Category: AFL – Australian Rules

All the sport’s heavy hitters were in Adelaide this week – leaking, lurking and long lunching – before some excellent football broke out

Gather Round began with lavish lunches, intriguing matchups and a South Australian premier who lobbied for it, nurtured it and who very much now owns it. Politically, culturally and geographically, South Australia remains an excellent fit. But it always feels like the footy industry is on one big sell for the week, and this year’s version didn’t quite reach the heights of the previous three.

A lot of that was due to the weather, which was atrocious at times. With two mismatches earlier on Sunday, Gather Round was crying out for a decent match to close things out. Heading into half-time, the Port Adelaide-St Kilda game was trundling along, the rain was pissing down and it loomed as the sort of contest Ross Lyon would put to sleep and the rest of us would never speak of again.

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• Sanction still to be determined after two-day tribunal hearing

• 21-year-old previously suspended for ‘highly offensive’ abuse in 2024

St Kilda forward Lance Collard has been found guilty of using a homophobic slur against an opponent, leaving his AFL career hanging in the balance.

Collard had rejected suggestions he called his Frankston opponent a “f*****” during a VFL match last month.

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The quote “music is the space between the notes” is usually attributed to the French composer Claude Debussy. Or maybe it was Richard Strauss. Hell, maybe it was Richard Champion. Whoever it was, they were talking about savouring silence, about embracing emptiness, about avoiding anything that insists itself upon you.

You don’t get a lot of Debussy at football games. They probably sampled his most famous piece in an ad for banks or bookies. But you get a lot of music. You get a lot of noise. You get a lot of flashing lights. And you get a lot of fun facilitation.

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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Michael Voss often speaks about standards and habits. Right now, the Carlton coach’s team are habitual dwindlers. It’s on the whiteboard of every opposition coach. It’s in the marrow of every Blues player and supporter. And it goes back a long way. Voss won eight of his first 10 games at Carlton. But of those wins, one was by three points after being 50 points up against Port Adelaide. They won by a point against Hawthorn after leading by seven goals. From then on, every significant loss of his tenure has seen the Blues squander large leads. They were four goals up at the final break before Collingwood “closed like the Grim Reaper” in 2022. They led by five goals in the first quarter of the 2023 preliminary final against Brisbane. They were 39 points ahead in the first quarter of the GWS clash in 2024, a loss the club has never recovered from. They were 41 points up against a bunch of Richmond kids last year. And they surrendered a 43-point lead to Melbourne on Sunday.

When teams keep losing like this, there is talk of effort, fitness and psychology. One talkback caller this week said they needed an exorcism. But Carlton’s problems are not just above the shoulders. A lot of it comes down to the way they play and the way they’re coached. Despite some tinkering around the edges, the Blues still prioritise a bulldozing brand of football. But playing like that is labour intensive, and difficult to maintain for more than a half. It’s impossible to maintain for months on end. It’s easy to scout and manipulate. And it’s not how good teams are playing in 2026.

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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• Kangaroos star sanctioned for wiping blood on opponent’s face

• Xerri admits incident during Essendon game was a ‘brain fade’

North Melbourne star Tristan Xerri would have risked a heftier AFL ban had he not shown remorse for wiping blood on the face of Essendon captain Andrew McGrath.

Xerri will miss North’s next three games after he pleaded guilty to his serious misconduct charge.

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After years of trying, the AFL has locked in Minogue as pre-game entertainment for 2026 event

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Calls for Australian musicians to perform at the AFL grand final have been answered with pop royalty Kylie Minogue named as this year’s headline act.

The Melbourne-born singer says she is excited to return home for the pre-game show at the MCG in September.

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Kozzy-conscious Blues left pointing fingers, shaking heads and bumping into one another as Melbourne celebrate Max Gawn’s 250th in style

Carlton games usually come with a sense of impending doom. They’ll ping the gates. They’ll crash and they’ll bang. They’ll do all the things the coach values. But their opponents know, and the Blues fans certainly know, that the key to beating Carlton is to absorb what they throw at you, to lay back on the ropes, to let them tire themselves out and to unleash.

The evidence has been there for years now – their failure to run out games, their woeful skills under fatigue, and their ongoing inability or unwillingness to adapt when the opposition gets a run on. On Sunday, in their 11.11 (77) to 15.10 (100) loss to Melbourne, you could add another factor to the mix – the presence, the power and the raw talent of Kysaiah Pickett.

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When Andrew Welsh took over as Essendon president last September, he won rave reviews. He brought warring factions to heel. He interviewed potential recruits at the draft combine. He said things like “we’ve lost our mongrel” and “I want to get the swagger back”. He refused to acquiesce on the Zach Merrett trade.

Welsh is one of the most successful property developers in Australia. He’s said to be worth close to half a billion dollars. Even as a builder, however, he’s been reluctant to utter footy’s most dreaded word. For many clubs, and for Essendon in particular, the concept of a rebuild is a protean one. From month to month, it’s either a rethink, a re-stump, a re-wiring or a total re-do. Welsh himself opted for reset. “We now have a high-talent young core in place, the heavy lifting of the reset is done, and we are ready to climb,” he said. “We will not stop working until we restore this club to its rightful place.”

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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Essendon lacked energy and cohesion. If they don’t learn to defend, other clubs will continue to run rings around them

Heading into the season, Essendon released a mini-documentary called “Spend a day with Brad Scott”. To be honest, it didn’t really present as the most riveting 24 hours. Most of it took place in a classroom type setting, with the coaches and players endeavouring to bed down a team defence. They sat with their notepads and biros, nodding and jotting and giving every impression that they were taking it all in. Clearly this was something that needed to be taught, that needed to be learned, and that needed to be swiftly implemented.

