But “Bomber” Thompson says the club will help Hocking to reach 300 career games.

Hello fans:
Geelong football manager Garry Davidson said club veteran Garry Hocking must consider retiring at the end of the season due to his chronic knee problems, however chief executive Brian Cook has rejected claims the club is in dispute with Hocking but was unable to guarantee the 269-game veteran would play on at Shell Stadium next year.
Hocking was left out of the side that thrashed West Coast last Sunday, the third interstate AFL game he had missed this year due to the knee injury. His absence again sparked reports “Buddha”, who will be out of contract at the end of the season, was in dispute with the club about a contract for next season, something Davidson described as mischievous.
However, Davidson said the 32-year-old Hocking could be the latest in a succession of players whose bodies prevented them playing on even when the will was still there. He said the club’s stance has always been that Garry would make his own mind up when he decides to retire, and the fact Hocking missed those away games was just pure coincidence.
Davidson said Hocking pulled up very sore after the Essendon game and in consultation with all the medical staff it was thought he wasn’t going to be right. He was rested and went through the rehabilitation program this week.
Cook has refused to consider Hocking playing for another club, despite speculation he would offer his services around if he failed to come to terms with Geelong for next season. But Cook failed to ease suspicions about the club’s commitment to Hocking when he reiterated their concerns that Hocking could find himself stationed in the VFL, which is the last thing the club would like to see.
Cats coach Mark Thompson said the club is committed to help Hocking to reach his 300th career game this season (including pre-season and State of Origin games) and then to get the four time best-and-fairest to the end of the season. He said the club was trying everything to ensure Hocking’s careeer ended in the best way possible.

Bombers halt contract negotiations with ten players
Essendon has suspended contract re-negotiations with ten players until the end of the season, raising questions on the club’s ability to retain its senior players for next year without breaching the salary cap.
The club told player agents this week that no more talks would he held until the Bombers completed their on-field commitments. About 10 key players, including Joe Misiti, Dean Solomon, Sean Wellman, Scott Lucas and Dean Rioli are out of contract at the end of the season. Speculation is rife that the club will lose at least one big-name player unless teammates take pay cuts or don’t seek big increases.
Misiti’s solicitor Marvin Weinberg said that he was disappointed that the club had halted talks.
He said the problem Essendon faced was that as players signed new deals with their clubs, including Melbourne’s Shane Woewodin, the list of uncontracted players became smaller and the interest from the bottom clubs bigger.
Lucas’ manager Ricky Nixon said the fair thing to do was to put all contracts on hold.

Freo says its players are not fat
Fremantle interim coach Ben Allan has rebuked football commentator Robert Walls on his accusations that its players do not get into shape.
Walls wrote in his newspaper column on Tuesday that talented trio Paul Hasleby, Leigh Brown and Matthew Pavlich are collectively 30kg overweight, which was not acceptable for players of their standing. He repeated his comments on Channel Seven’s Talking Footy discussion program that night.
Walls also accused them of being unfit and suggested the club give them time off so they could watch some of the best players in the competition to help them realise the amount of work required to succeed.
But Fremantle football manager Gerard McNeill said Walls should give the trio a chance to develop, while the club’s fitness and strength coach James Bridie said he expected all three to reach their optimum body shape and fitness levels when they were 22 or 23. Hasleby, Brown and Pavlich were drafted by Freo at the end of 1999 as 18-year-olds.
*Fremantle consultant and former Australian women’s hockey team coach Ric Charlesworth has been sidelined due to back surgery. The club’s media manager David Tasker said Charlesworth spent four weeks in hospital with a serious back complaint, forcing him to miss Dockers’ games against Essendon, Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs. Tasker said rumours that Charlesworth had been sacked along with Damian Drum were unfounded.

