It has been an exhaustive three months, but we are finally here. Although the pre-season seems long and extremely tough, football is upon us in just a matter of time.
The long wait ends this Friday night when AFL footy returns with the NAB Cup kicking off in Perth. But after a dramatic off-season the new campaign will enjoy plenty of subplots to keep everybody interested and the pre-season competition will present us with our first insights into it all.
Port Adelaide’s proposed merger with their debt-stricken local affiliate club the Port Adelaide Magpies is all but dead after the SANFL directors voted unanimously against the move.
St Kilda’s relationship with Andrew Lovett is surely now untenable. The club quickly distanced itself from the fallen star suspending him indefinitely while police investigate an alleged sexual assault on Christmas Eve last year. But what if Police never end up laying any charges?
Kevin Sheedy is always keen on making headlines and last week was no different, suggesting that his Greater Western Sydney club will look to California to find playing talent.
Mathew Stokes’ AFL career is on hold for at least the next three months as the Geelong forward faces his cocaine charges.
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Boundary umpires will have limited power to pay free kicks in the NAB Cup as the AFL tries to crack down on holding at stoppages. It is the most striking of four rule changes that the league will introduce for this year’s pre-season competition.
The AFL have strongly defended their illicit drugs policy in the wake of Mathew Stokes’ criminal charges. Geelong have stood down the premiership forward until round eight of the AFL premiership after he was charged last week with cocaine possession and trafficking.
Geelong have suspended Mathew Stokes until round eight of the AFL season and fined him $5000 after the forward was charged last week with possession and trafficking of cocaine.
New recruit Barry Hall kicked two goals and kept his aggression controlled in an impressive debut for his new AFL club Western Bulldogs on Saturday.
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The pieces of the jigsaw seem to falling into their perfect positions, and each day it seems more likely that Geelong’s Gary Ablett Jr will move to the AFL’s new Gold Coast team. Consider this: his father, Gary Ablett Sr, one of the greatest players of all time, has moved to the Gold Coast.
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In two years, with the introduction of Gold Coast and Western Sydney, the AFL will have two teams in every mainland state. It is likely that it will be the only code to achieve this in the next five or ten years.
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The recent revelation about Geelong playmaker Matthew Stokes’ alleged involvement in supplying cocaine, highlights yet another problem with the AFL’s drug policy and the ‘three strikes and you are out’ system.
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In Thursday’s Melbourne Herald Sun, there was a curious little article heralding what appears to be October 2009 ABS survey stats that suggest that more boys are now playing Australian Football.
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Geelong star Matthew Stokes has been charged with drug trafficking, after allegedly purchasing a gram of cocaine for a friend who was visiting from out of town. So what punishment is suitable for the AFL to bring down should he be found guilty?
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Kevin Sheedy has come good on his promise to look far and wide for talent, with the signing of a South African recruit.
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The 2010 AFL season is only two months away. The early talk has been of how two significant new partnerships are going to work.
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I preface what I am about to write with the fact that I am a Victorian who has resided in Sydney for the last four years.
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For many people – and fairly so – the traditional view of Australian Football ‘clubs’ outside of Australia was of beer swilling ex-pat Aussies getting together for a social kick and a more social after match.
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The article by Michael DiFabrizio on the strong sense of anticipation for the beginning of the new AFL decade raises an interesting topic – who will be the big improvers in 2010 and how will the ladder shape up?
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Another team of the decade debate, but a very intriguing one. Who were the best players during the AFL decade just past?
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Tim Boyle retired this year, having played only 31 games for Hawthorn in a career interrupted by injuries, including a broken leg, a broken pelvis and ruptured knee ligaments.
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Those followers of the international growth of Australian Football, despite and often in spite of the (lack of) efforts of the AFL; were pleased recently when the AFL announced that in next year’s National Under 16s Championships, a ‘World XVIII’ would participate in Division 2.
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As a North Melbourne supporter, we’ve seen the best of times, we’ve seen the worst of times. Just ten years ago, we won our fourth premiership, the second in four seasons. Alas, not as North Melbourne, but as the ‘Kangaroos’.
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Having frustrated journalists and would-be biographers for years, Allan Jeans is now more than willing to share his opinions on football and reflect on his remarkable coaching career.
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I was in Melbourne this week when AFL chief Andrew Demetriou launched his anti-World Cup campaign to the astonishment of most. I suspect had I been in London, or Barcelona, or Istanbul, or Rio or Buenos Aires, I wouldn’t have heard about it at all.
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It’s hard to fathom what compels healthy young people, fortunate enough to be engaged in competitive recreational pursuits, to commit deliberate acts of brutality.
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The Melbourne Cricket Ground, the paddock that grew. It’s iconic of both Melbourne and Australia, from hosting the US Army in WWII, to setting baseball and rugby attendance records at various times.
