DON'T know whether it's a blessing or a curse, but I reckon I've always sought the truth.

I know that sounds grand. Too grand, probably. But I can't help it. It's how I feel. Truth. I love the word. Not knowledge. Something more. Truth. Something elusive.

I've spent a lifetime thinking about it. Truth. Something I'm not sure I even conceptualise. Something which may even defy language.

Which is why this weekly exercise of writing about football is probably pointless.

But the curtains have been pulled apart for an instant here and there. Sometimes at the football. I had a thoroughly Irish Saturday. B'jaysus I wish I were Irish. Because I wouldn't be apologizin' like this. Some pathetic half-arsed claim. I could come up to you in the pub — man, woman, child, barman, priest and prostitute — and slobber my Guinness kiss and my Catholic guilt all over you. And I could tell you I loved the truth and had seen it once or twice. When I wasn't expectin' it. And rather than tell me I was a gobshite you'd get a tear in your eye and tell me you were happy for me and that, on the strength of my insight, it was my shout.

I went to the MCG on Saturday with a Murphy and two Kellys.

My mate Spud Murphy, as Aussie as Bruce's pig, was down from Brisbane. When we were at uni in the early '80s, we'd sit up all night with that brilliant new invention, the Coolibah cask, listening to Dylan and Cohen, talking, and trying to make sense of it all. We thought we were seeking the truth. We were actually trapped in a spiral of self-indulgence.

Spud was down for the rugby Test at Telstra Dome, but was happy to come along to the MCG. He has followed footy for a long time, even all the years he lived in London.

He's a North fan. I had organised to go with Paul Kelly. I was at the Dreamtime game a few weeks ago when he and Kev Carmody sang, "From Little Things Big Things Grow". Paul Kelly is an unashamed truth-seeker, but he's never one to claim he has it.

The poet Les Murray, who is not very Irish, once wrote in an essay in his fine book of prose called The Working Forest that every life has its own quiddity. That's a word you don't hear too often. By that I think he means that every life has its own truth. I reckon Paul Kelly believes that. That's why Paul Kelly is a story-teller. A man who puts his narrative poems to music.

Paul Kelly is a Crows man. I'm not sure how I met him. But some of our first discussions were Coolibah-free chats about sports writing.

He talked about the Americans and sent me some of the work of A. J. Liebling. We talked about Red Smith. Paul loves his approach: "Just open up a vein and let the story flow." It's like a good game of footy.

He brought along his nephew and fellow musician Dan Kelly who grew up in Brisbane loving footy and barracking for the Lions. Dan went to school with Michael Voss at Trinity College in Beenleigh. He has the same understated position as his uncle. He once said, "my job is to think of stuff and sing about it." He sings lyric poems like 'Drunk on Election Night'.

But they are men in the moment, and the moment is football. They have seen truth in footy. Paul once wrote an essay called "My Left Foot", the story of 47 years of kicking the footy, often with mates in a park that could be anywhere. Circle work.

"Round and round we go," he writes, "in pure, purposeless pleasure, one ball and 20 men in physical prayer in their outdoor church-making the thing that none of us can make on our own."

We sit in the outer. The showers come and go. We are neutrals, except for Dan. We agree we won't know who our hearts are with until the game begins. Both the Dogs and the Lions are loveable.

We are together in our love of the game. It's the game that matters today. Not the result. Just that there are simple moments, which feel true. Ben Hudson's perfectly-timed jump and palm to Adam Cooney. Aker at pace, natural on both sides of his body, the parabolic path of his end-over-end drop punt pure against the faces of the crowd. Right in front of us Robert Murphy leads in the race for the ball. Fresh from a week of reading Rousseau he pounces on the loose footy and snaps across his body for a goal. From the ball-up in the centre he storms onto a handball, steadies, and goals from 50. Two in 30 seconds.

It is a moment of transcendence. But it is surpassed.

A young girl, maybe eight years old, in the row in front, turns to Paul Kelly. "I'm named after one of your songs," she says, coyly. "Madeleine."

Everything in the world feels right. Like a speccie.

Spud and I head to the Docklands. This night the rugby is dull.