Those of you blessed enough to have a Foxtel subscription at home – or those of you who happened to have gone to any self-respecting pub to watch a game – would have noticed that all weekend Fox Footy and Fox Sports coverage of the AFL was centred around an in-house promotion that designated this round to be Red Round.
What Red Round meant exactly is still remarkably unclear. It generally operated under the vague premise of celebrating things to do with the colour red – presumably because the colour of the Australian Rules Football is traditionally red, even though owing to closed roofs and twilight/night timeslots, the majority of the games this weekend were contested with yellow balls.
Nevertheless, there were commentary teams wearing ridiculous red outfits, an All-Time Best team compiled entirely of red-headed players, and lots of promos featuring Barry Hall getting slammed with red paint.
Arguably though, the whole thing was built around Eddie McGuire‘s yearly “Press Red for Ed” experiment – where he assembles an entirely Collingwood-based team to provide decidedly pro-commentary for a ‘Pies game that fans could opt into hearing instead of the regular commentary. Alongside McGuire sat Pies legends Tony Shaw and Peter Daicos, as well as Peter Hellier – in character as Strauchanie. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, about as enjoyable as listening to a nail that’s been taped to a balloon being dragged across a chalkboard. No matter what side you support.
Unfortunately for Ed, this weekend’s experiment accidentally turned into one of the greatest pieces of schadenfreude ever broadcast on Australian TV.
Despite constant hooting and hollering about the umpires, and in-unison chiding for opposition players to miss set shots at goal, the Magpies were overrun by the resurgent Melbourne Demons, handing Collingwood their sixth successive loss and just about snuffing out any glimmering hope of playing Finals this year.
And with that came the perversely satisfying moment of Eddie and the team downing headsets a mere *three seconds* after the final siren sounded and exiting the booth with the kind of swiftness usually reserved for emergency drills.
I mean, I know it’s not super polite to revel in the misery of others – but honestly, that could not have happened in a better way to a more deserved person.
