wouldn't take it in the first place. But it is going to be a big day. That's why, I now understand. Because I saw during the week that people were trying to book tickets from Brisbane to Melbourne, and the price of Qantas Flair fairs are now like 1,500 bucks for a two-hour flight

from Brisbane to Melbourne. And I now understand why, because there's a game of, soccer or cricket or whatever it is the football. That's right. And so they probably only need the one plane for all the fans of AFL in Brisbane but yeah, they're

very excited. But then they need lots of planes. No, Qantas would have to charter extra planes for the amount of cash that they can squeeze out of all those. That's right. Just to carry the cash down. So, look, unfortunately, Charles, we've come to the end of my analysis of AFL. I think we came

to the end about 11 minutes ago. I do. I do. I don't know many of the rules. It's actually, I must say it's a very enjoyable game to watch. I would like to watch it more often because it is actually really fun to go along to see the Swans doing whatever it is exactly that they do. And at various, at regular intervals during the game, Charles, people regularly just shout and abuse the umpires.

I think I can get on board with the abusing the umpires. You've also got to yell ball regularly just to show to everyone listening that you know what they play with. It's a ball. I've just realised, is AFL related to AFLW? Yeah. Oh, it's like the men's version of AFLW. It is.

It's the men's version of AFLW. Oh, I now understand what it is. I know all about it. Yes. Sorry, I didn't realize there was a men's version of the game. Right, right. Yeah. It's all fitting in now.

Yeah, because I only ever watch the AFLW, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just have some ads during which you can look up any fact about the AFLW to vindicate this claim. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. Your favourite player in the AFLW? Oh, well, I mean, in some ways, I really think the 2023 AFLW grand final was more sort of my thing that I know about. That was your year, was it? Yeah, because they don't seem to have had one this year.

No, that's because the AFLW kicks off kind of nowish, basically. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As you would know. As you would know. Yeah, as I know, yeah. No, so I mean, I must say I do find that, I mean, for me, Sarah Wright from North Melbourne, Bella Eady, Emma King. I mean, where do you, where do you end?

Where do you end? At the end of the news article, you just Google. Kim Rini. I mean, or Brisbane. Let's talk about Brisbane. I mean, they were a standout team last year. Poppy Bolts, I mean, how can you say a word against her? Taylor Smith, Net Grider,

Ellie Hans, I mean, the list goes on. For not saying Taylor Swift then. You came very close, I think. Yeah, look, I think, I think we should, maybe in 2025, we should, we should, we should follow AFL and AFLW. And AFLW is still on. We can, we can get into it. Should we get into it?

Yeah, we're going to get into it. Maybe we should become the most authoritative, I've always been into it. Should we become the most authoritative AFLW podcast? Yes. I think that'd be lovely. It's, we're on, um, what a. we on? We're on week week five of ten.

So we've got six more weeks after this. We can get into it. Yep, okay. Good. Right, right. We'll do a weekly wrap of all the action. Yeah. Okay, that's good. Yeah. No, I'm up for that. I think that'll be nice. But we should also, just as a

sort of, like, diversity thing, cover the AFL. Just out of tokenism. Yeah. Yeah. Just to see. So we'll update you. So any tips on the AFL grand final before you go? Who's going to win? Sydney. or Fitzroy? I mean, I think

Sydney, they're the minor premieres are in red hot form. They may have peaked too soon. And there's also a bit of a hoodoo. I did actually previously go to one AFL grand final, the one where the Bulldogs beat the Swans. And I went with Chaz because he's the biggest Bulldogs fan. He's a proper Bulldogs fan.

And I managed to find tickets for us. And I wore Swansky head to toe just in order to irritate him because he hates the swans. He's always hated the swans. We made him at his Bucks party actually wear a Sydney swans jersey for the entire time. It was like the most embarrassing thing you could possibly have put him in. And unfortunately, the Bulldogs demolished the swans and they really ruined my day. So there is a hoodoo.

But I think they're ready. I think if it's about rubbing it into Melbourne, they're not in the grand final, I reckon the swans will win. Yeah, and, you know, with star players like Warwick Kepa, I can make it wrong. It's just important to remember Charles, whoever it is that wins or loses the AFL grand final on Saturday. tomorrow, Melbourne loses. They weren't part of it. All right, stay tuned for our first

AFLW. If someone wants to join us to actually explain who to follow, you know, what's going, if someone genuinely knows AFLW news wants to come on and tell us about it. Come on next week. Email podcast at chaser.com.

You can be our AFLW correspondent and we'll give you 30 seconds and no more to talk about the men's game. This pivot to sport. I love it, Dom. It's so sporty. It's so sporty. It's really very, very.

very invigorating. We are part of the Akrona Class Network. Come to us for all your AFLW news and insights. Yeah. And we'll catch you on Australia's favorite AFLW podcast, The Chaser Report, next week. See ya.