On the MCG scoreboard on Thursday night, there was a countdown to the beginning of the season. So did Melbourne contemptuously gloss over the matches played last weekend in the Adelaide and Perth outstations. More than 80,000 at a floodlit MCG; here was football's locus and heart. After the soft opening, here came the hard.

If Thursday night was a song, it would have the abbreviation trad after it, for tradition. After the scorching summer, suddenly there was wind, rain and cold on cue. The dark coats of winter were out in force, and the scarves, too. In Melbourne, the new black is still black. Black-backed Richmond and Carlton liveries reinforced it; the whiteness and brightness of the Swans suddenly was so last season.

Duel: Michael Jamieson and Jack Riewoldt vie for possession. Credit:Pat Scala

These were the most trad rivals, but in a Melbourne way. A mini-Murphy and a mini-Martin walked in side by side, deep in earnest schoolboy conversation. Melbourne rivalries, though felt in the heart, run no deeper than skin. It remains one of the games civilising niceties, never to be taken for granted.

If, in the AFL's robotic way, there had to be a national anthem, at least Greta Bradman, Sir Donald's grand-daughter, was on hand to sing it. Bradman on the MCG: that was tradition. There was one last ceremonial, as coaches Mick Malthouse and Damien Hardwick shook hands warmly. Malthouse in navy blue: it suits him. Malthouse laying down his law Chris Judd, as perhaps no-one has before: it suits Carlton. On the evidence of the night, they will have much to talk about: what might have been, certainly, but also what might yet be.