Sydney fans had much to celebrate after beating Hawthorn in the 2012 AFL Grand at the MCG in Melbourne.Can the Swans do it again this year?
AAP Image/Joe Castro
Hawthorn has recovered after a rough patch this season, with key players shaking off injuries and its tenacious coach returning after a health scare. So why have the Hawks earned their spot on Saturday’s…
Sacking Brenton Sanderson as coach may rebound on the Adelaide Crows if the club doesn’t have a strong replacement ready to step in.
AAP/Ben Macmahon
The football season is almost over, but the coach-sacking season has just begun. In the AFL, the Adelaide Crows sacked coach Brenton Sanderson despite only recently having extended his contract. Media…
Robinvale footballers have been recruited into an active campaign to heal community divisions, which includes playing an annual Harmony Match.
Facebook/Robinvale Football Netball Club
Standing in the social rooms of Robinvale Football Netball Club on presentation night is perhaps like standing in any sports club in regional Australia when their vote count is on. There are the usual…
In football’s biggest week, Franklin is football’s biggest story.
AAP Image/NEWZULU/HUGH PETERSWALD
It’s early in the fourth quarter and Lance “Buddy” Franklin is enjoying himself. Celebrating his 200th game against St Kilda at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) last month, the Sydney Swans forward has…
What keeps us watching AFL, even when we’d rather not?
Theron Kirkman/AAP Image
In September each year, for more than a century now, Australians have participated in the triumphs and tragedies of the annual carnival of the boot. We celebrate football as a quasi-religious, tribal homage…
Essendon faces the prospect of not being able to field a team next year.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
Federal Court Justice John Middleton’s decision to uphold the legality of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) investigation into the potential use of banned substances at the Essendon Football…
After a nine-match winning streak, Richmond lost to Port Adelaide by 57 points in last week’s elimination final.
AAP/David Mariuz
The AFL final series – with the semi-finals starting today – is one of the most ferocious and toughest contests we will see in Australian sport. Behind the scenes, there is no doubt a fair percentage of…
Over the last year, around 200 per 100,000 Australian children suffered a blow to the head or face.
Tom Childers
Concussions are mild traumatic brain injuries which cause the connections between brain cells to stretch or break. This can result in problems with attention, memory, balance, sleep, decision speed and…
Jonathan Brown is not the only professional football player to recently retire because of head injuries.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Brisbane Lions champion Jonathan Brown’s premature exit from the AFL this week after suffering yet another concussion was in many ways unsurprising. His friends and fans describe him as a “warrior” who…
FIFA suggests that 270 million people are involved in playing or officiating football around the world, with billions also tuning into the World Cup every four years.
EPA/Sebastiao Moreira
In 1863, the newly formed English Football Association (FA) drew up and published the first Laws of the Game of football. The aim was to provide a set of universal rules to govern the various forms of…
The key, as so often in sport, is timing.
Joe Castro/AAP Image
Why is AFL the main sport in Victoria and the other southern States while New South Wales and Queensland follow rugby? That’s long been a vexed question, but we may now be closer to an answer. In Melbourne…
Will Essendon players face sanction if it is proven that they took banned substances during the 2012 AFL season?
AAP/Joe Castro
Speculation continues to mount that Essendon Football Club players will face sanctions from the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) over the club’s controversial 2011-12 supplements program…
Despite the increasing prominence of women’s sport, the number of women in leadership positions in professional sport is still low. Why?
AAP/Joe Castro
Recently, it was reported that the AFL, the Australian Sports Commission and the Richmond Football Club have jointly funded research to “investigate the real and perceived blocks to women reaching the…
AFL fans are being turned off by tactics based on tackling and crowding to deny stars space to display their skills.
AAP/David Crosling
Is Australian football, the “people’s game” in its traditional motto, under threat? Will it remain Australia’s number one sport in its bicentenary year 2058? Or will the AFL’s greedy ticket pricing and…
Reigning premiers Hawthorn was the first AFL club to trial the WASP tracking technology – so how does it work?
AAP/David Crosling
With the AFL season in full swing many of us are glued to our screens marvelling at the speed and tactics of the athletes. Midfielders, such as ex-Cat-now-Sun Gary Ablett Jnr, can run between 12 and 20km…
Andrew Demetriou yesterday announced his retirement at the end of the 2014 season after 11 years at the helm of the AFL. The announcement was made at a set-piece press conference presided over by AFL Commission…
What’s changed since the ACC report was handed down?
Flickr/ hitthatswitch
A year after the “darkest day in Australian sport” the catastrophic bang has led to an all too predictable whimper. The days after the Australian Crime Commission’s report Organised Crime and Drugs in…
Thirsty work: Karmichael Hunt keeps cool during his Brisbane Broncos days.
AAP
Athletes are paid for pushing their bodies to the limit, but at what stage do we acknowledge that baking hot afternoons might not be the safest time for our sportspeople to ply their trade? Certainly…
AFL clubs Collingwood and St Kilda will play an annual match to celebrate the legacy of Indigenous trailblazer Nicky Winmar.
AAP/Hamish Blair
The best photos do more than freeze time. They capture a moment and take us there, making witnesses of us all. Here lies their power to inspire, touch and transform; a power tied to the stories, hopes…
Research Fellow, Institute for Health & Sport, member of the Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network, and Co-convenor of the Olympic Research Network, Victoria University