Category: AFL – Australian Rules

With seven goals, Malcolm Rosas Jr propelled Sydney to the top of the ladder in a helter-skelter win over Melbourne

Malcolm Rosas Jr is the grandson of Bill Dempsey, who passed away in March. Dempsey was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2022, and should have been elevated to legend status on the strength of his speech alone. Dempsey was one of the greatest ruckmen to come out of the WAFL. His grandson is a completely different footballer – slighter, slippery around the packs and a superb user of the ball. His seven goals on Sunday propelled his team to the top of the AFL ladder, more than 30% clear of the second placed Fremantle.

In a brief, jam-packed and much-needed vent this week, Luke Beveridge lamented the high scores that the AFL and its broadcasters have contrived. But that sort of football has its place, especially on grounds like the SCG. Sunday’s game was a helter-skelter affair, with both sides blazing through the middle of the ground. At times it resembled one of those mid-1980s games in Sydney. It was a good era to be a forward then, and it was a good day to be a forward on Sunday.

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When Greg Swann was appointed executive general manager of football performance at the AFL, many saw him as the man to cure all the sport’s ills. He was one of those footy people known primarily by his nickname, a man who projected an air of knockabout affability, a man renowned for getting things done. He would apply “the pub test” to many of football’s most pressing issues: the draft, the rules, the umpiring, the AFL review centre (ARC). “Swanny”, we were assured, was the man who would make footy’s trains run on time.

One of the first things Swann’s predecessor, Laura Kane, did in the role was embark on an overseas study tour. Certain sports, she found, lent themselves to technological intervention. The geometry of tennis and baseball made it far easier to implement. She fast-tracked the trial of ball-tracking technology. But Australian football, she stressed, was an incredibly difficult sport to properly utilise technology. The shape of the grounds, the oval ball, the way goals often come down to the length of a player’s fingernail, all made it tough to land on a definitive decision.

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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At times during the Pies’ big win at the MCG the 38-year-old appeared to be playing 10 simultaneous games of chess – and Essendon had no answer

The week in football was characterised in many ways by the absence of competence. There wasn’t much competence over at Kayo, which had more crashes than Leslie Nielsen. There wasn’t much competence in the umpiring on Friday night. There wasn’t much competence at the AFL tribunal, with its barking dogs and house inspections. There wasn’t much competence, or basic decency, at its appeals board.

“Competence porn” is a term we hear a lot these days, mainly in relation to television and film. In a world run by people who temperamentally and intellectually aren’t far from the sandpit, it’s the craving for content that showcases craft and care. It’s there in shows like The Pitt where doctors and nurses under incredible strain maintain both their excellence and (mostly) their sanity. The AFL should poach primary charge nurse Dana Evans from Pittsburgh to run their score review system, or their tribunal, or the whole competition. She’d ship it into shape in half a shift.

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• Tribunal verdict upheld that St Kilda player guilty of conduct unbecoming

• Reduced four-week suspension comes with two weeks suspended

St Kilda forward Lance Collard will serve a two-week suspension over his latest homophobic slur after having his ban reduced by the AFL appeal board.

Collard was initially banned for seven weeks, with a further two weeks suspended, after being found guilty of calling a VFL opponent a “fucking faggot” last month. He denied the allegation.

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Ross Lyon’s press conferences are typically a mix of battery and flattery. On any given day, you’ll get smart-arsery, hostility, humility, occasional mirth and genuine insight. Sometimes, he will provide a 10-minute explanation of how the game was won or lost. Sometimes, he’s playful and rhetorical. Sometimes, he’ll cock his head and look at the questioner like they have no business even being in the same room as him.

The St Kilda coach has been criticised for the way he responded to a set of perfectly reasonable questions in Adelaide last weekend. “Do you have a sense of where you’re at in the context of the season?” was one of them. He didn’t exactly react like Bob Hawke to Richard Carleton’s “impertinence” in 1983. But it was a typical Lyon response – part superciliousness, part drollery, part deflection. It was nothing, really. The journalist handled it well, and the coach didn’t cross the line.

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• ‘You are loved’: father Ben Hollands shares public message

• Blues player admitted to hospital on Monday night

Carlton’s management of Elijah Hollands’ public mental health episode will come under scrutiny from WorkSafe Victoria.

Hollands, 23, was admitted to hospital on Monday night, after his concerning and erratic performance in the Blues’ game at the MCG against Collingwood last Thursday night.

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Leadership, on and off the field, was lacking at the MCG and any investigation must ascertain whether Carlton fulfilled its duty of care

The weekend of football threw up great dollops of drama and pathos. One of the tallest and most talented players in the sport buckled like a stricken baby giraffe. Arguably the best footballer in Australia was blanketed by an Irishman. The heart and soul of his club copped a knee to the head that may spell the end of his career. In Adelaide, 46,000 people stood to acknowledge a family that had lost a brother and a son.

We see variations of that every weekend. We see knee injuries and head knocks. We see teams squander winning leads. We see coaches fighting for their jobs. We see the brilliance of players like Nick Daicos, Nick Watson and Jeremy Cameron. It’s all neatly packaged, all easily explained, and all what keeps drawing us back. What we almost never see, and what’s harder to manage, to diagnose and to articulate, is what took place at the MCG on Thursday night. It didn’t come through the filtered lens of the host broadcasters or the curated feeds of the club itself, but through grainy footage from high in the stands.

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• Blues player displayed erratic behaviour in game against Magpies

• Coach Michael Voss said 23-year-old was left ‘shattered’ by his performance

The AFL has joined Carlton in supporting a “shattered” Elijah Hollands after the Blues utility suffered a mental health episode during a close loss to Collingwood.

Hollands initially ended Thursday night’s 13.10 (88) to 12.11 (83) defeat at the MCG without registering a statistic, despite playing 75% of the match across the first three quarters.

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Two cases rocked the football industry this week, one your typical footy folderol that everyone hyperventilates over for several days, the other an incident that cut to the core of a league trying to effect serious cultural change. In both instances, all parties professed absolute certainty in their version of events.

First, to the relatively trivial matter, where umpire Nick Foot alleged that Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters abused him by asking: “How much are they paying you?” Complicating matters was the fact that the senior umpire, and I can’t believe I’m typing this, also moonlights as a betting analyst for Sportsbet. All parties brooked no doubt as to what had happened. Foot was “100% adamant” he was insulted. Butters was “100% sure” he wasn’t. Ollie Wines was “100% confident” it didn’t happen.

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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• AFL tribunal hands out seven-week ban to Saints player

• Collard denied using slur though he had admitted using it in 2024

St Kilda forward Lance Collard has been banned for seven weeks by the AFL tribunal for directing a homophobic slur towards an opponent.

The penalty, which includes a further two-week ban suspended until the end of the 2027 season, was announced at a sanctions hearing on Tuesday afternoon.

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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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