Scoop in September: Margaritas, Ted Lasso and a Skase story - Inside the grand final marquees

Williams was the only one of the trio to bring a prop ... well, props. He brought his 1995 Norm Smith Medal, both Brownlow medals, his premiership medallion and I swear there were a couple of others in his pocket.

Earlier in the day, Nathan Buckley and James Hird bounced off each other like old mates as they compared notes on who they thought was a better player. After much debate, they seemed to conclude that Hird had the better career, but Buckley was the better player.

Buckley refused to weigh in on the Tasmania conversation and was adamant he hasn’t yet been offered the job.

After lunch, former Fox Footy commentator Matt Campbell conducted an enthralling interview with Ben Cousins. The former West Coast champion opened up about his roller-coaster career in one of the most honest interviews you will ever hear. Media were asked not to record it so we’ll leave it there.

But back to Sheeds – he’s one of the all-time greats at a sportsman’s lunch, and he didn’t miss his old club when he was asked about the state of the Bombers.

“They’ve lost it. They’ve lost the understanding about togetherness and what you have to have with camaraderie,” he said.

“They’ve got to rebuild that and reconstruct the care and the love of each other.”

There are no more grand final lunches on Friday, are there? Everyone takes a break for the public holiday, right? I think I’m all lunched out.

Surely there’d be a juicy Zach Merrett update from Sam.

MC extraordinaire Hamish McLachlan joked Mitchell was too grumpy to attend after what happened in the preliminary final. This column dug a little deeper and ascertained he was actually in the middle of player exit interviews. Not a bad excuse. Carlton captain Patrick Cripps was a late call-up. More on him later.

The room was buzzing upon arrival just after midday and I felt very honoured to be seated at table 33, right in the middle of the room. Perhaps they read the Brownlow column? Only joking!

Speaking of which, McLachlan wasn’t thrilled that I said his interview with Brownlow winner Matt Rowell on Monday went too late into the night (that wasn’t his fault), and he got his revenge by stealing my pocket square before beginning his hosting duties. That’s not a joke – he stole it from my blazer and shoved it into his (Tom Ford, in case anyone was asking).

Speaking of fashion, I did threaten on Monday to be posting about fashion again. So, a quick summary:

• Simpson was wearing a very standard blue suit with a blue shirt and black lace-up shoes. The lunch was sponsored by Pitcher Partners, and he could have passed for an accountant. 7/10.
• Goodwin was wearing a white shirt, with two buttons undone, tucked into navy pants and a stone jacket with matching Chelsea boots. Formal, but relaxed. Clean but not cookie-cutter. 9/10.
• Cripps may have missed the memo. The Blues skipper had a navy quarter-zip jumper over a white tee. On the bottom, he was wearing black jeans and white sneakers. I wasn’t really feeling it. Felt rushed. 4/10.

The 30-minute panel was intriguing, funny and enthralling all at different stages and McLachlan did a wonderful job keeping things moving. All three reflected on what it was like to lead an organisation, with Simpson reflecting that his best leadership came during his final three years as coach of West Coast, where the Eagles won just 10 of 70 games.

“I did get the arse after that, but I guess that’s the way it goes,” Simpson chuckled.

“What does the arse look like when it comes?” McLachlan asked.

“With a big foot and a big payout ... Goody?” Simpson responded as he turned to his fellow premiership coach. Cue raucous laughter.

“I think it was time for me,” Simpson straightened up. “The new CEO arrived, and the new CEO wants to hitch their wagon to their man ... and I wasn’t Don Pyke’s man.

“But I was ready. In fact, it was a relief in the end.”

Minutes later, McLachlan followed up with both men on their future coaching aspirations.

“I don’t think so, not at the moment,” Simpson said, “It’s too hard!”

What about you, Simon? “At this point, yes.”

While I don’t write professionally about fashion (yet), the vast majority of the boys and girls looked simply sublime.

Quick question: are corsets back in fashion? At one point during the night I was quite sure that someone was going to yell “parlay” and then either Geoffrey Rush or Johnny Depp would pop up out of nowhere, Pirates of the Caribbean style.

Anyway, I arrived at my table (110) and sat down to a grim realisation: I was seated at the back right table, next to the toilets, with my seat facing away from the stage.

Nine’s chief footy reporter Tom Morris quickly quipped, “You’re literally in the worst seat in the room.”

I mean, I was facing him, so he wasn’t wrong.

But things could have been worse – I could have been Matthew Nicks.

Someone on seating plan duties clearly stuffed up because the Adelaide coach and his wife had been, er, forgotten about.

The two had to stand rather awkwardly in the corner until the AFL found them a seat. I mean, I know the Crows disappeared in September, but this was a little too much.

Some actual awards (finally) came and went. Gold Coast captain Noah Anderson won goal of the year for a goal that shouldn’t have won goal of the match, and Western Bulldogs freak show Sam Darcy won mark of the year for taking 60 per cent of a mark. But who’s counting.

9.16pm: One of Crown Palladium’s hosts announces to the room that we are at “the halfway mark”. It’s both exciting and upsetting all at once. Minutes later, a Geelong star admits his wife had already had enough and absconded to the room to watch Netflix. We promised not to identify the guilty party. We applaud your courage, Mardi.

9.37pm: We come back from an ad break to a pre-recorded segment from The Front Bar. It’s a great show, and usually I would need a comedic break from Sam Pang and Mick Molloy. But, guys, it’s after 9.30 and we still haven’t started round 14 yet.

The real comedy of the night came during the vote readings for round 20 when St Kilda superstar Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera was given two votes for his performance against Melbourne.

You might happen to remember the game – the one in which he dominated the last quarter, kicked the last two goals and won the Saints the game. In total he had 34 disposals and kicked four goals. But apparently that wasn’t enough to get the three votes. Nope, Melbourne midfielder Jack Viney, who from memory was one of the Demons at fault during the last quarter because he failed to man-up at the last centre bounce, he was deemed best on ground (he had 23 disposals, had 16 tackles and kicked one).

Cue giggling from table 110.

10.20pm: Host Hamish McLachlan from Seven announced to the room that Rowell was the winner because he was too far in front to lose. His victory speech started at 10.27pm. At 10.43, McLachlan said to Rowell, “There’s a lot of 10- and 11-year-olds watching, Matt ...” Were there?! It was nearly 11pm on a school night. I was barely still awake.

There was something that did keep me up, however, like a shot of coffee as I was Uber-ing home.

Remember how we lambasted the All-Australian selectors for starting Nick Daicos on the bench earlier this year? We pointed out, at the time, that Daicos was the best player in the competition and would probably win the Brownlow. We were wrong – he finished second. The bloke who beat him? He also started on the bench. Giggling. Again. And no, I did not go to the after-party. I’m 34, not 24.