The death of Adelaide Crows’ coach Phil Walsh quickly puts football into perspective.

All the internal club politics, like those played out with North Ballarat Roosters’ coach sacking the past fortnight. All the off-field drama, like the drug scandal played out on the Gold Coast this week. All the week-to-week drive and effort that goes into winning games and making finals. All the injury clouds and speculation.

Football and everything that goes with football may, at times, seem like the centre of our universe.

All on-field and off-field sagas and triumphs have their place, their value, their importance.

Football is about passion, and that is what makes our game so great from grassroot junior showdowns to the AFL. Football transcends so many aspects of fans’ lives.

All the cliches don’t seem to feel a right fit for this. 

There is no precedent for what should happen next. What should happen to AFL games this weekend.

Adelaide’s home game against Geelong scheduled for Sunday will be abandoned, points split, in the wake of Crows coach Phil Walsh’s death.

Any suggestions his players would have wanted to play for him, the game should go on, ring a little hollow.

Football has the encompassing power and passion to pay tribute so well. We have seen this so respectfully, so emotionally in our own leagues. Sunbury’s match against Redan in the Ballarat Football League days after avid supporters Albert and Marie Rizk, parents of premiership player James Rizk, were killed in the Malaysia Airlines plane shot down over the Ukraine last July – Sunbury and Redan will meet in an anniversary tribute match later this month. Bacchus Marsh under-16s pushing on through a BFL finals series to a premiership after losing teammate Nathan Prince in the wake of a cardiac arrest from a knock to the chest amid a contest.

This feels like one of those times the game has to stop.

This is also a reminder at how far-reaching the football community can be. How one player, one coach, can unwittingly impact so many lives even in such a short stint with a club.

Phil Walsh was best on ground in a losing BFL grand final for Redan in 1981. Old Lions remember him as a fun guy but complete professional in the game. He has worked with and mentored countless Ballarat footballers since as he has moved through the game, including seven AFL clubs.

Football has a binding power, that strong community pull and support at all levels of the game.

There is no clear defined way for how Adelaide or the AFL should move forward. It is hard to even start to grasp the magnitude of what has been lost.

This is bigger than any game, yet for those who will play this weekend, it is perhaps a chance to simply enjoy the game for what it is.