Category: AFL – Australian Rules

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“An old man’s dream ended, a young man’s vision of the future opened wide,” the American sportswriter Red Smith wrote when 37-year-old Joe Louis was knocked out by Rocky Marciano. “Young men have visions, old men have dreams. But the place for old men to dream is beside the fire.”

It’s tempting to analogise this current Collingwood side, to pension them off, to declare them too old and too slow. When they lost to GWS in the opening game, the Age’s Jake Niall said they were shuffling around like Joe Biden. It’s tempting, when they field 11 players who are 30 or older, when a 35-year-old is knocked senseless in the opening seconds and when they’re run ragged by a comparatively young and superbly conditioned team, to say that the team is out of time.

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• Two-time Brownlow medallist to retire at end of season

• ‘It just feels like it’s the right time,’ says 33-year-old midfielder

Fremantle great Nat Fyfe is satisfied he has made the right decision, calling time on his glittering AFL career after a gruelling run with injury. The two-time Brownlow medallist will retire at the end of the season, ideally after helping to steer the fourth-placed Dockers deep into September.

Monday’s announcement came two days after Fyfe played just his fifth game of the season, returning from injury as Fremantle claimed a last-gasp six-point win over Port Adelaide.

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Sunday’s crackerjack contest at the MCG against the equally superb Demons was a most welcome heartstopper after weeks of blowouts

With 10 minutes to go until the opening bounce of the Bulldogs’ game against Melbourne, Luke Beveridge stalked the MCG boundary line, a man careful not to slip on a banana peel. He was more clenched and coiled than usual. He looked like he’d spent the last six months deadlifting trucks and moving magnets. He knew better than anyone how dangerous this game was. He’d seen Brisbane slip up the previous day. He’d seen Fremantle nearly throw away their season. He knew his own team’s history of self-sabotaging in games like this.

When Aaron Naughton kicked his fourth goal and his second in as many minutes in the third term, his coach was entitled to loosen up a little. The first half had been a dozy affair, with both sides just trundling along. But now Naughton was marking everything, Bailey Dale and Marcus Bontempelli had about a thousand touches between them and the Dogs had their foot on the throat.

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At their very best, Simon Goodwin’s Demons would fight hand to hand, square metre by square metre. Their midfielders were like snorting bulls. Their ruckman was peerless. Their key defenders would patrol and gobble, deny and thwart. In just under an hour, it all came together in a flawless, torrential, still scarcely believable flood of goals.

At their very worst, Goodwin’s Demons were rigid, predictable, boring. They would blast and hope. They’d win the inside 50s and contested possession count and lose the match. While the rest of us stifled yawns, Goodwin would shrug his shoulders, shuffle his papers and talk about “learnings” and “contest and defence” and “honest conversations”. A week later, they’d be losing the same way and he’d be saying the same things.

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The reigning premiers click into gear at the right time of year as they break another hoodoo with an ominous victory over Collingwood at the MCG

The last time Brisbane beat Collingwood at the MCG, Logan Morris was in year 3, Jack Crisp was a Lions player and Justin Leppitsch was his coach, and Tony Armstrong was the Magpies’ leading possession winner. Current Lions coach Chris Fagan has placed a great emphasis on breaking horror streaks – an 11-game run of outs at the MCG, 15 in a row against Richmond, and two decades of losses at Kardinia Park. Their away record against Collingwood probably didn’t constitute a hoodoo, but it was something that needed to be addressed, and the perfect way to right the previous week’s wrongs.

Brisbane were as bad as they’ve been for years in their defeat to Gold Coast last week. The heavy conditions disrupted their normal rhythms. They were bogged and bullied. They were Rowelled. “It better be a one week thing,” Fagan said.

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Before her responsibilities were effectively cut in half, Laura Kane was burdened with the most challenging role in football, spanning everything that was hard and controversial about managing the game. Much of the criticism she copped should have been directed at the people she was directly managing, as well as the people who hired her.

Greg Swann’s arrival at AFL House last Monday came with a sigh of relief. “Swanny’s a ripper” and “Swanny understands clubland” must have been uttered dozens of times on radio, on podcasts and TV this past week. But even with a fraction of Kane’s responsibilities, it remains one of the most demanding jobs in football. Swann is phlegmatic, he’s a pragmatist and (so far) he’s refreshingly free of weasel corporate-speak. Here are a few areas where he can make his mark.

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Former St Kilda star remains on bail after facing court charged with three offences allegedly committed in July

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AFL great Nicky Winmar has been accused of two assaults and of intentionally choking a person, court documents reveal.

The former St Kilda star, 59, had been listed for an application to revoke bail at Melbourne magistrates court on Tuesday, which could have seen him jailed.

