Category: AFL – Australian Rules

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Footy is full of soldiers who never found a war and on the 80th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, one of them was asleep in the birthing ward. Dermott Brereton was barrel-chested, chicken-legged, born for the big occasion and, on this day, a new father. He fused Frankston street smarts with Glenferrie conservatism; morning television affability with an Irish thirst for vengeance. At 30, his body was at war with itself. But as police escorted the team bus to the MCG for the inaugural Anzac Day game between Collingwood and Essendon, he heard the bugle call.

His apprentice that day was a mild-mannered discus thrower from Reservoir. A fortnight earlier, Saverio Rocca was playing in the reserves. “He was just a nice, well groomed, well cared for Italian boy whose mum probably cooked his dinner every night of his life,” Brereton later said. He was constantly in Big Sav’s ear that day – blocking, encouraging, gesticulating, cajoling. Rocca had the game of his life, and Brereton hasn’t stopped talking since.

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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• Richmond footballer fined $3,000 after pleading guilty to attack
• Premiership defender also pays victim $45,000 in compensation

AFL star Noah Balta has walked free from court and instead been handed a night-time curfew and alcohol ban as part of his punishment for assaulting a man outside a regional venue.

Richmond defender Balta was sentenced at Albury Local Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to repeatedly punching Thomas Washbrook, 27, outside the Mulwala Water Ski Club, in the NSW Riverina, on 30 December.

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• Premiership star to play against Gold Coast on Saturday
• Tigers backman faces court after pleading guilty to assault

Richmond premiership star Noah Balta returns to an AFL field against Gold Coast on Saturday, three days before fronting court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to assault outside a NSW Riverina club on 30 December last year.

Prison time – his charge in NSW carries a maximum five-year stretch – appears unlikely, but Balta’s return to football has become a political football.

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Earlier this year, Melbourne invited several dozen journalists and broadcasters to a breakfast in the MCC committee room. The club felt they had botched their messaging in recent years and were keen to shift the narrative. They spoke about “cleansing” and “trauma”. They locked down a new theme for the year: “Love. Play. Celebrate.” “Soul-searching was prioritised over Sherrins,” News Corp said.

At that point in the pre-season, there were grounds for optimism. There were still 16 premiership players on the list, several champions who seemed certain to leave had stayed, and some excellent young players were coming through. Despite losing to GWS Giants in round one, they gave every indication that they were a team for the long haul. They were clearly emotionally invested, their team defence was solid and they blooded five debutants, all of whom looked capable. The Giants, semi-finallists in 2024, played outstanding football in the final term but were arguably fortunate to pinch it.

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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After a Gather Round win over Hawthorn filled with energy and dash, it’s worth asking – where has this been all year for Port Adelaide?

It was marketed as a grudge match. It pitted the then-premiership favourites against what had been a ghost of a team. But for the first hour or so, it was a procession. Few saw it coming, least of all Hawthorn. Port Adelaide were in attack mode, they flew the gates and they annihilated the Hawks. Early in the second term, it was torrential, and it was surely all over.

At one stage, Port led by 71 points. “We need to pull our head out of our arses” James Sicily told Channel 7 at half-time. And to their credit, the Hawks finally got their hands on the ball, and for a fleeting moment in the final term the biggest comeback in the history of the sport was very much in play. But when Willie Rioli’s taunt of Changkuoth Jiath earned him a face full of turf and a follow-up free kick, he booted the ball into the Barossa and the Power were home, winning 18.13 (121) to 14.7 (91).

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Brian Cook was in charge at Geelong during one of the most tumultuous years in the club’s history. In 2006, the atmosphere at games, around town and in the boardroom was poisonous. The nadir came when they squandered a nine-goal lead at home to the eventual premiers, West Coast. Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr played two of the great individual halves, the late Adam Hunter kicked the sealer, and the local fans nearly tore the grandstand down.

After every loss, Cook would receive thousands of emails and handwritten letters. Fans would send RIP notices. They’d enclose photos of players passed out in nightclubs. One offered free acupuncture and energy meridian flow assistance. Cook collated them all, including the pro bono acupuncturist, in a file labelled “assassins”.

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When the player movement system encourages an ‘every man for himself’ mentality, making a player grovel because he took a meeting with a rival club shows deep insincerity by the AFL

“It’s hard to get caught in a lie,” Rachel Menken says to Don Draper in one of the early episodes of Mad Men. “It wasn’t a lie,” Don replies. “It was ineptitude with insufficient cover.” Oscar Allen’s press conference during the week said a lot about the football landscape – the money, the media, the managers, the mangled English.

As he spoke, West Coast Eagles Head of Football John Worsfold stood smirking within spoiling distance – part affable pharmacist, part hired hitman. Allen was “incredibly remorseful”. He was “quite embarrassed and ashamed”. He “owned this”. Perhaps most worryingly, Allen said it had been “a great learning for me.”

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WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following article contains the name and images of a deceased person

Some of the best Australian sportswriting of the 1980s came from a young journalist from Tasmania, Martin Flanagan. He was particularly fond of Fitzroy and North Melbourne – two clubs with scarcely a dollar to their name, but rich in character and talent. Flanagan would write about anything – politicians, war heroes, graffiti artists, homeless people, police and paramedics attending catastrophic car accidents.

