Matthew Nicks has been named the inaugural recipient of the Gaslighter Of The Year Award, an honour he sealed for himself twenty minutes after Brisbane finished putting 144 points on his team.
The Crows lost the second semi-final 21.18 (144) to 13.13 (91) — a 53-point defeat built almost entirely in the first quarter, when Brisbane kicked five goals before most of the Adelaide away-day merchandise had made it out of its shrink wrap. Nicks, addressing the margin directly, said the result was “maybe a bit of a reality check,” a phrase he then spent the next four minutes disproving.
“We’re building something really special,” Nicks said, of a team that had, ninety minutes earlier, put on a display about as far away from special as the north pole is from the south. He described the group as “heading in the right direction,” by which one can only assume he meant back to Adelaide.
The phrase “building something special,” has been noted by our legal experts here at the NFVR as one that requires no evidence, cannot be disproven within a single news cycle, and will still be technically defensible in 2031. Its this god-tier level of spin that ultimately won Nicks the coveted Gaslighter award.
Nicks asked South Australians to “see the bigger picture,” a request made from inside a picture in which his team had just conceded more points in one final than some finals go for in total. He did not specify what the bigger picture contained, on the theory that specifying it would make it a claim, and claims can be checked.
The comments from after this match only added to just about every post-match presser this year, in which, win or lose, Nicks has decried the beauty of learnings.
“With the sheer volume of learnings that Adelaide have evidently banked, one imagines they must be in line for Rhodes Scholarships,” said Tony Whitelie, chairman of the Gaslight Awards Association. “Matthew really stood out as a clear winner this year on the back of that sort of thing. It’s so very clear that he holds complete disregard for the members and fans of his club. He’ll tell them literally anything to take the heat off himself and that’s precisely the kind of talent we look for in winners of this award.”
For the first time ever, Nicks was unavailable for comment.