More on Blight’s sacking
The dust had begun to settle at St Kilda, one week after its supposed saviour Malcolm Blight was sacked as senior coach. But the reasons and the way he was sacked would continue to be discussed for some time yet.
Rumours began circulating on Thursday morning that Blight would not see out the season, especially after Channel Seven broke the story on its 10.30am news, followed by 3AW minutes later. Blight arrived at Moorabbin around midday and had a 15-minute meeting before leaving in silence. Witnesses say he appeared extremely angry.
The players were called to a midday meeting at short notice where it is believed they were told the news. Some of the players were shocked when they were interviewed by the media.
Before Blight was sacked, St Kilda had subtly questioned his commitment to the club whose culture he so strongly attacked last week.
Not only did the Saints’ board take Blight to task for his controversial attack on his players on Adelaide radio, but questions have been raised among the playing group about his non-attendance last weekend at two significant club functions.
Blight missed the club’s annual fund-raising auction a fortnight ago and a function the following day for the Saints’ young players and their parents at Moorabbin. St Kilda officials also wondered at Blight’s failure to attend No.1 draft pick Nick Riewoldt’s first game three weeks ago in the VFL.
Blight travelled separately from the team for the Saints’ round-14 clash against the Brisbane Lions, and played a round of golf on the Gold Coast on the eve of the game with his coaching assistants, Ken Hinkley and Peter Jonas. He joined the team for its pre-match dinner on the Saturday night, but returned to his Gold Coast home after the game, missing the after-match function. Hinkley returned to Melbourne the following day to watch Riewoldt.
*St Kilda has emailed its corporate sponsors with a “business as usual” message. The e-mail, attached with the club’s press release explaining the Blight sacking and leaked on the Saints’ Internet “fan forum” on the weekend, was the first one written by new Saints general manager of commercial operations, Aine Crowley.
Crowley wrote that, despite the announcement, “business will be as usual across all aspects of the operation”, and everyone at Moorabbin is all committed to ensure the club is a successful and powerful force.
*Injured St Kilda star Robert Harvey denied the players plotted the sacking of Stan Alves as Saints’ coach in 1998.
Former St Kilda president Andrew Plympton told 3AW last Saturday that several players started a revolt that resulted in Alves’ dismissal. In his Sunday morning Footy Panel program on Channel Seven, host Rex Hunt asked Harvey if Plympton’s allegation was true, and Harvey replied there was no way that the players were behind the conspiracy.
*Assistant coaches Peter Jonas and Ken Hinkley resigned from the Saints on Monday, regarded by many as a protest vote at the club’s sacking of Malcolm Blight. Jonas did not attend St Kilda’s first training session under interim coach Grant Thomas on Friday night, nor he was on the Saints’ coaching panel on Saturday night. He admitted he was “struggling to cope” with the dramatic dumping of Blight.
Jonas and Hinkley explained to Saints CEO Jim Watts that their close relationship with Blight made their future with St Kilda unworkable. St Kilda general manager for football operations Brian Waldron said he respected their decision and wished them well for the future.
Jonas last year agonised over returning to the AFL and linking up with Blight, after guiding Central District to its first SANFL premiership. His two-year contract with the Saints has allowed either party to call an end to their association.
Meanwhile, former Saints player Jim O’Dea will continue as the club’s football director.

Dockers’ CEO decision at least one week away
Fremantle media manager David Tasker said the interviews for the vacant position of chief executive had finished, but an announcement was unlikely before late next week, as the sub-committee formed to present the club’s board with a candidate had yet to convene to present its recommendation of the person to replace inaugural CEO David Hatt, who resigned in June.
It is understood the sub-committee has reduced the shortlist to former Richmond and Melbourne CEO Cameron Schwab and North Melbourne football manager Geoff Walsh. Schwab and Walsh underwent psychological evaluations earlier this week. Fremantle’s acting chief executives Vern Reid and John Cumming and former WAFL administrator and local businessman Ron Webster also applied for the position.
The board’s decision would then require ratifying by a special governing body established by the Western Australian Football Commission, Fremantle’s licence holder, before an appointment was made.