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The Eagles were outclassed at a packed Optus Stadium as Caleb Serong’s good form in Perth AFL derbies continued

The 60th Perth derby was no classic, and certainly no demolition, but it delivered a much-needed win for Fremantle. There has been an anxiety growing around the Dockers – about the coaching, about their trustworthiness and about the way they manage their moments in close finishes. The wolves would have been at the door had they dropped this. Thankfully for them, in a typically spirited local affair, they had too much class and too much run in the legs for the Eagles.

Freo’s priority on Sunday was to recapture their midfield dominance. Sydney and Geelong, two AFL teams that tend not to excel in that area, trounced them in the stoppages in the first fortnight. Caleb Serong, coming off a rare poor game last week, racked up 35 touches, more than half of them contested. He has only just turned 24, but has already been best afield in four derbies.

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At first, it was a bit of a joke. It was the West Australian picturing him in Eagles-branded chef whites with the tagline, “Superstar teen sensation reveals sandwich based lunchtime ritual”. It was the 52 back pages in 60 days. It was the “Harley Judd” and “Prince of Perth” headlines. It was, mostly, all in good fun.

Then, it was all about his football. It was Nine’s Kate Halfpenny, in a rare deviation from complaining about Harry and Meghan, writing a column titled, “Watching Harley Reid play footy has made me feel hopeful again”. And yes, he really was a wonderful player to watch in his debut season. He was straight off the peg. To watch him on his hands and knees, seizing a dead ball, standing up like a surf life-saver in a flags race, skating away from seasoned footballers and taking a nonchalant bounce was to see the sport at its best.

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The Kangaroos thwarted the Demons at every point of Sunday’s game to bring a feel-good factor the to club

At North Melbourne home games, club president Dr Sonja Hood and CEO Jennifer Watt often sneak out of their functions and spend the last quarter sitting with the cheer squad. They’ve had some glum afternoons – games that were over after 15 minutes and games where they were mown down late. Last year, one of Hood’s KPIs for her football department was how fans felt coming to games, rather than how many games the team won. For most supporters, half an hour of proctology was preferable to some of the final terms they had to sit through.

But they finally had their day on Sunday. With the contest still in the balance early in the final quarter, they slammed on three goals before Melbourne had even touched the ball. Soon it was torrential, and they’d kicked half a dozen goals in as many minutes. It was their biggest win in five years and perhaps a portent of a successful era to come.

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The second week of March is not the time to be out on the footballing ledge. A tardy start can actually be beneficial in the long run. It means you’re not being picked apart and copied. You want to be popping in early spring, not in the first fortnight of autumn.

But that’s probably scant consolation at Carlton right now. On the Richter scale of scenarios heading into round one, coughing up a 41-point lead to last year’s wooden spooners was at Krakatoan levels. The encouraging practice match form meant little when senior players were dropping chest marks, when kicks were sliding off the boot at right angles, and when a thoroughbred midfielder who’d garnered 45 Brownlow Medal votes last year was rucking against a draft horse.

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Next crop of budding stars led by Sam Lalor, Murphy Reid and Levi Ashcroft make immediate impact while a prized Blues recruit is made to wait

The high-end draft talent assembled over the weekend sounded like a band of Irish rebels on the Ballarat goldfields – Sam Lalor, Sid Draper, Finn O’Sullivan and Murphy Reid. The experts said it was an unusually hot draft, and the pick of them all delivered in round one.

Reid was named the Victorian metro team’s most valuable player last year but surprisingly slipped to No 17 in the draft. On Friday, never averse to hyping up young talent, the West Australian newspaper gave us “40 things you need to know about Murphy Reid”. It included such phlegmatic insights as “nickname is Bruce”, “plays golf” and “is elusive”.

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Sam Lalor made the obligatory phone call to his dad this week; his selection wasn’t exactly a surprise. It wasn’t exactly Marlion Pickett in grand final week. And it wasn’t exactly Richard Nixon phoning Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. It was as monosyllabic as most teenagers phoning their parents.

Many good judges consider Lalor’s dad, Steve, to be one of the best country footballers they’ve seen. He played in the Ovens and Murray league when that competition was one of the strongest in Victoria. He played in an era when a lot of good players were missed by the system, didn’t want to live in Melbourne or had their careers derailed by injury.

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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Having knocked back the richest deal in AFL history, the young GWS midfielder announced himself as a future star in the 52-point demolition of Collingwood

Their finals exit was an opportunity squandered. Their post season function was appalling. Their scratch matches were lifeless. They were missing their best onballer. And their premier forward was unavailable after he hurt his thumb in a toilet door on a bus.

But the GWS Giants brought the heat yesterday and they left Collingwood limping and reeling. Before the game, their coach Adam Kingsley spoke of “violence and aggression,” of straddling the rules of the game, of bringing an intensity and physicality that had been absent in their final practice match. They certainly did that. They hit the Pies hard, closed in on them at high speed and in great numbers, and generally gave them no room to breathe.

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