Down near the bottom in the Toyota 2017 AFL Premiership Competition, the Gold Coast Suns are optimistic that 2018 will give Queenslanders some hope that Australian Rules footy belongs in the north. Gold Coast has now gone by the Brisbane Lions for the youngest list in the league. Their average age is just over 23…

Is it realistic to expect top AFL draft pick Cam Rayner to lift the Brisbane Lions from the bottom of the ladder? The Lions have nowhere to go but up, unless, that is, they wind up remaining exactly where they are now. Many a top draft pick has found themselves crushed under the weight of…

There seems to be no end to Pom duplicity when it comes to the whereabouts of their captain Ben Stokes, who is on his way to the southern hemisphere and it is widely thought that he is on his way to try and save England’s chances in the Ashes. According to the ECB, “The ECB…

The stogy AFL is waiting until some point in the future to implement live trading, something they would borrow from American sports leagues to enable footy clubs to move up and down they draft order as the draft is taking place. Were live trading already the order of the day, things might have played out…

Just hours out from the outset of the national AFL draft, some trends and tendencies are emerging. The Saint Kilda Saints have two top-10 picks in their basket and the generally accepted tip is that they will use pick 8 to take Nick Coffield, a player that can play in the midfield or the half….

Anything beats a real job would seem to be the operative principle behind Essendon Bomber premiership defender Sean Wellman’s attempt to gain a seat on the Bomber’s board, taking the place of outgoing football director Chris Hefferman. Wellman’s footy career spanned 2012 games at the senior level. He played for the Adelaide Crows 34 times…

We have seen rules enacted to enhance player safety in various leagues. In many instances, those rule changes have had unintended consequences, as there are always those who look at rules as a possible route to gaining an advantage over an opponent. Take the NFL. Please. At one point in the not too distant past,…

Nothing like a good drug scandal to increase the box office, or at least, so it would seem as the Essendon Bombers, after suffering a revenue drought following the Essendon 34 saga that was dragged out for four years, returned to the finals in 2017 and turned a tidy $5.1 million profit. Membership was up,…

The Irish, always ready for a good bout of fighting, or a good drinking bout, came to Perth with aspirations of an International Rules footy victory over their Aussie hosts, but all they got for their effort was a bit of a push-and-shove at the half. We cannot say with certainty that they got the…

Last year, the Essendon Bombers kept the footy world on tenterhooks before selecting Andrew McGrath with the first pick of the 2016 national draft. This year, it is Brisbane’s turn, although Brisbane got to the bottom of the ladder in the 2017 AFL Premiership competition with bad, honest play, rather than with having most of…