AFL correspondent Julian de Stoop previews week one of the AFL finals for the bottom half of the top eight in the competition, with the North Melbourne Kangaroos taking on the Essendon Bombers and the Port Adelaide Power taking on the Richmond Tigers.
A typical Richmond sook reacts to having to change his guernsey. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images) Source: Getty Images
AND you thought straight men didn't care about fashion.
The AFL world was in uproar over the decision to make Port Adelaide wear predominantly white guernseys instead of black.
Here's what this is all about.
Port Adelaide normally wears a black guernsey with a little bit of white and teal. When it plays away from home, it wears a mostly white guernsey if its strip clashes with the home team's colours.
But this weekend, playing against Richmond in its first home final at its new home ground of the Adelaide Oval, Port Adelaide will be forced to wear the white "away" strip.
Why? Because Richmond doesn't have an away strip which is different enough to Port's home strip. The anger over the AFL's failure to make Richmond adopt a proper away strip
is nicely summarised by the Twitter account @AFLClashPolicy.
We contacted a guy called Nick who runs that account and he told us that there is no transparent policy on this issue from the AFL. Nick said that Richmond is one of two clubs (the other is Essendon) who just think they're too important and historic and the rest of it to bother.
For the record, Richmond does have an away strip, but it's still black with a yellow sash and you pretty much have to be Sherlock Holmes to spot the differences between it and the home strip.
If you didn't know better (and we don't), you'd swear Richmond was taking the piss.
One person who was talking was Port Adelaide CEO Keith Thomas. Here's some of what he had to say about the slap-in-the-face moment when he learned Port would be forced to wear white, not black.
"Well, first we were surprised at the decision. It wasn't really a negotiation. It was a courtesy call [from the AFL] saying this is how it's going to be. It's a home final, we've earned that right and we feel as if we should be wearing our traditional black guernsey. I think our members and our fans and our players would expect that."
Then came the really juicy bit.
"Because the AFL weren't able to foresee this issue or ensure that an appropriate clash gurnesey has been provided by Richmond, Port Adelaide has to bow down and it's not something we particularly enjoy."
We bet it's not. Oof! Take that Gillon McLachlan.
The Port Adelaide Football Club submitted an application to the AFL to wear a black-and-white prison bar guernsey for Sunday's First Elimination Final against Richmond at the Adelaide Oval.
The black-and-white prison bar strip is homage to Port Adelaide's heritage as the Port Adelaide Magpies in the SANFL.
"Both our community and the broader football public have been very supportive of our club's strong stance on this matter today and I thank them for that," Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas said.
"But just as significantly the AFL have listened to this feedback and have been willing to support us with the alternative option of wearing our traditional prison bar guernsey.
"We thank the AFL for listening to our club and our community on this very important matter.
"And we are also very grateful to the Collingwood Football Club for taking a pragmatic view in the best interests of Sunday's final and agreeing for us to wear black and white stripes."
Mr Thomas stressed however that AFL and Collingwood approval was only the first step in Port Adelaide wearing its heritage guernsey this weekend.
"The real concern we have is that we may not be able to get the guernseys produced in time," Mr Thomas said.
"But rest assured Port Adelaide fans, we will be working closely with our supplier ISC to do our absolute level best to get the guernseys produced for Sunday's historic final.
"We will be in a position to make an announcement one way or another in the next 24 hours."
Late tonight, the AFL granted Port Adelaide permission to wear its heritage "prison bar" jumper in Sunday's elimination final.
AFL general manager of football operations Mark Evans said the League was prepared to place the Power in their prison bar jumper as long as they wore white shorts.
"While Collingwood is the club that has the right to wear black and white stripes within the AFL competition as its primary guernsey, they have agreed for Port Adelaide to wear its heritage prison bar guernsey with white shorts as a pragmatic resolution to produce the best outcome for this final," Evans said in a statement.
For all the angst from the Port Adelaide side of the fence, as you can imagine there wasn't a lot of sympathy coming from Richmond fans.
Some have taken to Twitter to point out that, hold on a sec, Richmond actually does have some other strips it could wear.
And even if they wore their nornmal strip and Prt wore theirs, do they recally clash that badly? This guy makes a fair obvservation.
Hughesy weighed in, as Hughesy does. And because there's a cosmic law of the universe that all Dave Hughes tweets must be embedded and or/retweeted, here goes.
And another one.
Here's a possible solution from the famous mustard jacket no longer worn by the AFL CEO, who sticks to sensible dark suits nowadays.
Jokes aside, this issue is about the AFL seeming to favour Victorian teams on matters of tradition. Footy fans are almost universally agreeing today that the AFL has done a lousy job of acting impartial on this issue, failing to pay respect to the team which came fifth over the team which came eighth. And footy fans don't often agree on aything.
The question really is if Port Adelaide can manufacture a jersey in five days, why can't Richmond?
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