The Geelong captain entered the MCG carrying Gary Ablett Jnr’s son and exited it handing his boots to the Auskick boyThe team Joel Selwood led out on Saturday was the oldest to ever take the field in a VFL/AFL game. It was his 40th final. At the top of the race, Gary Ablett Jnr nodded to his former captain and handed over his son, Levi, who has a rare degenerative disease. Selwood, one of the most booed footballers in the history of the game, could have been elected, unopposed, the first Australian president at that exact moment.Thirty years ago, almost to the day, young Levi’s grandfather ran onto the MCG with murder in his eyes. He spent the first half...
Endorsed by Pope Francis, this one-man team is in here ‘to cultivate a spirit of altruism, generosity and community’When Rien Schuurhuis rolls out for the men’s road race at the UCI Road World Championships on Sunday, he will bring a novel and some might even say holy presence to the most-significant one-day race on the global cycling calendar.Schuurhuis will cut a lonely figure in a peloton of almost 200 cyclists, from a few dozen nations, but for the first-time in cycling history the Vatican City will be racing for the sacred rainbow jersey. Continue reading...
The compelling storylines recede and the bread and circuses all seem a bit silly given what we now knowEverything was going so well for the AFL. They’d just signed off on a mind-boggling TV rights deal. The football had been exquisite. The stadiums had been heaving. The Brownlow Medal count was compelling. The outgoing CEO was on a giant victory lap. The grand final was one of the most eagerly anticipated in years.That all changed with Wednesday morning’s piece on the ABC website. It evoked a sense this entire competition is built on bullshit, that it’s hard to take anything coming from the mouths of clubs seriously. Football clubs, and the entire industry that feeds off the game, throw around...
There was no need for any fun facilitators in a game that stacks up alongside classics of the pastBefore we get to Saturday’s preliminary final, forgive me as I shake my fist at a cloud. For reasons no-one can explain, or take responsibility for, they now blare music after every goal at the MCG. The stadium was one of the last to succumb to this execrable trend. But in a finals series where more than quarter of a million people have turned up to three MCG games, apparently the atmosphere needs to be augmented with lashings of Kool and the Gang, Kenny Loggins and Chad Kroeger. Preliminary final weekend is supposed to be the people’s round. The following week is...
Collingwood’s now trademark energy will be tested in Sydney, while Brisbane again look to take their chances against a refreshed GeelongWhen Collingwood crapped out against Sydney in round 22, there was a sense of a run having come to an end. Yes, they had won 10 in a row by a cumulative margin of 79 points, but a post-to-post 27-point loss proved that the house always wins.When Craig McRae responded by saying he “coached really poorly” by failing to properly account for the dimensions of the ground there was a whiff of herring. The SCG is, after all, only about two-and-a-bit metres shorter at either end and either wing. Instead, it felt like a deft stage magician’s trick. Continue reading...