Category: AFL – Australian Rules

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With about half an hour to go before last year’s trade period deadline, as player manager Tom Petroro began to resemble financial analyst Tom Piotrowski, Michael Voss phoned Charlie Curnow. The deal was unlikely to go through, the Carlton coach told him. Curnow would have to suck it up, mend some bridges, say all the right things and commit to the Blues again.

Within a few minutes, however, he was a star in someone else’s sky. The Sydney players they traded him for were on holiday in South America, and took a call from their now former coach. “They pretty much just said we want you out,” Ollie Florent told afl.com.au. “It probably could’ve been handled better,” Will Hayward said.

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Lachie Neale has what boxers call “ring geometry” – an intrinsic, spatial understanding of safe spots and danger zones. He has fast feet that can dance, decelerate and drive out of a stoppage. But all the things that make him such a magnificent footballer – his timing, judgment, diligence and ability to extricate himself from trouble were apparently absent in his private life. A Lions grand final hero in September, he was tabloid fodder by Christmas.

What follows isn’t some sermon from the puritanical pulpit. I’m more interested in the media’s willingness to cross lines they wouldn’t have once dared, and our voracious appetite for these stories. If the mainstream media had pursued these scandals in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, the printing presses would have short-circuited. If our best sportspeople had been at the mercy of the British press in that same era, their careers would have gone the way of their marriages.

This is an extract from Guardian Australia’s free weekly AFL email, From the Pocket. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions

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It’s important the sceptics acknowledge what a success this game was – the players asked for it, said all the right words and they backed it up

Even for the most sceptical, there was never any question that the quality of skill in the State of Origin’s return game would be exceptional. There were three Brownlow medallists, two Coleman medallists, 29 All-Australians and 19 premiership players. Patrick Dangerfield and Max Gawn had 16 All-Australian blazers between them, more than the entire Western Australian squad combined.

The doubt lay in how hard the players would go, and how seriously they would take it. How much would they be willing to risk? And how far down the well – in the middle of a Perth summer and with no serious game time in the legs for nearly five months – were they prepared to go?

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The AFL’s state of origin game has come with a marketing blitz, a lobster charter off Rottnest Island, some champions saying all the right things and vague and fading memories of the concept’s glory years.

There’s a dearth of sporting offerings at this time of year. The T20 World Cup, the fourth in five years, is too bloated and too politically riven to really capture our attention. Watching some begoggled Finn pelting down a mountain at 120kmph has a certain ghoulish appeal, but it’s not exactly in the Australian sporting marrow.

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Late-night decision on the 23,000-seat roofed venue paves the way for Tasmania Devils to enter AFL and AFLW

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A contentious $1.13bn AFL stadium has been given the official tick of approval by Tasmania’s parliament to pave the way for the Devils to enter the AFL and AFLW.

The 23,000-seat roofed venue at Macquarie Point was voted through the island state’s upper house of parliament at 11pm on Thursday following two days of debate.

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The Bombers captain couldn’t be more contemptuous of the place, but the club is claiming victory – it’s a fitting summary of the AFL trade period

After a few days of trade period, a fortnight of Trade Radio, 11 months of trade speculation, and a few thousand variations of the phrase “it’s an interesting one”, I’d reached the point where I genuinely believed that I was about to be traded to Essendon. My internal monologue thrummed with trade-speak – the hedging, padding, euphemistic language that’s used to buy time and fill space. Even when walking the dog or purchasing a hammer, I was exercising my options, in good dialogue and monitoring the situation.

For a few years, trade period was like that old Del Amriti song Nothing Ever Happens. But this year there were captains, club champions, Coleman and Norm Smith medallists up for grabs. Still, very little of interest was confirmed until the final 15 minutes. It was like one of those Olympic track cycling races where everyone was sizing one another up, biding their time, looking over their shoulder and working their angles, before one mad, final flurry.

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• Blues’ star forward gets his move despite late snag

• Clayton Oliver to GWS, and Christian Petracca joins Suns

Carlton’s two-time Coleman Medallist Charlie Curnow will join Sydney in the biggest deal of the AFL trade period.

Despite last-minute haggling before the deadline of 7.30pm on Wednesday, Hawthorn were unable to convince Essendon to trade away captain Zach Merrett.

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In August their season was dangling, and on grand final day they were meant to be the banged-up ones. Then they went into hyperdrive

This time last year, Dayne Zorko collapsed to the ground like Sergeant Elias in Platoon. Twenty minutes later he was in the rooms, firing out XXXX cans from the esky, like Greg Williams from the bottom of a pack. By that point Chris Fagan had already been in his players’ ears – be humble, stay fit, don’t come back heavy the way Hawthorn did in 2008, and don’t squander the opportunity to build on this success.