AFL, Players agree on pay rise deal
The AFL Players Association has settled its pay claim with the AFL, but the players have foreshadowed a much tougher stance, including a share of the sale of Waverley Park, after the completion of the new two-year deal last week.
Total player payments between the 16 clubs will increase from this year’s figure of $A83 million to about $A88.8 million next year (a rise of 7.25 per cent) and to almost $A95 million in 2003 (a rise of 6.25 per cent). This is lower than the 10 per cent pay rise sought by the AFLPA, but more than the five per cent several clubs had called for.
This year’s salary cap of $A5.1875 million will swell to $A5.562 million in 2002 and to about $A5.94 million the following year. Clubs will now pay 92.5 per cent of the payments, down from 95 per cent.
AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson said the deal represented certainty and security for the game over the next few years, and allowed clubs more flexibility in the payment of player salaries. He said the increases would be fully paid for by the AFL out of broadcast rights deals and other revenue. Jackson said the AFL had also undertaken to initiate further discussions on the limit of total player payments for 2004.
AFLPA claims it reduced its financial demands because of the fragile economic football environment and the AFL’s future commitments to the MCG and Stadium Australia in Sydney.
However, it has warned the league that while the clubs have kept their costs down, the union’s demands in the next wages’ agreement will soar if club income continues to spiral.
One club chief executive has warned that some clubs could go out of business if the players pushed for a share of the sale of Waverley Park, as it will lead to a huge conflict because there just won’t be enough money to go around. He said incomes derived from football should be shared by the players but not from capital assets. However AFLPA chief executive Rob Kerr said the players did not demand for a direct share of proceeds from the sale of Waverley Park, but stated the sale would alter the financial landscape when the collective bargaining agreement is up for negotiation next time.
Clubs had also pushed for annual AFL dividends over the next two years to rise by at least the same amount as the salary cap.

Worsfold throws name into coaching hat
John Worsfold has become the second assistant coach to put his hand up for the vacant St Kilda coaching job, but he warned the Saints not to approach him before the end of the season.
The 32-year-old former West Coast premiership captain and current Carlton assistant coach said he would be prepared to listen to offers from both St Kilda and Fremantle.
Worsfold joined Hawthorn assistant coach Chris Connolly as a contender for the St Kilda job, with Connolly still the early favourite as he was the St Kilda board’s preferred choice last year before they lured Malcolm Blight out of retirement. Caretaker coach Grant Thomas also remains in contention.
Former Collingwood captain and coach Tony Shaw said he had also been approached by St Kilda, but said he would keep an open mind on the job.

Judge’s days at the Eagles could be numbered
The West Coast Eagles board has refused to support earlier guarantees they would honour coach Ken Judge’s contract, raising speculation he could be replaced by former captain and Carlton assistant John Worsfold. Eagles chairman Michael Smith confirmed Judge’s contract, which has another year to run, would come under review at the end of the season.
Judge was unsure what prompted the board’s change of heart which came less than two months after CEO Trevor Nisbett publicly declared his future was safe. Judge was lured to West Coast at the start of the 2000 season to duplicate the successful rebuilding process he undertook at Hawthorn which has reaped rewards for the past two seasons.
Judge has pleaded for more time to rebuild the former AFL powerhouse. He said it took time to rebuild Hawthorn and it would also take time to rebuild the Eagles. He admitted the club’s frustrating 3-13 record put everyone involved in the football department under pressure and accepted a review was warranted.
He remained upbeat about his chances of staying at the job, and said he would continue to coach the side with an eye to the future, and would serve out his contract at the club.
Worsfold, however, was not optimistic about a return to his former club. Asked if had received overtures from West Coast, Worsfold joked that he had only been contacted by non-important people like Guy McKenna, who retired last year but was keen to make a comeback. He said McKenna had never been very important so it did not matter.