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The irrepressible Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson inspired victory against Brisbane and with a bit of mongrel about them now, this team doesn’t roll over any more

Temperamentally, it’s hard to imagine two more different footballers than Jeremy Cameron and Matt Rowell. Cameron kicked 11 goals on the weekend, and slotted each one with the same laconic air as when he’s whacking golf balls into the lake on his farm. Rowell had 37 possessions, most of which were earned in a footballing form of hand-to-hand-combat.

Rowell met considerably stiffer opposition than Cameron, whose bag came against a lamentable North Melbourne, a team that is driving its fans to despair. Rowell’s 37 came against a crack midfield, with one of the sport’s best two-way runners in his back pocket all afternoon.

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• Saints recover from 46 points down at three-quarter-time

• Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera slots two late goals in frantic finish

St Kilda pulled off the greatest three-quarter-time comeback in VFL/AFL history, storming home from 46 points down to stun Melbourne in a crazy finish at Marvel Stadium.

Off-contract star Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera was the hero, slotting two goals in a frantic climax to pinch a miracle six-point victory. The Saints slotted nine unanswered goals in the final term to win 15.6 (96) to Melbourne’s 13.12 (90).

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• Melbourne defender found guilty of rough conduct at tribunal

• Collision left Francis Evans concussed and with broken nose

Melbourne has confirmed it will appeal defender Steven May’s three-match ban for his devastating collision with an opponent that has divided the football world.

May was found guilty of rough conduct at the AFL tribunal on Wednesday night for the collision that concussed Francis Evans and left the Carlton forward with a broken nose and a chipped tooth.

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When North Melbourne’s Ben Cunnington retired a couple of years ago, he said he has lost the will to compete. After missing a season with a back injury, he then endured nine weeks of chemotherapy. His farewell speech was one of the few times he spoke to the media. He said life had thrown too much at him to obsess over footy any more.

But the more life and football threw at Sam Docherty, the more desperate he was to get back. Only now could he properly recognise it for was it was – a kind of stubbornness, a mad optimism bordering on recklessness. Like Cunnington, he eventually realised that there was nothing more to give, and nothing more to prove. “I’m tired and I’m exhausted,” he said yesterday.

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• 20-year-old cited for comment towards opponent in VFL match

• Swans boss says ‘behaviour does not reflect the values of our club’

Sydney defender Riak Andrew is facing a lengthy suspension after being cited for using a homophobic slur while representing the AFL club’s reserves team.

First-year player Andrew, the younger brother of Gold Coast star Mac Andrew, used the slur during the Swans’ VFL clash with North Melbourne on Saturday.

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The Dockers rose to the occasion to beat the Magpies at their own game and snatch one of the most nerve-shredding wins in their 30-year history

It was the biggest home and away crowd Fremantle have played in front of. And it must rank among the most nerve-shredding games in their 30-year history. They took on the kings of the MCG, they were headed and they had no answers for a rampant Nick Daicos. They have turned up their toes in these kinds of games for decades. But the Dockers dug in, found a way, caught the right breaks and registered one of the most significant wins in coach Justin Longmuir’s tenure.

Early in the final term, the Dockers appeared to have fired all their bullets. Collingwood had kicked two early goals and skipped out to a 22-point lead. Daicos was off the leash, the Magpies’ pressure was relentless, the umpiring was a shambles, and Matthew Johnson’s leg was dangling like a ventriloquist’s doll.

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It was a familiar story for Marcus Bontempelli and his team on the weekend. To mine the stats sheet, no player on the ground had more possessions, tackles, clearances, inside 50s and metres gained. It still wasn’t enough. The Bulldogs lost to a good side, but remain a decidedly lopsided, occasionally exhilarating and increasingly bewildering team.

Leading his team off, the captain had the same look he often gets after losses like that – the wrung-out look of a man asking: “How much more do I have to do here?”

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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Dockers coach Justin Longmuir is held to different standards to more decorated coaches but should be lauded for building a tougher side

With blood still spurting out of his head, and resembling John Rambo under Soviet interrogation, Andrew Brayshaw still managed a semblance of humility, of calm and of coherence in an on-field interview on Saturday night. Brayshaw is that kind of player and it had been that kind of game. It had been an intense, occasionally spiteful contest, the sort of game Fremantle have coughed up too many times under coach Justin Longmuir. But they were the more composed and tougher side against the highly-rated Hawthorn. The Dockers laid more than 100 tackles, 14 of them coming from Brayshaw.

Longmuir didn’t have his head split open but whenever he loses, it always feels like it’s his head on the chopping block. Whenever someone like St Kilda’s Ross Lyon has a narrow loss, it’s a coaching masterclass. When Longmuir loses, even when they go down narrowly to a resurgent Sydney at the SCG, he’s suddenly the coach under the most pressure. In so many ways, Longmuir is an easy target. He doesn’t have the “aura”, the polish, the force of personality and the playing record of many other senior coaches. He’s on a rolling contract. And he’s on the other side of the country to the majority of the football media.

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