Can you hear that distant din? It’s the sound of promotion, and soon it will be ear-splitting, like the zinzulation of a colossal buzzsaw biting into a log of ironbark. The AFL is rolling into town. It has a new champion. His emergence has been emphatic, quick and dramatic, like the sudden rise of a terrifying young dictator. The 2017 season ended in glorious triumph, for him and his team, and the accolades for Dustin Martin kept flowing, most of them deserved, at least one debatable, only because by the time he was conferred the Norm Smith Medal, we were wondering whether that “don’t argue” called Historical Inevitability, imperative as one of his own fends, had taken charge of the narrative.
The tears, too, were kept flowing, for a young…