Richmond ranked last in corporate sponsorship
Richmond is making a concerted effort to lift its sponsorship income following the revelation that the heavily supported club ranks last on the AFL’s sponsorship ladder and 15th of the 16 clubs in football income (not including gaming) last year, despite being one of the AFL’s biggest crowd-pullers.
Figures showed that the Tigers received only $A2.85 million in corporate money, compared with the competition leader West Coast’s whopping $A10.282 million. Sydney was second with $A8.82 million and Brisbane third with $A6.223 million. Essendon and Carlton were fourth and sixth respectively on the sponsorship table, with $A5.97 million and $A5.75 million respectively.
Figures also show that West Coast, Sydney, Essendon and Collingwood generated income of almost $A70 million last year, an average of $A17.26 million. It was almost twice the revenue of four of the poorer clubs in 2000 – St Kilda, Richmond, North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs - who provided a combined total $A9.45 million.
The comparison of club financial results from season 2000 also has Richmond 15th in football revenue, which include all the money clubs generate, apart from gaming and the AFL dividends. The Tigers generated only $A9.19 million, compared with top-ranked West Coast’s $A20.22 million. St Kilda was 16th, with only $A8.11 million and the bottom five clubs - Melbourne ($A10.79m), the Bulldogs ($A10.25m), North Melbourne ($A10.12m), Richmond and St Kilda - were all Victorian. The average club revenue was $A12.8 million.
Remarkably, Richmond received significantly less in corporate sponsorship than the Roos and the Bulldogs who have smaller supporter bases. But the Tigers point out that they are on target to record a handsome profit, probably more than $A300,000 this year.
Richmond chief executive Mark Brayshaw said that the club would be aggressive in improving its sponsorship income, and hoped to add a major “second-tier” sponsorship in the near future to complement its chief sponsor, the Transport Accident Commission.
Brayshaw said Richmond was aware of its market position and was keen to improve its corporate performance. But he said that the Tigers were also a low-cost and reasonably profitable operation. He said Richmond’s corporate revenue was lower than other clubs, but so were its costs and it still made profits (with the exception of last year).

Clubs welcome AFL audit
AFL clubs have agreed to open their books for an audit by the league if they seek financial assistance outside the normal channels. They said they welcomed full disclosure before earning any special financial treatment from the league.
Geelong president Frank Costa has called on the AFL to make a one-off compensation payment, up to $A2 million each, to all clubs, provided they could prove it was not to plug up inadequate management. He said subsidies to clubs without proper administration of the funds could lead to a weakening of the competition.
Richmond president Clinton Casey said clubs seeking assistance should have to prove their responsibility by demonstrating a conservative business plan.

Roos’ pay cut will be one-off, says Miller
North Melbourne chief executive Greg Miller said the surprise pay cuts offered by the club and accepted by the Kangaroos’ top dozen players will be a one-off.
The Roos have lost $A1.14 million last year, yet they have forced the pay cuts on their best 12 players because the club was set to break the salary cap, due to a long list of injuries and milestones, according to Miller.
Two weeks ago the Roos asked the 12, believed to be captain Wayne Carey, David King, Brent Harvey, Anthony Stevens, Glenn Archer, Corey McKernan, Mick Martyn, Leigh Colbert, Shannon Grant, Byron Pickett, Adam Simpson and John Blakey, to agree to the $A10,000 cut for this season only. Carey confirmed on last Thursday night’s Footy Show that the players had been offered a pay cut, and they had accepted the cut.
Miller said on ABC radio that he had been confident the players would be willing to help out the club. He said the club had considered a scaled reduction for the players but had decided that each player had to be treated equally.

Bulldogs’ call to train at Colonial rejected
Western Bulldogs coach Terry Wallace has urged Colonial Stadium CEO Ian Collins to allow the team to train at the venue at least once in the week leading to a home match. Wallace said the Bulldogs only trained at the stadium three or four times a year and they have been hamstrung by stadium management’s refusal to allow more training time, and he believed the team’s poor form can be traced to a lack of training at the venue.
But a Colonial spokeswoman said the ban on training (even though Essendon also trains at the stadium more times than the Bulldogs) was a result of the cost of relaying damaged grass, an expense she said the stadium could ill afford after it was revealed the venue would make a $A40 million operating loss this year.
The Buldogs have a relatively poor record at Colonial since crossing from Optus Oval at the start of last year. They have won just two out of eight home games so far this year (after their two-point loss to Richmond on Friday night) with two remaining.

