"WHO would have thought grown men would care what other grown men are wearing? But that passion is to be ignored at our peril."

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan made the mistake - a self-acknowledged error - during the 2014 final series when his league wanted to deny Port Adelaide its home jumper for its first AFL final at its "new again" home at Adelaide Oval.

Seven years on, the greatest mistake anyone - including the AFL - could make is misreading passion that today stirs in the Port Adelaide fans.

In 2014 it was all wrong on the most basic tenet of the AFL finals rankings - Port Adelaide placed higher than Richmond; it had earned a home elimination final and it certainly should not have been asked to wear anything but its home jumper.

The compromise was the black-and-white bars - for just the fourth time in the Port Adelaide Football Club's AFL story - and an unstoppable passion stirred in the traditional Port Adelaide fans.

In 2021 it remains all wrong for the AFL to ignore this passion out of a misguided placement of power to the Collingwood Football Club. The International Cricket Council is often seen as "toothless" when it bows to India; the AFL does not need the same image with Collingwood.

Those Port Adelaide fans wearing the bars at Adelaide Oval during Showdown LXIX on Saturday night sent their message to AFL House: "Our passion is to be ignored at your peril."

The old scoreboard at Adelaide Oval told a storyline that will resonate louder and longer than the result of a derby that was not a classic (but a reflection of the differing states of the Showdown rivals on the field): "Heritage matters."

The Monday water cooler chatter that spills to the Monday night football panel talkfests will seek to interpret the message behind the Port Adelaide players wearing the bars in their post-match celebrations including their rendition of the club song.

There will be those who will seek to make it more than a gesture to the people the Port Adelaide Football Club holds dearest: The fans.

These supporters want the bars. And, as Port Adelaide Football Club president David Koch says, the fight for the bars will not go away nor will it be distorted by the myths generated by a television commentator who is doing his former club a disservice by continuing to appear as its official spokesman.

COVID and the recent failed Super League turmoil in European football reaffirms sports are at peril if they ignore the fans.

Port Adelaide fans - particularly those wearing old black-and-white jumpers that they have kept as family heirlooms - do not want their club's most-treasured guernsey to become a museum item.

If Collingwood and Essendon can have a speciality jumper for Anzac Day, why can't Port Adelaide - and for that matter Adelaide - do the same for the Showdown?

And while new Adelaide Football Club chairman John Olsen considers writing the sequel to this saga by blocking Port Adelaide wearing the bars when it is the "away" team at the Showdown, he might ask: Does anyone want to see the New Zealand rugby team in anything but its traditional All-Black jumper ... or ban the Kiwis from doing their pre-game haka when they are the "away" team?

Heritage matters.

Sports live off traditions. Fans savour traditional concepts while sports become over-run by corporate themes. The Showdown - just like the Collingwood-Essendon Anzac Day event - is enhanced by a traditional theme built on the "them versus us" divide of the old SANFL where fans were either Port Adelaide or anti-Port Adelaide. Nothing needs to be manafactured in a marketing workshop for this South Australian derby.

Many "experts" will speak of Port Adelaide and its stance with the bars. But when will they ignore the bluster of a one-time statesman in the game who now relies on myth and misinformation? When will the agenda-setting commentators simply look to the terraces to see where the passion for this black-and-white jumper lives today? The Port Adelaide fans want the guernsey that carries their heritage to be part of their future not just their past.

" ... that passion is to be ignored at our peril."

FOOTNOTE: For the record, the All-Blacks do have an alternative strip - black yoke on a "dirty white" base  - that is worn in away clashes with France to distinguish the two teams while the French wear a darkish blue strip. And the fans hate seeing the Kiwis in anything but black.