Category: AFL – Australian Rules

Week three of footy finals features past three premiers, as well as a club with all the momentum, belief and history on their side

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Hawthorn ran through a banner on Friday night that read: “Their House. Our Terms.” And for the first half hour, it was entirely on Jai Newcombe’s terms. He destroyed Adelaide out of the middle, hitting the ball full chested, at top speed, and with lip-smacking relish.

Saturday night’s Q Clash was quickly on Brisbane’s terms too. We all know what that looks like. It means laser-beam kicks through the centre of the Gabba. It means waiting, probing, testing, teasing and then launching. It means a midfield that bats six, seven and eight deep. For their opponents, it means a night of chasing tails.

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• Lions beat Suns by 53 points in first QClash final at the Gabba

• Reigning premiers to face Collingwood in preliminary final

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Q1: 15 mins remaining: Brisbane 1.1.7 – Gold Coast 2.0.12

Haphazard in the forward line from Brisbane, but they’re on the board. Zorko’s pinpoint pass from half back into the centre sets it up, then follows up with the one-two. Kick inside 50 is spoiled, Cameron gets ironed out in the contest, the ball is knocked around via Ashcroft, little kick inboard isn’t marked on the full, Logan Morris gets the snap away as he’s tackled, but he gets enough purchase and it sails through.

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• Hawks 14.17.101 beat Crows 10.7.67 in semi-final at Adelaide Oval

• First minor premiers to exit in ‘straight sets’ for 42 years

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Five goals from veteran Jack Gunston and another Jai Newcombe midfield masterclass have powered Hawthorn to a stirring 34-point semi-final triumph against Adelaide.

The Hawks will meet fierce rivals Geelong in a preliminary final after their 14.17 (101) to 10.7 (67) victory win at Adelaide Oval on Friday night.

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Winning a premiership would not heal the hurt felt after the death of Phil Walsh 10 years ago but it would mean something to some

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Given how appealing humans find metric milestones and closure, there exists a nice thought about an awful story. Adelaide finished this year on top of the ladder, with a second shot at a preliminary final if they can get past Hawthorn this Friday night. Ten years since former coach Phil Walsh died in 2015, the Crows are a chance of a flag. It would not heal any principal hurts, but it would mean something to some.

The mid-season death of a coach would have shaken the club whatever the circumstances, especially after losing assistant coach Dean Bailey to cancer the year before, but Walsh’s case was even harder to fathom given it came from a domestic tragedy: a father fatally injured while his son suffered a psychotic episode. Given that any coaching role has a parental aspect, such a tragedy within a family felt obscenely unfair on all involved.

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There was an awful lot of booing over the weekend. Donald Trump was booed at Flushing Meadows, a short drive from where he was born. A rather bewildered Australian prime minister was booed in Western Sydney – never a good sign for a Labor politician. There were howls of derision over the umpiring on Friday night. And the Crows crowd didn’t stop booing for three hours at the Adelaide Oval.

In that instance, it was not only puerile and incomprehensible, but self-defeating: it helped perpetuate the siege mentality in which Collingwood thrives.

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Former Suns co-captain David Swallow played in some awful teams but they now have the firepower and coaching nous to make a deep AFL finals run

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David Swallow is a Perth boy. He had just turned 17 when Gold Coast called his number. Of the players taken after him in the 2010 draft, there would be 27 premiership medallions, several of them around the necks of his former Suns teammates.

Swallow played in some unspeakably awful teams. He was captain of a club with no pulse, no purpose, few fans and, for a long time, substandard facilities. The former No 1 pick, like his club, didn’t play in a final for a decade and a half. He played just seven home and away games this year, four of them as the sub. Then, in the dying moments of an intense game against Fremantle, it looked as though he’d cost his team its first finals win. His dinky little kick ricocheted straight up the other end for a Dockers goal.

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• Suns set up first Q-Clash final with one-point win over Dockers

• Lions midfielder Lachie Neale to miss semi-final due to calf injury

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Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick has declared his club will no longer be stomped on or forgotten after beating Fremantle in dramatic fashion to set up a blockbuster Q-Clash semi-final.

The Suns blew a 26-point lead against the Dockers on Saturday night but managed to regain their composure in the dying minutes to seal a famous one-point elimination final win at Optus Stadium.

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• David Swallow behind sees Suns win 11.4 (80) to 12.7 (79)

• Late drama sets up semi-final against local rivals Brisbane

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Retiring Gold Coast champion David Swallow has kicked a behind with nine seconds remaining to lift his team to a thrilling one-point elimination final win over Fremantle at Optus Stadium.

