Dipper resolves Middle East crisis with beer

Peace ambassador Robert 'Dipper' DiPierdomenico hits the the UN bar with an Irish diplomat.


In the lead up to the 2009 AFL season Channel 7 compensated those footy fans without a Friday night watering hole, with Essence of the Game. An epic documentary that traversed continents, competitions, clubs and finally taste, Essence of the Game, ritually slaughtered the best understated qualities of Australian Rules, such as unspoken camaraderie, graceful feats of athleticism and brutal physicality and replaced it, at every chance with bromides of nostalgia, indulgent mythos and the disastrous emoting of Shane Crawford. His voiceover, recorded for naturalistic effect could not have been more artificial.

Neo-liberal values to its core, ambition beyond its feeble grasp, Essence of the Game played like a celluloid enema. In short it had Bruce McAvaney’s paw prints all over it.

Footy rivalries from the suburbs to the country were depicted in this adventurous chronicle that at times suggested one of those sprawling WWII sagas that suffer under the weight of its distracting ensemble cast. Talk about The Longest Day.

The producers had even paid a cameraman to go out to West Coburg. Random images of bored spectators were spliced together with the conflicts taking place on the ground, which, if you’ve ever been to West Coburb, resembles more of corridor than an oval. It makes Glenferrie look like Subiaco. It’s a proud club with equally striking supporters. Anyone who has ever attended a West Coburb game knows what I mean. And if you ever find yourself near Melville Road on a Saturday afternoon you’ll find a real fan with more to say of interest than any of the network free-to-air boundary riders. His name is Cranky and he was nowhere to be seen in Essence of the Game.

Perhaps the nadir or highlight of the program, depending on whether you too lost your weed supply in the Victorian bushfires, came with the footage of the Peace Team, whose fearsome line up in the World Cup series comprised the combined forces of Palestine and Israel. The mastermind behind this operation was Dipper, that diplomat of Middle Eastern foreign policy. Having not scored for three quarters against a Great Britain side which was a modest 145 points to the good, Peace Team, seem unable to click as a cohesive unit. What could it be? Is it lack of height in the backline? Maybe it’s their deficiency in forward 50 entries? At the behest of the coach who would likely eat the elephant in the room rather than acknowledge it, Peace Team are encouraged during a less than inspiring final huddle, to score – at any cost. Dipper doesn’t care who it is and how it’s done. He’ll even buy the individual a beer. Team spirit is overrated anyway.