By Daniel Brettig
March 8th 2008 @ 5:58am
View The Roar's top AFL writers.
AFL Tipping now live on The Roar. Join now.
Love new art, fashion, music? Check out Aussie site which unearths all things cool and creative.
Crows, Saints stay on message for pre-season final
Adelaide and St Kilda agree they would both dearly like to win tonights AFL pre-season cup grand final at AAMI Stadium.
But both put greater importance on their preparations for the premiership season.
More AFL
Collingwood finally win one
Paul Roos cleared
Judd impresses in Blues debut as Carlton down Dogs
Saints coach Ross Lyon today said he would continue to [...]
This article is over 2000 days old and has been trimmed.
Get Australia's best AFL opinion emailed daily.
Like this content? Buzz it up!
Free Email updates:
Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport or that author. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it. We value privacy. More...


![There have been disparaging comments from the usual suspects in the British rugby media suggesting that the Bledisloe Cup Test in Tokyo is a commercially-oriented nonsense. Nonsense to that, I say.
Whenever Australia plays New Zealand at rugby, it is a good thing for the game, for supporters of the teams, for the lucky people who [...] Spiro Zavos: The fourth Bledisloe Cup Test is a good thing for rugby](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/the-fourth-bledisloe-cup-th.jpg)
![It’s been a week of extremes for the A-League, from the invisibility of a week off to the thrilling finals matches in Wellington and Sydney.
The week just past has been a fascinating microcosm of how the promising developments for the wider Australian football community are sometimes the same factors that impede the growth of the [...] Adrian Musolino: The Catch-22s that continue to impede the A-League](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/five-reasons-a-league-th.jpg)
![It’s an issue that never seems to be far away, and never fails to polarise public opinion. Our country’s multicultural past has played a huge part in the state of football in Australia today, and players claiming different nationalities through ancestry has been a direct by-product.
But while it has allowed Australian players to more readily [...] Paddy Higgs: Dual nationality can be a double-edged sword](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/dual-nationality-vince-grella-th.jpg)
![So another FA Cup final on a poor Wembley pitch and another Chelsea game involving a controversial refereeing decision. In the end, Florent Malouda’s disallowed second-half goal was meaningless, but the thought has been nagging away at me all week. What if it had mattered?
If Everton had managed an equaliser, I’m guessing we wouldn’t [...] Davidde Corran: By not acting on goal-line technology, FIFA are crossing the line](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/goal-technology-th.jpg)
![The sight of Clint Bolton in a Melbourne Heart polo shirt in the week he wore the gloves for Sydney FC as they began their finals campaign didn’t go down too well with Sydney fans and football purists. But it will go down as a significant moment for Melbourne’s second franchise.
It was the moment they [...] Adrian Musolino: Finally the Melbourne Heart starts pumping](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/melbourne-heart-th.jpg)
![The AFL dominates the Australian sporting landscape because it delivers entertainment like that. Geelong and St Kilda ensured the greatest day on our sporting calendar lived up to the occasion with the Cats confirming their greatness in a thrilling Grand Final.
With the grey weather relenting in the dying moments of the final quarter with scores [...] Adrian Musolino: Geelong confirm their greatness in an epic struggle](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/geelong-confirm-th.jpg)
![George Plimpton, the author of Paper Lion, a wonderful Walter Mittyish book on gridiron, once noted that “the smaller the ball, the better the sports writing.” He was talking specifically about the rich literature on golf.
From Wodehouse to Updike, there have been numerous classic works of fiction on golf.
Golf journalism, too, from Bobby [...] Spiro Zavos: The master Peter Thomson on the Masters](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/master-peter-thomson-th.jpg)
![Australian rugby could find itself with nothing to celebrate this weekend as its Super rugby teams head for a clean sweep of losses heading into Round Two of competition.
With several players either ruled out or under injury clouds, and only the Reds playing at home, it shapes up as a rotten weekend for Aussie rugby [...] Andrew Logan: Look out Aussies, it’s a Super ambush!](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/reds-stormers-th.jpg)
![As we draw closer to the start of season 2010, we look at the big questions being asked in the AFL, including the most important of them all.
Does Geelong need to win this year’s premiership to be rated with the best sides of all time?
They do. Three in four years will put the Cats right [...] Luke D'Anello: The big questions this season, Part Two](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/premiership-geelong-cats-paul-chapman-th.jpg)
![There are three groups of clubs heading into the 2010 NRL season, the contenders, the dark horses and the battlers. The contenders have recent history and the cattle to suggest they could be slugging for the title. The dark horses have the capability to surprise people and the battlers will be hoping 2010 represents a [...] Steve Kaless: Contenders and pretenders for the 2010 NRL title](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bulldogs-eels-th.jpg)
![The biggest challenge facing the NRL isn’t ensuring Brad Fittler knows which is his hotel room but rather ensuring that the One RL dream becomes a reality.
While, Fittler was busy buying some extra strong nails and a jumbo hammer for a coffin with the headstone marked “my coaching career” it also emerged than [...] Steve Kaless: One rugby league vision is failing](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/david-gallop-th.jpg)