AFL qualifying finals to clash with athletics Grand Prix
The AFL has acceded to pleas from Athletics Australia (AA) and will factor the IAAF Grand Prix Athletics final, to held in Melbourne’s Olympic Park on Sunday, September 9, into its fixturing plans for the first week of finals series.
The IAAF meeting will attract some of the biggest names in athletics, including Maurice Greene and Marion Jones, and fears were held it might be overshadowed by an AFL final at the neighbouring MCG.
Athletics Australia has received assurances that the AFL would do its best to avoid a clash. In turn, AA has scheduled the meeting from 10.30am to 2.30pm Melbourne time, when an AFL day final normally starts. However, should two Melbourne teams play on that day, AA chief executive Simon Allatson hopes the match would be played at Colonial Stadium.
While there are fears that athletics and Aussie rules could clash, another potential clash has been averted, with confirmation that the one-day cricket series between Australia and India, to be held on the weekend of AFL preliminary finals, had been cancelled. Indian cricket officials wrote to the Australian Cricket Board last week that the team had to withdraw from the series due to a tight schedule. Since then, however, Colonial Stadium CEO Ian Collins wants the ACB to schedule one-day cricket matches at the venue every year for the next four years.

Lyon appointed Australia coach
As expected, former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon has been appointed Australia coach for the International Rules series against Ireland, to be held this October. Lyon replaced Dermott Brereton as coach after Brereton stepped down earlier this month for personal and family reasons.
The appointment was announced at the series launch this week, with Foster’s Lager replacing Coca-Cola as series sponsor. The first Test will be played at the MCG on Friday, October 12 with the second Test to be played at Football Park in Adelaide a week later. It will be the first ever VFL/AFL fixture to be telecast by Channel Nine in nearly 30 years. (For overseas fans, the series will be covered Irish broadcaster RTE, as well as the AFL website.)
The AFL will honour the All-Australian coach by offering him a position on the coaching panel for the Australian team to play England. And the All-Australian selection committee has decided that the premiership coach would continue to be named All-Australian coach.

New sexy player calendar to be launched next week
The AFL’s sexiest stars will be launched on the world stage when the latest “Men for All Seasons” calendar is released next week.
Hawthorn’s Trent Croad is the cover boy for the 9th edition of the calendar, which sells for $A15.95 each. Other players featured include Brownlow medallist Shane Woewodin, Dean Solomon, Scott Camporeale, David Spriggs, Simon Black, Justin Blumfield, Paul Licuria, Russell Robertson, Aaron Hamill, Aaron Lord and Michael Gardiner.
The calendar will be sold overseas after an agent saw it as a potential hit with the British gay market. Photographer Tony Ryan plans to send an initial shipment of 500 to a British distributor and hopes to sell 15,000 in Australia.

Tribunal
Hawthorn star Daniel Chick has been cleared of a charge of rough play against Collingwood’s Brodie Holland. Chick, who was hit high in a marking contest, then charged toward Holland and appeared to drop his knees into Holland’s kick. Tribunal chairman Brian Collis said Chick made a crude tackle, but the player was given the benefit of the doubt as to whether it was rough play.
Chick’s teammate Adrian Cox was suspended for one game for headbutting Magpie Alan Didak. Cox pleaded not guilty, saying he had been attempting to get up into Didak’s ear just to verbally have a go at him when he pushed his upper body and head out quickly, as Didak turned away from him after a scuffle. But umpire Brian Sheehan said he had been only metres away when he saw Cox headbutt Didak to the back of the head, which he described as one of the silly acts because Chick had taken a mark and the game had been won.
Saint Steven Baker was also suspended for one game for striking Bulldog Luke Darcy with an elbow to the stomach.
Essendon defender Dustin Fletcher pleaded guilty to an unusual charge of shaking a goal post during Sunday’s 52-goal epic at the MCG, and accepted an automatic fine of $A600. TV footage shows that, as Roo Jess Sinclair lined up for a goal near the behind post at the Ponsford Stand end in the third quarter, Fletcher was shown to be shaking the right goal post. Fitzroy’s Darren Wheildon was fined $A750 for shaking a goal post when a teammate was having a shot for goal in September 1993.

