Following the 2013 finals, when Hawthorn's star forward Lance "Buddy" Franklin (the biggest name in Aussie Rules, pictured above at right) was about to become a free agent, there was a non-stop. LeBron-like pursuit of the rumor mill as to whether he would stay with the champion Hawks, or jump to the GWS Giants, based outside of Sydney, who while not currently a contended would allow him a free rein as a player to dominate, and perhaps the opportunity to do what Gary Ablett Jr. is trying to do at Gold Coast: build a premier from the ground up. Which choice would Buddy take? The world was watching.
As they watched, on the first day of actual signing, Sydney swooped down and signed Franklin to a nine-year, TEN million dollar (AU) contract, an insane amount of money in the AFL and an even MORE insane length of contract for a 28 year old player. But the amazing-est part, if we can use that non-word, was that they'd worked this deal out over the course of over a YEAR, and absolutely nobody knew that Sydney was a player in the Buddy Franklin sweepstakes.Especially not GWS - Greater Western Sydney - who lost their chance at instant credibility to their cross-region, already established rival, who was now the prohibitive favorite to win the 2014 title. (And they would've won it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids! No...wait. Wrong thing. They would have won it if they hadn't met Hawthorn on such a vintage Hawthorn playing day, and if they'd played at least slightly better than a "string of witches hats in a training drill", which is the name for the traffic cones we use in the States for slalom courses. Seriously. They were absolutely terrible in the second quarter in particular.) It's going to be interesting to see what happens next year to the team which is perceived as being SO rich that they had to be BANNED FROM TRADING this fall because the league office (read: the other teams!) thought their "cost of living allowance" (provided to its players because living in Sydney for an Aussie is like living in downtown SF for an American - expensive!) gave them a "competitive advantage".
All of this is ironic because Sydney, in years past (before their 2005 championship), the Sydney club had not won a title since 1933, the longest drought in footy, and generally they RAILED against the advantage all the Melbourne clubs held because their salaries went farther than those paid in the most expensive city in Australia.
The irony is inescapable.
Their American counterpart: the Boston Red Sox
The drought
for the Red Sox was even LONGER - back to 1918! But in 2004, the Red Sox
did the seemingly impossible: they came back from 3-0 down to the
Yankees (and extra innings in game 4!) to win the AL pennant 4 games to
3, and then they swept the Cardinals to win the first World Series title
for Boston in 86 years.
The ironic part
is that while they complained of the Babe Ruth "curse" (they traded
their star young pitcher, Babe Ruth, for a pile of spare parts and some
cash), especially with the evil empire Yankees just down the road in New York, they actually became the Yankees/North, spending lots of money on free agents like they could never have done under the old Yawkey family umbrella. They beat the Yankees by becoming the Yankees. And
Sydney did some of the same things: by spending, they got the talent
that won that almost mythical 2005 title, and then repeated in 2012. They went back to the Grand Final in 2014, and again as "minor premiers" in 2016 (meaning they were the #1 seed in the playoffs), but lost both times.
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