As Brisbane basks in their back-to-back premiership, it’s worth reflecting on a hinge moment early in the 2024 season. The Lions were 13th, had won two from seven, and had just been smacked by GWS in Canberra. Weighed down by the ongoing Hawthorn racism allegations, Fagan was having health problems and had asked the club for several weeks off. Against Gold Coast in round eight, they lost Brandon Starcevich in the warm-up. Lincoln McCarthy, a popular and talented forward, ruptured his ACL. An hour later, Darcy Gardiner wrecked his knee as well, the fifth player on the list to do so. But they beat the Suns, in a win Fagan described as one of the most significant in his time in football, and they were up and away.

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Geelong followers’ sustained hunger for success is really about wanting a club that has been this good for this long to get its adequate reward

• All your questions answered in our guide to the AFL grand final

In the week leading up to the AFL grand final, official footy media has been united in polite admiration. Geelong may not be the finalist that most excites the narrative, but there is mutually agreed praise for the fact that they are here again, contending again, another year defying the AFL cycle driven by salary caps and draft picks that sifts teams down to the bottom half of the competition after a season or five near the top. Deeper into the crevices of the internet, politeness fades, with diehards of other footy allegiance more likely to say that they are sick of the bloody Cats who should piss off and give someone else a turn.

On pure statistics, this is fair. As a fully disclosed Geelong person claiming no objectivity while anxious for another win, I might be accused of gluttony at the buffet. In truth, though, in 2025 I want this one bad. It doesn’t feel like one more inevitable year in an era of unbridled success. Let me explain before you put a foot through your screen. The numbers are admittedly awesome in the last 22 seasons: 19 finals series, 14 prelims, seven grand finals, four premierships and hunting a fifth. Rich pickings, especially to supporters of teams that have finished most of those seasons outside the top eight.

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Geelong’s success has made it easier to manage the veteran in his final years and they can now reap the rewards at an opportune moment

• All your questions answered in our ultimate guide to the AFL grand final

Patrick Dangerfield hit last week’s preliminary final like a typhoon. Early in the game, as distress signals flared up all over the field, he’d shown enough to suggest that he was sharp and engaged – a slips catch that ended in a Shannon Neale goal and a smother on Jack Ginnivan, just when Hawthorn had all the momentum.

But with a couple of minutes to go in the first half, he adopted an interventional approach. When play resumed, he was thrown into the middle and Hawthorn copped the full brunt. Any shred of malice or anger he possesses was directed at a bobbling ball. He’d see the footy, stick his bum out, put his head down and steamroll anyone in his path. I’ve never seen a footballer better at scrambling on his hands and knees, and at generating power and momentum from that position. I’ve never seen anyone better at rummaging and absconding with a ball, at bringing a dead footy to life when it seemed certain to be heading for a ball up.

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“This job changes you,” Chris Scott tells author Anson Cameron in his book, Neil Balme: A Tale of Two Men. “It has the real potential to negatively affect your life. Neil used to say to me, ‘Don’t let this turn you into a maniac.’ I mean, I respect Bomber as a coach. But what did it do to him?”

The book is full of fantastic little nuggets like that. Nathan Buckley’s thoughts on Mick Malthouse warrants its own column. So does Cameron’s sketch of Eddie McGuire: “A man who can scan a room and rank everyone it in from greatest to least before he blinks, a mix of blokeish bonhomie and clear analytical smarts, a man to be reckoned with.”

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• Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera vote prompts disbelief from crowd

• Decision puts process and umpires’ polling under scrutiny

How the Brownlow medal is decided has come under fresh scrutiny after a controversial vote at the 2025 count on Monday left those in the audience at the glitzy ceremony in Melbourne visibly stunned.

Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera’s outstanding individual performance during St Kilda’s remarkable round 20 win over Melbourne was widely hailed at the time as the greatest of the season – and perhaps even the best seen in recent memory.

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• Midfielder beats favourite Nick Daicos to top honour

• Bailey Smith and Jordan Dawson make up top four

Gold Coast midfielder Matt Rowell has pulled off a Brownlow Medal upset by beating red-hot favourite Nick Daicos to collect the AFL’s highest individual honour.

Surging to 20 votes after 11 rounds, Rowell could not be stopped as he denied Collingwood superstar Daicos, who for a third-straight year had been one of the major fancies.

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Wondering what time the game starts, how you can watch it live and what happens it it’s a draw? We’ve got you covered

Geelong and Brisbane will meet in the 2025 AFL grand final with both sides out to cement their place as arguably the best team of recent years.

The Cats and Lions have shared two of the past three premierships but for the first time in their 126-year VFL/AFL history now cross paths in a grand final.

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