A South Australian football coach has been lambasted for refusing to draw upon the spirit of the ANZACs in his pre-match team talk last weekend, The Public Apology can report.
The SAFL coach, whom The Public Apology has chosen not to name, did not instruct his players to wear black armbands on the field in their round four fixture last Saturday – much to the outrage of casual pie-eating observers. Insiders say that the 52-year-old even failed to reference the courage shown by 18-year-old diggers at Gallipoli in 1915 when addressing his young squad, and avoided making a single war analogy when giving his pre-game “rev up” – something unheard of in sporting circles during the ANZAC day weekend.
Instead, the team clinically went about their business and picked up a convincing six-goal win, drawing some to speculate that the link between football and the ‘ANZAC spirit’ was perhaps not as direct as once imagined. Some are suggesting the incident may serve as a precedent to the AFL, which, for one weekend each year, looks to leverage an annual peak in nationalism in a bid to hype up its Essendon v Collingwood “blockbuster.”
By Dave Edwards