Australia's Spirit at the Crossroads – Time to Shake Off the Mud
At dawn, when the dew still clings to the grass and the grandstand sits empty, the ball lies where it was left the night before.
It has been fought over, kicked, booted, argued about.
It has carried the weight of pride and rivalry and the small, fierce hopes of men who believed the game mattered.
Then the whistle blew. The players shook hands. The referees packed up their flags. The crowd drifted home to screens and opinions and tomorrow’s talking points.
And the ball stayed. Mud-caked. Scuffed. Forgotten.
That’s when the cat appears.
He comes from the long grass beyond the goalposts, silent as a thought you don’t quite want to have. He is not owned by the club, nor impressed by the honour boards. He has no interest in the post‑match analysis or the imported scoreboard blinking away in the shadows. He walks by himself, as cats always have, and all places are alike to him.
He stops. He looks at the ball.
Once, this ball shone. Once it smelled of new leather and promise. It bounced cleanly, flew true, invited play.
Back then the game was played for the love of it - for the joy of the contest, the laughter, the bruises earned honestly. Back when people played not to be seen doing the right thing, but because it felt right to do it.
Back when there was sparkle.
The cat gives the ball a cautious paw. It rolls half a turn and slumps back into the mud. He tries again, a little harder this time, as if hoping to wake something familiar.
Nothing.
“Nah,” he seems to say, tail flicking once. “Still no sparkle.”
It’s not contempt in that gesture. It’s disappointment. A small, private grief for something that used to be alive.
Years of scrums and rucks will do that to a ball. So will endless offside calls and rule changes and arguments about what the game is really meant to be. Add a few imported agendas, a few seasons of fear, a long run of compliance drills disguised as virtue, and before you know it the leather is hidden beneath layers of drying mud.
Pandemics, panics, cancellations. Economic drop‑kicks. Moral lectures delivered from padded grandstands. One coating after another until the shine is gone and the bounce feels wrong.
Kicked from one end of the paddock to the other, the ball has become an object to be managed rather than played with. Discussed endlessly. Claimed by everyone. Loved by no one.
Dogs will still fetch it.
They always do. Loyal, eager, grateful for a nod from the master. Sit. Stay. Speak. Good citizen. During hard times, many learned to be very good dogs indeed - waiting patiently for permission, wagging at the smallest allowance of freedom, relieved to be told they were doing the right thing.
But the cat was never built that way.
Of all the creatures invited in from the wild, only he refused to sign the full surrender papers. He accepted the fire and the milk, the warm place when it suited him - but on his terms. We don’t own him. We share space with him, if we’re lucky.
That’s why his verdict matters.
I first understood that kind of magic as a child, reading Rudyard Kipling’s The Cat That Walked by Himself. Kipling caught something true and dangerous in that quiet, prowling creature - the refusal to be fully owned, the bargain that was never final, the independence that survives even warmth and comfort. His Cat did not rebel noisily or overthrow the house; he simply kept one paw outside the door at all times. I carried that story longer than I realised. It taught me that some spirits don’t shout when they’re being diminished - they withdraw, and that withdrawal is the warning.
There are always those of us who are like cats and we walk alone.
The cat bats the ball once more, almost lazily now, as if performing a final courtesy. Then he turns away, uninterested. The toy has lost its magic.
And that should worry us.
Because cats don’t linger where life has dulled beyond recognition. If nothing changes, he’ll pad back into the long grass and find something else that catches the light. He’ll walk alone again, leaving the paddock to those happy to fetch on command.
No matter what league you play. Soccer, rugby or any other... it was the ball that gave us play time.
Yet he hasn’t gone. Not yet.
At dawn he is still there, giving the ball that half‑hopeful nudge. That’s the quiet mercy in this moment. The light isn’t gone forever. It’s buried.
And mud, for all its weight, can be shaken off.
Not by pleading with referees for new rules. Not by waiting for the next team to pick us up cleaner. And certainly not by begging for approval from a crowd that’s already wandered off.
The shine comes back the old way.
By remembering the bounce. By laughing at the absurdity of it all. By playing on our own terms again. By refusing to stay dull simply because dull has become fashionable.
One good shake. One honest refusal. One ray of sunlight on leather.
That’s all it takes.
Do that, and the cat will notice. He’ll be back batting the ball like a Christmas bauble, eyes bright, tail high, alive to the game once more. Not because he was summoned - but because the sparkle returned.
This isn’t a judgement handed down from on high. It’s a standard held quietly at ground level by a creature who never forgot how to walk alone.
The trilogy ends here. Not with a speech. Not with a whistle. Just a cat at dawn, a muddy ball, and a choice.
Don’t let the mud win.
Time to shine. Or fade away.
This is part 3 of our series. I hope you have enjoyed it.
Part 1 https://patriotrealm.com/index.php/4432-let-the-paddock-decide
Part 2 https://patriotrealm.com/index.php/4433-we-are-the-ball
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