It was an acknowledgment that this has been their major malfunction for the entirety of Brad Scott’s tenure. And the way footy’s being played in 2026, if you don’t have a coherent and reliable team defence then you’re toast. Heading into Sunday's game against Port Adelaide, Essendon would have thought it was a prime chance to implement some of their summer learnings. Port, after all, had been every bit as disappointing against North Melbourne as Essendon had been against Hawthorn.

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In 2023, the late Sam Landsberger wrote a piece in the Herald Sun recalling how Andrew Dillon came to work at the AFL. Dillon was driving down Punt Road in the early 2000s after playing a game for amateur club Old Xaverians. Senior AFL administrator Ben Buckley, who was recruiting for an in-house counsel, was in the next lane and spotted his former Xavs teammate. “Hey Dills,” he shouted across traffic, “you’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”

A quarter of a century later, a line from North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson in an interview with Jay Clark jumped off the page on Sunday. “I spoke to Gil [McLachlan] on Tuesday night and he says: ‘This will all be resolved by the end of next week,’” Clarkson said. “This was the grand final week of 2022. Just talk to ‘Dills’ and this will all be resolved.”

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‘The potential phase is over’, the club’s president wrote during the week. Alastair Clarkson’s team appears to have taken note

For most of his tenure at North Melbourne, Alastair Clarkson’s eyebrows have been arched in a kind of perma-frown. The bigger the deficit, the steeper the arch.

It’s not as though his team has been completely hopeless. Most of the time, they’ve tried their guts out. They’ve just been incredibly frustrating. They’d won 11 games in three years heading into the weekend’s clash against Port Adelaide. They were 11-1-57 since Clarkson took over. In press conferences, he preaches patience, the long haul, the future. But it’s the eyebrows that keep the score – two hairy registers of shanks, turnovers and towellings.

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There comes a point in every footy season where everyone involved begins to fray. It often starts just after the Anzac Day round, when Melbourne’s big wet sets in, the ladder begins to splinter, there’s debate about “the state of the game” and there’s often a public spat between two prominent media figures. For anyone trying to process it or avoid it, it’s good to consult someone from outside the footy bubble and be reminded that none of this stuff actually matters.

But it started early this year. This year’s soap opera began in the first week of March, with a 12-goal onslaught and a voice message. Sam Docherty, sounding like he was speaking from an F45 class while riding a lawnmower, unleashed an expletive filled, rather entertaining and fairly accurate depiction of his former club.

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The Magpies didn’t enjoy the best off-season but they excelled in opening round at the MCG as too many fumbles and shanks cost St Kilda dearly

St Kilda spent the summer talking up Sunday night’s opening round game, and Collingwood spent the summer being talked down. It was St Kilda’s occasion, but it was Collingwood’s game. The Saints had the hope, the hyper-inflated recruits, the best paid player in the sport and the largest home-and-away crowd they’d ever played in front of. But Collingwood had cool heads, manic pressure, a wily old fox in his 426th game and two brothers who had 77 touches between them.

The Pies didn’t have the greatest of summers. It felt like the majority of pundits, including this one, had them missing the top 10 (do I have to say that now?). There were all sorts of rumours swirling about regarding the coach Craig McRae, which he and the club were forced to confront publicly. Their captain Darcy Moore was injured. They were coming off less than convincing scratch matches at La Trobe University and Ballarat.

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The Magpies didn’t enjoy the best off-season but they excelled in opening round at the MCG as too many fumbles and shanks cost St Kilda dearly

St Kilda spent the summer talking up Sunday night’s opening round game, and Collingwood spent the summer being talked down. It was St Kilda’s occasion, but it was Collingwood’s game. The Saints had the hope, the hyper-inflated recruits, the best paid player in the sport and the largest home-and-away crowd they’d ever played in front of. But Collingwood had cool heads, manic pressure, a wily old fox in his 426th game and two brothers who had 77 touches between them.

The Pies didn’t have the greatest of summers. It felt like the majority of pundits, including this one, had them missing the top 10 (do I have to say that now?). There were all sorts of rumours swirling about regarding the coach Craig McRae, which he and the club were forced to confront publicly. Their captain Darcy Moore was injured. They were coming off less than convincing scratch matches at La Trobe University and Ballarat.

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Look back at football’s defining moments and Cometti did them all justice – he didn’t miss a beat and always had the perfect one-liner ready to reel off

• Dennis Cometti, Australian sports commentary great, dies aged 76

The late Tony Charlton, who called a dozen VFL grand finals and three Olympic Games, said sporting commentators should “produce words like bubbles in champagne”. There have been some sublime sporting commentators in this country. But no one in Australian broadcasting turned words into bubbles like Dennis Cometti. Few could match his repertoire of wit, timing and verve. And few were so professional, so versatile, so fully dedicated to their craft, so capable of meeting the moment.

In many ways, Cometti was an outsider. Yes, he’d played and coached in the WAFL. But he wasn’t a legend of the VFL who transitioned into commentary. He wasn’t from the eastern seaboard. He wasn’t some nuggety, phlegmatic former player. He looked like an Oscar Wilde character. He sounded like a man who’d just back-announced Boz Scaggs on the radio. He had to prove himself to audiences who’d never heard of him, and who weren’t used to such dulcet tones calling VFL football.

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