Category: AFL – Australian Rules

• Blakey offloaded to North Melbourne in exchange for a glut of picks

• Player had requested move after relationship with club fractured

Nick Blakey, one of five Sydney players embroiled in the Pullman Hotel scandal, has been granted his wish to join North Melbourne with a blockbuster trade. On the penultimate day of the trade period, the Swans offloaded Blakey, draft pick No 52 and their 2028 second-round selection, in exchange for a glut of picks.

The Kangaroos shipped picks No 6 and No 47, a 2027 second-round pick, a 2028 first-round pick and a 2028 second-round pick to get the deal done on Tuesday.

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Receiving the club’s best and fairest award on Thursday, the player apologised for ‘extreme difficulty’ and says absence was ‘heartbreaking’

Isaac Heeney says he “can’t wait” to continue his AFL career at the Sydney Swans after the midfielder was crowned the club’s best and fairest player.

In a two-minute pre-recorded video to mark the 30-year-old’s third Bob Skilton medal, Heeney voiced his determination to resurrect his playing career after serving a club-imposed suspension throughout finals.

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The 65-year-old steps down with the Lions’ dynasty firmly in place, having put the club on an unprecedented upward trajectory

Coaching can take grown men to dark places. Justin Longmuir was in that place late on Saturday afternoon after the AFL grand final. During the presentation, he began to topple over, like someone suffering abdominal pain or warming up for a pilates class. In reality, it was probably a body going into shock. We shouldn’t use words like “grief” when we talk about losing a game of football. What happened to Fremantle and Longmuir was akin to someone running over the family pet. Longmuir, a farmer, would scoff at such a comparison. But the hardest thing for anyone associated with Fremantle is finding the right measure of hurt – do you hide under the doona for a week, do you skip the country, do you employ a bit of gallows humour, or do you take pride in how well they played? There is no precedent or playbook for how to respond to a loss like that.

Chris Fagan was in a very different place. At first, he was utterly wrung out. Those around him seemed conscious of giving him space. It took him several minutes to gather himself, to actually enjoy himself. Within half an hour he had reverted to type – deflecting all praise, commending the opposition, reminding his players to be humble.

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• Lions coach calls time on 10-year reign with triple premiers

• 65-year-old has nothing more to prove, Jonathan Horn writes

Chris Fagan will return to Victoria after stepping down as Brisbane coach after securing a third AFL flag on the bounce with a stunning 2026 grand final triumph over Fremantle.

The 65-year-old told the Lions on Thursday he would not return for an 11th season at the helm, despite having a year to run on his contract.

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• Penrith No 7 confirms successful surgery on compound fracture

• He says Knights’ Phoenix Crossland not to blame for tackle

Nathan Cleary has told fans “I’ll be back” in a social media post from his hospital bed after the Penrith star underwent emergency surgery on a horrific ankle injury.

Cleary was rushed to hospital in Penrith’s season-ending 22-14 loss to Newcastle on Sunday, after suffering a compound fracture and ankle dislocation.

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Chris Fagan kept faith in his Lions which meant they could thrive with the weight of the football world upon them – and rip out Fremantle hearts

There is no precedent for what happened at the MCG on Saturday. There have been devastating finals losses before – the Bulldogs losing the 1997 preliminary final to Adelaide and St Kilda losing the 2009 grand final to Geelong immediately spring to mind. A senior St Kilda staffer described the rooms after that game as resembling “a casualty ward following a mass disaster”. Thankfully, we don’t talk about sport like that any more. The modern athlete and the modern sporting club is better able to put their world into some sort of perspective.

The prevailing mood in the rooms, in the stands and on the trains on Saturday was a mix of desolation and bewilderment. Part of it was Fremantle’s history. Part of it was the decision to activate Wharfie Time. Part of it was just how quickly it all happened. You establish an identity and for more than three decades you scratch, claw and hope. And in five minutes, your heart is ripped out.

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Excellence has not waned under Chris Fagan and while this is their fourth grand final in a row, it is the first they have gone into as favourites

“Give me 80,000 people at the MCG and I was Hercules,” Brent Crosswell once said. “Give me a grey day at the Western Oval and I wasn’t worth a cracker.” Crosswell, who probably would have won two Norm Smith medals if there was such a thing back then, would have been right at home in this Brisbane Lions team. They need a big occasion. They need the game to have weight. When it’s a sleepy shift in western Sydney or Tasmania, they drift. They drive their coach spare. When it’s all chips in, they are peerless.

This is Brisbane’s fourth grand final in a row. But it’s been seven years at the pointy end of the ladder. In that time, the competition has completely changed. The rules have changed. The way the game is played has changed. Their grand final opponents have all dipped in and out of contention. But the Lions have remained football’s great constant. They too have lost players. They too have shifted the way they play. But their excellence hasn’t waned.

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• Dual Brownlow medal winner to play in match against Fremantle

• Striking charge on Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan downgraded

• Ultimate guide to the flag decider between Fremantle and Brisbane

Star Brisbane midfielder Lachie Neale has been cleared to play in the AFL grand final after overturning his one-game suspension at the appeals board.