Saints tackle bullying at schools
The Victorian Government and seven St Kilda players – Aaron Hamill, Brett Voss, Steven Lawrence, Justin Plapp, Barry Hall, Caydn Beetham and Troy Schulze – have formed a new initiative called SAINTS (Saints Addressing Individual Needs Through Schools), which aims to teach children methods of coping with bullying at school.
The pilot program consists of a two-month training program for the footballers, followed by a 6-week stint of weekly classroom sessions with students in grades 5 and 6, then a 12-week review of the program. The pilot program, which will be conducted at eight government and non-government schools during term three (mid-July to mid-September), is designed to draw parallels between aspects of football and school, for example, teamwork and rules and the consequences of breaking them. Those ideas will be dealt with in discussions, classroom activities and role-playing scenarios.
SAINTS was the brainchild of the club’s player manager, Brian Phelan, and when the players said they were keen to take part, the club approached the government with the idea. Hamill said the players are now taking the program seriously.
Launching the program, Victorian Education Minister Mary Delahunty said other clubs could be involved in the program.

The football commentator merry-go-round continues
Anthony Hudson, now at Channel Seven, has indicated he may work for Channel Nine or Ten next year. Hudson may choose to join Ten, with the finals and the opportunity to be chief commentator appealing. After all, he started his media career in Ten’s Melbourne news room, then split his time between Ten and 3AW, before joining 3AW as a full-time commentator in 1996.
Ten is expected to employ Hudson, Michael Christian (from ABC Radio), Peter Daicos (from 3AW) and Stephen Quartermain (Ten’s sports news presenter in Melbourne) as callers, with the expert comments team to be made up of Robert Walls and recently retired players.
ABC’s Tim Lane, who is now in England commentating the Ashes cricket series, is expected to stay with the public broadcaster despite offers from Nine, while his colleague Dwayne Russell is believed to have signed a five-year deal with Nine. Nine is believed to have pushed for Lane’s signature before he left for England two weeks ago, but an ABC edict that Lane and Russell would only be able to work for one media outlet next season is expected to see Lane stay at 3LO. However the edict has somewhat been relaxed, with ABC national sports editor Peter Longman saying the broadcaster is still chatting with Lane and Russell.
Channel Nine has already claimed a big scalp, with Dennis Cometti signing a five-year deal with the network. Cometti, who also reads sports report on Seven’s 6.00pm news in Perth, has covered eight AFL grand finals, three summer Olympics, as well as the 1998 World Swimming Championships (held in Perth) for Seven. He had been at odds with Seven after he was overlooked for the job of hosting Seven’s coverage of England-Australia Ashes cricket series this year (even though he did commentate in Australia’s cricket tour of South Africa in 1998) and at the same time reduce his AFL profile.
Cometti said he was excited at the prospect of being a key member of the new consortium which will broadcast football from next year, however he said that quitting Seven was one of the hardest calles he had ever had to make.
Given Cometti’s high profile in Western Australia, Nine hopes its news service will beat Seven’s in TV ratings for the very first time since the two stations were established 40 years ago, and also boost its own ratings in the state.
Nine could add Seven reporter Craig Hutchinson to its stable, due to his news-breaking abilities. It was Hutchinson who first broke the story on St Kilda’s sacking of Malcolm Blight last week.
Speaking of Blight, Nine, Ten and Foxtel are all chasing for his signing, given he was a commentator for Seven in between his playing/coaching stints at North Melbourne, Geelong, Adelaide and St Kilda.
Foxtel, which is planning to set up a 24-hour, 365-day-a-year footy channel, is expected to employ a smaller staff of possibly three full-time people and utilise personnel from Nine and Ten.
It employs four full-time people and several part-timers for its rugby league coverage.
*Channel Seven has declared that its key football callers are off limits to Foxtel. Seven was responding to speculation that Bruce McAvaney, Dermott Brereton and Dennis Cometti (since signed with Nine) might call AFL on Foxtel next year without breaking their contracts. The station said the trio’s contracts contained an exclusivity clause that would prevent this.

