The pre-game subplot and commercial storyline for the AFL’s Gather Round final match between Collingwood and Hawthorn didn’t require any marketing experience.
Jack Ginniva had spoken extensively about his former club. Easter Monday’s brutal treatment of Ginnivan by the umpires during the high contact adjudication served as further fuel. The gadfly small forward had been dudded, the AFL admitted.
Let a little water off a duck’s [back]. Regarding the pre-game talk about him, Ginnivan remarked, “I’m very good at coping with things that come my way.” “I have an incredible network of people supporting me.” Thus, Ginnivan continued his role as the competition’s most talked-about and conspicuous non-star football player when he booted Hawthorn’s opening goal from a free for high contact, as both fate and the fans wanted.
Both Tom Mitchell and Patrick Lipinski touched the ball rather than tackled it too high, and it was the exact kind of free that he had not been able to earn since 2022 at Collingwood and in his first four Hawks games. “I just tried to drive my legs, go through the tackle – which I did, didn’t drop my knees or roll my arm, which is why I got the free kick,” Ginnivan said, referring to his astute observation of heavy contact based on Geelong great Joel Selwood’s advice. “I’m going to keep trying to do that and improve as a player in that area. Joel Selwood is an expert at what he does, based on what I heard him say last week.
In a match that Collingwood had to win if the Magpies were to mount a serious challenge in 2024, Ginnivan sparked the early attention.
