Let’s talk about premiership medallions: Those small pieces of jewellery which are somehow capable of changing the way we think about an AFL player’s legacy.
Firstly, unlike Mike Tyson, who is of the belief that legacy means absolutely nothing and that when you die you simply biodegrade into the earth’s soil (he literally said this to a little girl, look it up, it’s hilarious), I do actually believe in “legacy”.
Perhaps not in the sense that it matters once we’re dead, I’ll leave the existential arguments to Mike, but legacy certainly exists in sports fandom.
Nowadays, for good or bad (it’s largely bad), legacy debates litter the online platforms we use to congregate and unflinchingly defend grown men we’ve never met.
The all-time example of this is the toxic and brain-numbing Jordan vs LeBron debate that dominates the NBA cycle. This generational throw-down (or throw-up) is used round-the-clock to fill dead air during slow news days across basketball circles, and it’s completely based around “legacy”. Jordan has six rings, but LeBron has all the records, so on and on and on we go around in circles to plant our flags on a topic that, in itself, is completely subjective.
Staunch Jordan supporters love to lean on the argument that more championships means he is unequivocally the better player. This same argument is used to settle many of the “my favourite team’s player is better than your favourite team’s player” debates the sports public has become enamoured with.
The Americans call it “rings culture”, but it’s certainly not contained to the borders of the US.
Rings culture is alive and well in Australia, it’s just centred around a different shiny object.
Premiership medals are what every AFL player laces their boots up for. To hang one around your neck (or in Nathan Broad’s case, between a couple of melons) is viewed as a symbol of lifetime success, a remarkable achievement granting you an unwavering level of status that you’ll carry to the grave.
To anyone who doesn’t follow sports closely, that must sound fucking insane. But to those of us who live and breathe the game we love, it means everything… but should it?
Personally, I believe the push around “rings culture” across sports worldwide has led AFL fans to greatly overrate many “premiership players” and grossly under-rate genuine superstars who finish up without a flag.
John Longmire stepping down from his post as the Swans’ head coach sparked this train of thought for me. Horse will forever go down as one of our game’s greatest coaches, posting a 208-3-122 win/loss record from his 333 games in the box.
But of those 333 games, only five seemed to be remembered in the light of his resignation. Longmire posted a 1-4 record in AFL Grand Finals, and fans would have him wear it like the stone of shame the Stonecutters attach to a nude Homer for ruining their sacred parchment.
Apparently, making it to five Grand Finals is worth very little in the eyes of blokes who probably piss in the shower to save time walking to the toilet if you only win one of them.
That got me thinking, how bad would these idiots think Longmire is if he had lost all five of them? If not for Nick Malceski and Mitch Morton, how would we view this iconic and legendary coach?
Then that got me thinking even further, about some of the players and coaches who have never gotten over the hump, and how that affects their “legacy” as greats of our game.
Here’s some examples:
Ross Lyon
Lyon is basically the alternate universe version of Longmire if the latter never won that 2012 flag. He’s been to four grand finals for a 0-1-3 record, and boy, do the fans let him have it for that.
Matthew Pavlich
A career tied to the aforementioned Lyon, Pavlich is a six-time all-Australian across multiple position lines, a six-time best-and-fairest winner and is largely regarded as the best to ever play for his club. But that club was Freo, who have no flags, so don’t even think about comparing the man to Travis Cloke…
Nathan Buckley
A little different since playing for the Magpies definitely gives your legacy a little extra air, but the back-to-back grand final losses to the Lions, as well as the Dom Sheed heartbreaker as a coach, deflates the balloon a touch. I’m of the opinion Bucks was a better footballer than Michael Voss, but I’m guessing I might be in the minority of that camp, and it’s hard to argue given the medal tally.
Robert Harvey
A couple of Brownlow medals not enough for ya?! I guess he’d swap his career for Billy Frampton’s in a heartbeat.
All in all, this is a very long-winded way to say that while premiership medals should be the goal of each and every footballer every single time they step onto the field, they aren’t the “all-defining” source of truth that we fans crack them up to be.
We face an uphill battle in turning the tide against “rings culture”, and in the current landscape we probably already have to admit defeat on that one. But if this column can stop just one person from telling me Tom Cole has had a better career than Nat Fyfe (I genuinely heard that once), then like Leonard Nimoy exiting the monorail, I’ll know my work here is done.
