For Collingwood fans, Saturday’s AFL Grand Final was a nail-biting rollercoaster of emotions that started out gloriously before ending in the ultimate heartbreak; the Magpies falling just 5 points short of an unlikely Premiership victory.
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By and large, Pies fans have taken it admirably on the chin; a few very understandable tears after the game, maybe a loud swear or two in the backyard, and then on with the show.
A small handful, however, have embraced peak-nuffy behaviour by starting a petition to have the AFL review several key umpiring decisions and, by extension, overturn the result of the game entirely.
Y’know, a totally normal thing you’d absolutely expect to see happen.
The petition, which has thus far accumulated just shy of 1,000 signatures if you can believe it, is demanding that the AFL address three key moments in the Grand Final that swung the score against Collingwood.
Firstly, they contend, the Eagles’ first goal of the game – a somewhat lucky goal-line shin-poke by Willie Rioli – “clearly showed that the ball was touched as it crossed the line, not by the boot of the WCE player but came off another part of his body and was clearly a behind,” despite the fact that… y’know… it didn’t show that.
Secondly, a fourth-quarter video replay “clearly showed that no WCE player had deflected the flight of the ball,” despite the fact that it clearly did.
Finally, the now-famous Dom Sheed mark and goal should be ruled null, according to the petition, because “the illegal blocking shepherd on Brayden Maynard with 2 minutes to play should have been paid as a free kick to Maynard as it was considered an act of interference which allowed the West Coast player to goal.” Which is some impressive mental gymnastics to say the least.
They say grief has five stages, and judging by this whoever’s in charge of the petition is straddling the first three all at once.
If you feel like you need to put your signature down on the petition, you can do so via this link.
It’s certainly not going to help achieve any result other than a West Coast win, but it might help you feel a little bit better about the whole thing.
Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do to get by.
