SORRY Essendon and St Kilda fans, we tried our best.
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If you’re wanting to know why there hasn’t been more promotion of tonight’s NAB Cup match in our paper, here it is.
The AFL and the clubs don’t care.
The lack of co-operation from all three parties this week has been stunning.
It defeats the purpose of bringing the game to Wangaratta and “grassroots fans” in the first place.
Here’s a summary of how hard it has been to speak with both clubs to promote this match.
The Bombers offered footy manager Paul Hamilton for a phone interview on Monday but did not give access to any players for the week.
The Saints offered us one, Dederang’s Ben McEvoy, and footy manager Chris Pelchen, but requests to interview Osborne hero Adam Schneider and others were rejected.
“One player only,” we were told.
Essendon obviously doesn’t want or need publicity.
Repeated calls to the Bombers communications department have been ignored.
We were told via email on Thursday “the players are currently at school clinics for the afternoon and are unavailable” and “we’ve had our media requests for the week locked in for some time”.
We then asked what the chances were of a chat with an Essendon player yesterday and were told coach James Hird was holding a press conference at 8.30am in Melbourne.
What use is that to us?
The Saints have been in regular contact this week but haven’t budged on their “one player” stance.
We were allowed to photograph the Saints arriving in Wangaratta last night but no interviews.
The tipping point came yesterday morning when we received an email from the AFL complaining about the cropping of its logo on The Border Mail website.
As John McEnroe says: “You can’t be serious!”
To say we’ve always had poor communication with the AFL and its clubs would be wrong.
Come grand final time the AFL is fantastic, while Collingwood was particularly media friendly during its visit to Wangaratta last month and was rewarded with several front and backpage stories.
Gold Coast and GWS, eager to promote their clash at Lavington Oval next week, offered interviews with Kevin Sheedy and Dean Solomon, while the Melbourne Storm and Canberra Raiders gave us access to several stars, including Billy Slater and Terry Campese, during the recent NRL trial on the Border.
Regional media outlets don’t have the luxury of press conferences and can’t attend training, often relying solely on the co-operation of clubs and governing bodies.
Country people don’t expect much, but we expect a fair go.
We haven’t got that this week.