SOME would have this grand final as a contest for Melbourne-Sydney honour. They are like uniformed Japanese sentries who, until the '70s, periodically emerged from the jungles of Malaysia, still fighting a war that was lost more than 20 years previously. This is, first and last, a meeting of two forces of football nature, equal and opposite.

Their mutual respect was manifest at yesterday’s rainy parade. The captains, Luke Hodge and Adam Goodes, are friends, who talked on the Treasury steps yesterday as easily as if at a summer barbecue. The coaches, Alastair Clarkson and John Longmire, are old teammates. Their first coach, John Kennedy, is the patriarch at one club, a grandfather at the other. Kennedy versus the Kennedys; it is almost presidential.

Hawks and Swans meet as peers today down to the last detail: one player from each team, each a regular, neither a star, tore a late-season hamstring and is out. It is akin to an exchange of sacrifices. Moreover, the unlucky Swan, Ben McGlynn, is a former Hawk.

The Sydney Swans barely exist in Melbourne’s consciousness. Hawthorn almost disappeared from it, and then came roaring back. Hawthorn once was almost forced to merge, Sydney this year had to divide. Sydney is everyone’s second team, Hawthorn no one’s. Sydney is admired, Hawthorn feared — but both are envied, today especially.