Amid broader growth of the women’s game, a full compliment of teams will kick off the new season for the first timeSince the AFLW’s first game at Ikon Park in February 2017 – when the AFL memorably had to impose a lockout due to massively underestimated crowd numbers – women’s football has been on a rapidly upward trajectory. Participation rates have soared across the country and, ahead of the seventh instalment of the competition, which starts on Thursday, ticket sales have hit an unprecedented high. These are very promising times for the league.The inaugural clash between expansion sides Essendon and Hawthorn – one of the highlights of the opening round of fixtures this week – is testament to the increased...
Geelong look solid, the Demons have what it takes to go back-to-back and Dustin Martin’s looms on the horizon for RichmondHow do you top that? It wasn’t until deep into Sunday afternoon, as Seven’s commentators were hacking up their last chunks of rhetorical phlegm over Jamie Elliot’s goal in the closing minutes of the biggest game of the home-and-away season, did we know just how this finals thing was going to shake out.Yes, it’s only a game, but as it says in the Hagakure: “Matters of great concern should be treated lightly. Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.” Continue reading...
Australia’s relatively early investment in the domestic competition, which enters its sixth season this weekend, will be notable in a World Cup yearAlthough it is only 131 days since the Sydney Roosters and St George-Illawarra Dragons contested the last NRLW grand final, a new season is about to kick off. With the 2021 season postponed to the start of this year due to the pandemic, NRLW players are backing up only four months after they finished last season to do it all again.It may seem jarring, but for the players the short turnaround is a small price to pay for another season on the field and the increasing professionalism of the game. With the postponed Rugby League World Cup taking...
Six of the nine fixtures have finals implications and for eight teams – nine at a stretch – it is a round of great significanceTo bastardise F. Scott Fitzgerald, the sentimental person thinks things will last, the Carlton supporter has a desperate confidence that they won’t. Since coughing up a loss to Adelaide at the end of July, Carlton’s season has had the anxious inertia of a house succumbing to a landslide.To be among the Carlton faithful last Saturday night was to see grown men cry – first tears of joy, before squirting a few out with genuine sadness. It was to remember that in Melbourne, football remains a vital part of life, albeit one where grief is often softened...
Dave Rennie’s Australia have big issues to address as they reset for Rugby Championship clashes with South Africa and the All BlacksAfter a golden week atop the Rugby Championship ladder, the Wallabies are back in the doldrums after their 48-17 walloping by Michael Cheika’s Pumas on Sunday. On the strength of their courageous comeback win in the opening round, Australian rugby fans had dared dream the men in gold might repeat the dose in San Juan before marching over South Africa (as they did in 2021), then vanquishing a sickly All Blacks.But the fumbling nature of their game in San Juan and the brutality of the scoreline has snuffed that hope and now, yet again, there is only tunnel at...