It was a big weekend for two players who marked their 300th and 350th AFL games respectivelyTwo champions of the sport, two men taken in the same draft but with completely different career trajectories, celebrated major milestones over the weekend.Shane Edwards was hoisted up and carried off following an astonishing comeback win over Brisbane. Edwards was nearly a Brisbane player himself. The Lions’ chief recruiter was desperate to get him, but was outvoted by senior figures at the club. They settled on Albert Proud, who ended up in jail. Continue reading...
The bitter rivalry shared by the Cats and Tigers only intensified after the weekend’s MCG thrillerAmidst all the sanctimonious slop, the slaps on the wrist, and the shock jock slanging matches, an actual round of football broke out. It was billed as Moving Weekend. It was supposed to be the round where the big boys made their run, and where the also-rans stood revealed. It pitted first against second, third against fifth, fourth against sixth and seventh against eighth. By Saturday afternoon, it had already re-established Melbourne as the top dogs, exposed the less than leonine Brisbane and added another half dozen pages to Essendon’s internal review.As Richmond and Geelong warmed up at the MCG, the Dockers were trudging off...
The undefeated Blues have a new coach, a watchable brand of football, a captain in fine fettle and a pretty soft draw aheadDavid Foster Wallace once wrote that Michael Chang had the unhappiest face he had seen outside of a graduate creative writing program. A few years ago, I was on a city loop train when a group of Carlton fans alighted at Spencer St. Suddenly, I was confronted with an entire carriage of Michael Changs. I have never seen a more miserable-looking bunch. GWS were basically playing with 16 men and were 100 points up with a quarter to run. The Carlton fans had seen enough. Their team had broken them. They had lost faith, hope, interest and, in...