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A tough, tense Anzac Day match completely in keeping with the event's dramatic modern history ended with a four-point Collingwood victory and a reception fit for the most heinous cad.
That the "cad" was Collingwood's admirable captain Scott Pendlebury, who was booed by Essendon fans while being awarded the Anzac Medal after a virtuoso performance, provided the latest instalment in a developing saga.
The inane booing of champion players has, in some opinions, gone beyond the traditional venting of spleens — in this case, Essendon fans outraged by some line-ball umpiring decisions directing their tantrums at Pendlebury — into the realms of bullying and intimidation.
Magpie coach Nathan Buckley, after receiving his own chorus of jeers, threw some fuel on the fire by chiding the Bomber booers: "Shame on anyone that booed a champion," he tsk-tsked.
Buckley, who was booed throughout most of his career for committing the cardinal sin of being very good, might not normally have mentioned the crowd's response.
But booing became the AFL's topic de jour on Easter Monday when every time Geelong champion Gary Ablett touched the football he triggered an element of supporters who, undeterred by any apparent sense of decency or self-worth, booed their tiny brains out.
This didn't seem to overly concern Ablett, who spent the afternoon providing yet more compelling evidence for those prosecuting the case he is the greatest Australian Rules footballer of his — and perhaps any — era.
The most likely reason Hawthorn supporters were booing Ablett was that, like other regular booing targets from the past such as Wayne Carey, he was simply too good to bear. Ablett's mid-contract defection from the Gold Coast to the Cats might have also sparked some misplaced moral indignation.
Yet as much as the booing seemed of the pantomime variety, it caused controversy because Ablett had "liked" a social media post from Israel Folau which warned that everyone from homosexuals to drivers failing to give way when they entered roundabouts would go to hell.
This "like" theory prompted the AFL's football operations manager Steven Hocking to temporarily stop tinkering with the game's rules and hint at the implementation of something even more absurd than some of his new regulations — a Boo Ban.
How the AFL would enforce this Boo Ban seems problematic, although you imagine Hocking has already sent an exploratory task force to a Punch and Judy show to test the feasibility of apprehending five-year-olds who get a bit too rowdy when Punch acts up.
But if a ban on booers seems as unlikely as a balanced fixture, the AFL's overreaction did raise a couple of obvious questions.
Where was this swift and firm-handed action when Adam Goodes was jeered for reasons that were, in my opinion, far more vile, premeditated and harmful than the pantomime villainy endured by Ablett?
Actually, this is a rhetorical question because we now know that some of the AFL's most senior officials were tone-deaf to the racially motivated nature of Goodes' vilification and only realised their mistake in failing to defend one of the game's greatest servants and role models after he had been effectively booed out of the game.
The other question prompted by Ablett and now Pendlebury's jeering is about where the line is drawn for fans in an era where behavioural expectations have rightly increased since the booze-soaked, profanity-laden days of the old suburban terraces.
Under the Boo Ban, would supporters be allowed to boo former players who have chosen to take more money to play for another club, thus forsaking the indignant fans?
Conversely, should the Boo Mobile also be dispatched to apprehend those who jeer a player who was traded by the club against his will and would still be serving the very fans now booing him if he had his wish?
Could you boo at a presentation ceremony like the Anzac Medal as thousands did, or would there be mass arrests?
Could you boo umpires, given Hocking's recent plea that recruiting officials is becoming more difficult? Could you boo Hocking for imposing technicalities that make the umpire's task so difficult? Who could you boo?
Of course, from the high ground of the media box it is easy to sniff at supporters expressing their outrage and wonder why anyone boos at all. It's all so primal, you see.
But while the most boorish booing and foul-mouthed abuse are certainly not legitimate expressions of the passion of fully invested supporters, surely somewhere there is a place for those who loudly cheer and, yes, even jeer.
Otherwise, who creates the atmosphere that elevates the most dramatic moments?
The booing of Pendlebury made it clear the AFL's anti-booing comments had not caused fans to reconsider booing an opposition star, even if in this case it was merely a conduit for their frustration with the umpires.
More likely, any Boo Ban would only inflame a situation that, unlike the Goodes disgrace, does not merit intervention but merely a basic understanding of the supporters' psyche.
In that regard, take this as gospel: The next time Collingwood plays Essendon, the completely blameless Pendlebury will be booed by Bomber fans because his coach defended him the last time he was booed for no reason. And Collingwood will choose an Essendon player to boo in reprisal.
Like it or not, that is how some supporters think and, so long as supporters channel their frustrations through their big mouths, a Boo Ban won't change a thing.
Catch up on all the results and issues from the sporting weekend on Offsiders on ABC TV, 10am Sunday.
Topics: australian-football-league, sport, geelong-3220, melbourne-3000, vic, sydney-2000, nsw, australia
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