The dual Brownlow medal winner will feature in the premiership decider against Fremantle – his former club – at the MCG on Saturday after having a striking charge on Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan downgraded.

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Justin Longmuir stood on the margins of the mayhem in Fremantle’s rooms last Friday night. His Dockers had mown down a willing but truncated Sydney side and Longmuir stood slouched, relieved, knackered. Some people walk into a room and automatically command it. Footy is full of people like that. Some are teachers. Some are generals who never found a war. Some, as Neale Daniher always said, are actors – projecting hope to the players and stability to the critics. Most of them are a bit mad.

Longmuir has always been something of an outlier – a classic introvert who can come across as nervous and awkward in press conferences, a man who had to steel himself to speak to large groups when he started coaching. He’s not a coach who picks fights or creates diversions or speaks in riddles. He says he’s an over-thinker. He says he’s harder on himself than any critic, and there has been plenty of those. As one of just two senior coaches who have never played in or coached a grand final team, it’s something that can make him an easy target when the side are underperforming – that he doesn’t have the playing record, the aura, the eloquence, the polish, the prick in him.

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• Dual Brownlow medallist guilty of intentional striking

• Plea of ‘exceptional circumstances’ rejected by tribunal

Brisbane will head to the AFL appeals board in a desperate bid to free suspended star Lachie Neale for the grand final.

Neale remains banned for the premiership decider against Fremantle after failing to argue his way out of a one-match suspension for a gut punch on Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan.

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• Heeney, Warner, Blakey, Jordon and Bice attend exit meetings

• The five have not been to Swans HQ since August suspension

Sydney’s five suspended players have offered an apology to teammates and colleagues after ending their weeks-long exile from the AFL club.

Swans vice-captain Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon and Riley Bice on Wednesday appeared at Sydney’ base at Moore Park for the first time since being banned for breaching club standards in August.

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• Midfielder beats previous record of 45 votes

• Marcus Bontempelli and Bailey Smith are runners-up

Collingwood superstar Nick Daicos has finally claimed his first Brownlow Medal in a runaway victory with a record-breaking 47 votes.

The 23-year-old surged to a perfect nine votes from his first three games, led from round 11, then registered six consecutive best-on-ground performances to seal victory by round 21.

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This preliminary final showcased everything that is exquisite, brutal and cruel about the sport. And how about Nick Watson?

Some of the most memorable games in the history of Australian rules football have come in preliminary finals. Some, like Geelong’s win over North Melbourne in 1994, are remembered as wildly fluctuating, end-to-end shootouts. Some, like Collingwood v GWS in 2023, were hand-to-hand combat. Some, like Hawthorn’s win over Melbourne in 1987 and Sydney’s over Essendon in 1996, are remembered for their dramatic finishes. Some, like the Crows-Bulldogs game in 1997, wrenched the hearts out of the losing supporters. Some are remembered for individual brilliance – Ablett in 1989, Long in 1993, Kouta in 1999 and Cox in 2018. And some, like the 2016 prelim in western Sydney and the Brisbane-Geelong game in 2024, are remembered for the high standard of play throughout.

The Brisbane-Hawthorn prelim on Saturday sampled the best of those and distilled them into one discombobulating, unforgettable brew. It had violent momentum swings, exceptional skills, tactical intrigue and plenty of controversy. And that was just the opening 20 minutes. One of our greatest historians once called Australian football an “emotional bath of agony and ecstasy”. Hyperbole butters a lot of bread in footy. But if ever that phrase was applicable, it was this game. It might be the greatest of all the preliminary finals. It might be the finest exhibition of the code we’ve ever seen.

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• Lions defeat Hawks 20.11 (131) to 19.8 (122) in AFL preliminary final

• Reigning premiers to meet Fremantle in 2026 grand final at the MCG

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Brisbane will face Fremantle for a shot at a premiership “three-peat” after surviving an almighty last-quarter fightback from Hawthorn to win an all-time great AFL preliminary final by nine points.

A controversial holding-the-ball decision against Hawks defender Jarman Impey gave Hugh McCluggage a free kick and he kicked the match-deciding goal with 18 seconds left.

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As Swans turn sights on Fremantle for the preliminary final, their suspended players are still the story on and off the field

Four weeks ago, the Sydney Swans were preparing to play North Melbourne in the final round of the home and away season. By that point of the week, five of their players had been suspended for the rest of the year for a breach of club standards. We’d been bombarded with think pieces. We’d been lectured to by personal injury lawyers. Sydney’s chief executive Matthew Pavlich, who’d previously been reading the sports news on Perth television and reporting on dressage from the Paris Olympics, was central to a national conversation about how we talk about violence against women. The prime minister, the governor general and the Victorian premier had all weighed in.

At that stage, much of the outrage had been directed at the way the story was framed as a footballing story. As a result, nearly every single comment on the Swans by the football media was prefaced by an acknowledgment that our thoughts were foremost with the alleged victims. Most of the time they sounded like one of those disclaimers at the end of a betting ad.

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