Fremantle fought back from 26 points down late in the third quarter to take a six-point lead with three minutes remaining in Saturday night’s blockbuster in front of 57,507 fans.

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• Hawks beat Giants 16.11 (107) to 13.10 (88) at Engie Stadium

• Hawthorn set up semi-final with Adelaide; season over for GWS

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Hawthorn sensationally prevailed in a fourth-quarter shootout to claim a 19-point elimination final win over GWS. The Giants had clawed back a game-high 42-point deficit in the third quarter to level the scores at 13.7 (85) early in the fourth at Engie Stadium on Saturday.

But after the Hawks steadied, Sam Butler kicked truly to give them a seven-point lead 17 minutes into the last term, before Mabior Chol slotted two straight goals for the cherry on top in a 16.11 (107) to 13.10 (88) win.

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• Lions tamed 16.16 (112) to 11.8 (74) at Melbourne Cricket Ground

• Cats to play Crows, Giants or Hawks for place in grand final

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Perennial AFL premiership contenders Geelong have marched into a home preliminary final with a scintillating and spiteful 38-point qualifying final win over reigning premiers Brisbane.

The Cats dominated from the outset as they shrugged off the demons of last year’s preliminary final loss to the Lions, prevailing 16.16 (112) to 11.8 (74) in front of 86,364 at the MCG on Friday night.

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Earlier this year, Charlie Curnow marked on the lead, feigned to his right, cut to his left, left his Bulldogs opponent tottering and lashed a goal from outside 50. The ball didn’t spin normally but thudded through the air, a bit like a hammer throw. It was soundtracked by an ascending, guttural “CHAAAAAAARLIEEEE”. Michael Voss turned to the crowd, pumped his fist and screamed “You beauty!”

It was moments like that where it was easy to be seduced by Curnow. It was moments like that, under the Docklands roof, where the Carlton crowd would crackle with optimism. By the end of that night, as with so many others in 2025, the adrenaline wore off and the Blues were overhauled. In the warm-up, Curnow would be gambolling about and he’d almost always start the game well. But as his team stalled, he’d be a frustrated, peripheral figure.

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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• Adelaide star speaks publicly on return from overseas trip

• ‘I am fully committed to bettering myself,’ says Crows forward

Adelaide ace Izak Rankine says he is committed to regaining society’s trust in the wake of his AFL ban for a homophobic slur. An emotional Rankine returned to Australia on Tuesday night and fought back tears during a public apology at Adelaide airport.

“Going away has given me space to reflect and educate myself to understand the weight of my mistake,” Rankine said. “And I am fully committed to bettering myself. In the next few days I will be standing in front of my teammates and the AFLW and apologising to them personally – and they deserve this at the very least.

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Players’ Association president and Collingwood captain applauds Brown as ‘tremendously courageous’

The AFL industry needs to use Mitch Brown’s coming out as an opportunity to “shift culture” and genuinely tackle homophobia, the AFL Players’ Association president Darcy Moore says.

On Wednesday, Brown, who played 94 games for West Coast, became the first past or present men’s AFL player to come out as bisexual.

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In revealing why it took him so long to come out as bisexual, the former West Coast Eagle highlights just how far the sport has to go

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As a footy writer, I keep a rather shambolic database of current and former footballers. It’s kind of a buoy I can grab on to when I’m up against a nasty deadline. Sometimes it’s four of five paragraphs; sometimes it’s a sentence on so-and-so’s inability to kick on his left, or his poor record against a certain player, or something vaguely interesting he said on a podcast. When Mitch Brown became the first man in VFL/AFL history to come out as gay or bisexual, I was curious to see what I had written on him. Here’s my Pulitzer worthy offering: “Nathan’s twin. Married to a netballer. Unlucky with injuries. Went and played in the Ammos.” If ever there was evidence that we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to this sport and the people who play it, it was there.

We learned a lot more about Brown on Wednesday. When he was drafted to West Coast, he was 18 and living in a two-team town, a town where footballers were worshipped and indulged more than any other, a club coming off a controversial premiership where the partying was completely out of control. During his time at the club, they resolved to instil a different culture. They drafted cleanskins. But it was still a football club. It was still pre same-sex marriage Australia. It was still what he called a “hypermasculine environment,” he told The Daily Aus.

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• Rankine makes 44-player list as he serves ban for homophobic slur

• Final team to be announced at Thursday’s awards function

Izak Rankine will be a hot topic of discussion at the AFL awards, even though he is on the other side of the world. The star onballer is among five Adelaide players named in the 44-player squad, with the final team to be unveiled at Thursday night’s awards function in Melbourne.

A homophobic slur cost him a four-week ban last week and he is now holidaying and training in Europe, his season potentially over.

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