For all the hand-wringing that accompanies an all-interstate grand final intruding on Melbourne’s epicentrality to the football universe – this decider looks and feels like any other.
Sydney supporter Ryan Coughlan is a man of strong opinion: the Swans will win it, and Isaac Heeney gets the medal.
Playing on the central coast of New South Wales as a teenager, Coughlan remembers a certain young blond ball-winner. “He’s a local boy from Cardiff so we used to play against him in the under-16s,” Coughlan told Guardian Australia from the sidelines of the grand final parade.
“He was good. He was a few years younger and he was still dominating us.”
“Coggo” – as he insists on being called – decided to travel to Melbourne for Saturday’s grand final as soon as the Swans disposed of Port Adelaide last week. He watched his first game at the MCG in the 2022 grand final, a saturnine afternoon whose trauma he is seeking to erase.
“It was bittersweet. It’s an awesome vibe coming down [to Melbourne] but then they got smashed. I was a bit disappointed after that one. So we’re keen to get a win and I reckon we got ‘em.”
Melbourne is again hosting two interstate clubs: the first decider without a Victorian team since 2006. As if to emphasise the “interstate raider” trope, both teams will be wearing home strips.
The city has been flooded with interstate arrivals. Airlines put on thousands of extra seats, running dozens of additional flights and swapping out Boeing 737s for larger Airbus A330s. Friday was flagged to be Melbourne airport’s busiest day since an army of fans of a certain Taylor (Swift, not Adams) landed earlier this year.
Kirra Porter and her aunt Alana Duffin made the call three days ago to drive from Brisbane to be at the footy festival surrounding the MCG. “I’ve been to every home game this year,” Porter says. But she’s never watched a game in Victoria.
Semi-final escapologist Joe Daniher will win the Lions the premiership, she says. “He’s my favourite, he always does good.”
Duffin is equally sure of the result but reckons the margin will – in keeping with the tradition of interstate grand finals – be close. “I think we’ve got it by eight points,” she says.
While they now occupy imposing interstate stadiums, both teams, of course, have their Melbourne origins, at the nearby and humble Lakeside and Brunswick Street ovals.
Much has been made of the extended hiatus – 125 years – since these two clubs met in a grand final. In the final game of the 1899 season, Fitzroy won by a single point over South Melbourne, 3.9 to 3.8.
They were neither Swans nor Lions in those distant days (“Southerners” and “Maroons”) but the red-and-white and the maroon-and-yellow were recognisably those of the same clubs.
Such was the wind that day in 1899 – blowing off Port Phillip Bay directly up the unprotected Junction Oval – that no goals were kicked at the southern end of the ground for the entire match, and only six for the day (aided too, by unceasing rain and the “insufficient intent” rule being less zealously policed in those days).
The BoM forecast for Saturday is a far more amenable dry and sunny 23C.
“Warmer weather is expected in Melbourne on Saturday with temperatures reaching the low to mid-20s for the opening bounce,” the bureau’s senior meteorologist, Miriam Bradbury, said.
“These fine match-day conditions are a result of a high pressure system moving across Victoria bringing clear skies and moderate northerly winds.”
There’s a cold front predicted for Sunday. It’s a certainty for one of these teams, for the long road home.