In Brief
*Brisbane captain Michael Voss has signed a three-year, $A2 million deal with the club, meaning he will finish his career with the Lions.
*Reigning Brownlow medallist Shane Woewodin has signed a new three-year deal with Melbourne, ending any speculation he may return to his home state of Western Australia. It is understood the 25-year-old will receive about $A1.4 million for seasons 2002-2004. Woewodin said he started his career with the Demons and wanted to stay in the club.
Demons coach Neale Daniher has verbally agreed to stay at Melbourne for the final year of his contract in 2002. However Jeff Farmer has decided to wait until the season is over before he discusses a new contract, which means he will be able to negotiate as a free agent and openly consider approaches from Fremantle and West Coast.
*Fremantle forward Tony Modra, who retired last week after 165 games with Adelaide and the Dockers and 588 goals, will play one more game, said his manager Max Stevens. Stevens said the 32-year-old will play his last game, a charity game, at the Adelaide Oval on October 1, giving locals the opportunity to bid him farewell. Stevens said the match would be a fundraiser for the Adelaide Royal Children’s Hospital and it would give South Australians a good chance to say goodbye to Modra, because that was never the case when he left Adelaide to go to Fremantle originally.
*The AFL has decided against taking further action into the incident in last Saturday’s match between Hawthorn and Collingwood that left Hawthorn ruckman Brett O’Farrell with a season-ending broken jaw. AFL investigations officer John Coburn has completed an investigation and, following interviews with players and officials from both clubs, Coburn said no further action was deemed necessary. A Notice for Investigation had been lodged by field umpire Bryan Sheehan on Monday after video evidence proved inconclusive.
*Fremantle has enlisted the assistance of John Eales, captain of Australian Wallabies rugby union team, to help the team to win its first match of the season. Eales took time out of Wallabies training section to give a speech to the Dockers’ players on the on-field success of his own team, which has won the World Cup in 1999, Tri-Nations Trophy and Bledisloe Cup (against New Zealand) in 2000.
*Long-serving marketing executive Francis Trainor, who has masterminded one of the football year’s biggest off-field functions - the North Melbourne Grand Final breakfast, has quit Arden Street. However, Roos chairman Andrew Carter has persuaded Trainor, who leaves the club after 15 years (12 years as marketing manager), to remain at the club as a consultant overseeing the breakfast, a series of new functions and major sponsorship renegotiations.
*The Kangaroos are also looking at setting up new headquarters alongside Melbourne’s Colonial Stadium provided the club was allowed to train there each week. They are awaiting a decision from Stadium Operations Limited chief executive Ian Collins. The two other venues being considered by the club are Latrobe University in the city’s north-east, or a refurbished Arden Street.
*Geelong has been fined $A4,000 by the AFL for using a physiotherapist to relay messages to players in the round 14 match against Collingwood.
*Sydney’s lavish new $A5 million player training facility, to be completed by Christmas, would make the Swans a preferred destination for AFL players, according to club officials.
Someone suggested to Sydney coach Rodney Eade that the facility would not attract players from interstate but would also help retain his job. Eade joked that the person was suggesting fantastic view and sipping chardonnay.
*Newly-formed Australian Food Incorporation (AFI) recently joined the AFL as a Consumer Products partner to launch the official AFL potato chips - Cheers Chips.
AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson, who recently joined Victorian Treasurer and Minister for State and Regional Development John Brumby in the official opening of the Cheers Chips manufacturing site at Campbellfield in Melbourne’s north, said the AFL is delighted that AFI has launched a product based on the attraction of being associated with AFL football and the AFL brand, and the league is excited to be contributing to job creation and economic growth through the production of the official AFL potato chips.
Revenue generated from the sale of Cheers Chips will be distributed to all 16 AFL Clubs.
*Essendon’s Mark Mercuri and Blake Caracella have visited the dancers’ training for English National Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet. The players said the ballet’s training program was almost as hard as that of the Bombers. The production, which was held in Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena for three nights last week, was the most spectacular ballet performance ever staged in Australia, with 140 performers, a symphony orchestra, 700 costumes, and a large arena.
*The AFL Players Association has decided to name its annual Most Valuable Player award after a modern champion footballer. Several names have been suggested in the early results from a nationwide players’ poll, including North Melbourne captain Wayne Carey, Brisbane captain Michael Voss and Sydney captain Paul Kelly, plus retired stars like Leigh Matthews, Bob Skilton and Ted Whitten. The MVP award will be renamed in time for the 2002 presentation.
*Western Bulldogs have announced a new minimum three-year sponsorship deal with Liberty Financial. Club members will be offered the company’s range of products to Bulldogs members at reduced prices.
*Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said the Magpies have a responsibility to help battling Victorian clubs, after comments made by his Carlton counterpart that the AFL’s equalisation scheme was a disincentive to wealthier clubs. While McGuire agreed competing clubs should keep gate receipts, he said cash-stricken clubs deserved a greater slice of the revenue from TV rights and the sale of Waverley Park. He said the Pies had already helped prop up other clubs using revenue from blockbusters against Carlton, Essendon and Richmond.
*Collingwood has announced a joint venture with the Moonee Valley Racing Club. Under the venture, Magpies members are admitted to race meetings at Moonee Valley Racecourse free of charge, while MVRC members are entitled to discounts to selected Magpie home games at the MCG.
*Meanwhile, McGuire has been honoured by TV program “This is Your Life”, shown on Thursday night on the network he works for, Channel Nine. McGuire was surprised when he was hosting an episode of “Who wants to be a Millionaire”.

