Three-time premiership coach Mick Malthouse calls for the AFL Grand Final to be played away from Victoria

Andrew McMurtry and Nic Savage news.com.au

On Saturday, Malthouse condemned AFL officials for making their decisions based on Victoria’s strict coronavirus restrictions, while it could potentially be easier and cheaper to recommence the premiership somewhere else in Australia.

The game is on lockdown due to the coronavirus and with a late restart meaning the season could finish as late as December to get the 17-round season in, Malthouse said the AFL needs to look elsewhere to get the game back on the field.

With Victoria under stage three restrictions until at least May 11, hubs in other states have been heavily debated.

During a spray on Sports Talk on ABC Radio, the 66-year-old three-time premiership winning coach asserted his was filthy with the AFL’s organisers, calling for them to “grow up” and take in consideration the needs of other states.

“I am so filthy, and I have been since I coached West Coast, that everything is so Victorian centric,” Malthouse said. “We are in a national competition, if the game is played in Perth, play it in Perth.

“I get so annoyed, even what Sheedy said ‘play 28 games’. He’s a bloke that’s coached predominantly in Victoria and he put his toes in the water in Sydney, to play that many games it’s going to penalise Western Australian clubs. You can’t have that many games without a number of injuries.

“It’s the same with (AFL football operations manager) Hocking about reducing the number of players. He hasn’t taken into consideration one iota about how difficult it is to keep a team travelling and on the ground from the West, which is the clearly the hardest travelling times.

“I’m filthy on the Victorian-centric, this has all gotta be about Victoria. It’s a national competition, play it where it best fits Australia, not necessarily Melbourne. I am born and bred in Victoria, and I love Victoria, but we’ve got to grow up.”

Sheedy’s proposal was to play 28-game seasons over the next three years, including a season with 29 games to have every team play each other five times.

It would see the pre-season game scrapped, an earlier start before the NRL season, games on Tuesday and Wednesday, 16-minute quarters, six interchange players and AFLW double headers through March.

A Victorian health official hinted fans would not be permitted into sporting fixtures until 2021, prompting Malthouse to suggest South Australia or Western Australia as alternative venues.

While Victoria has recorded more than 1300 positive cases for the coronavirus to date, neither South Australia or Western Australia have reached 600.



Malthouse identified the Northern Territory as a potential location to get the AFL season back underway after it went 11 days without a positive coronavirus case.

But he also suggested Perth’s Optus Stadium, particularly if the lower number of coronavirus cases continues, may be the best option for the decider.

“About the Grand Final, who cares if it’s in Western Australia, if you’re going to have a Grand Final, so what, that’s a fantastic ground, hopefully you get 60,000,” he said. “If it can’t be played at the MCG, play it somewhere else. It’s not without precedent.

“The West Coast Eagles played their first bloody Grand Final out a Waverley in 1991 because the ground wasn’t ready. In the 1940s it was played somewhere else because the MCG was taken up with troops and so forth during the second World War.”

The AFL could be forced to move the Grand Final anyway with a potential clash with cricket’s Boxing Day Test, which the Melbourne Cricket Club, who manage the MCG, reportedly wanting the traditional cricket match.

The former Richmond 1980 premiership winner coached 718 AFL games for four clubs over a 31-year career, and lead Collingwood to the flag in 2010.