General silliness
*A London newspaper said Gladiator star Russell Crowe was reduced to tears after a team of AFL players blasted his design for a new jersey, saying it made them look like a bunch of fairies.
The Oscar-winning star had been invited to come up with a new green-and-gold strip for his favourite team, the Orara Valley Axemen, the Daily Star reported on Thursday. Crowe took his inspiration from the 1960s but the players hated it.
Friends said Crowe, 37, took the criticism badly. “Russ is tearing his hair out,” an unnamed friend said. “He wanted to play a major role in his favourite team’s success, but he’s made them look like a bunch of fairies.”
*In the past few years, the four TV networks in Australia (Seven, Nine, Ten and the ABC) have pooled the vision of the comings and goings of the AFL tribunal, each taking it on turns of sending a camera crew to the hearings to cut cost. That was until more than two weeks ago when Nine, whose turn it was to cover a series of appeal hearings, decided instead to send that crew in search of Western Bulldogs coach Terry Wallace at the time of his alleged pay dispute with the club. As a result, the other three networks did not get any footage. They are so pissed off by Nine’s act that they have booted Nine out of the pool arrangements and told the network to send its own crew if it wants any tribunal coverage.
*While almost all of Melbourne was spellbound by Sunday’s Essendon-North Melbourne classic, Ten’s Sydney-based Sports Tonight team was a little less impressed. In its 5.30pm edition (shown after the 5pm news), it led its AFL wrap with the Swans’ win over the Crows in Adelaide, relegating what some are saying was the greatest game of all time to second cab of the rank, however the Bombers-Roos game was the first one mentioned in the late edition of the program.
(The move was understandable because Seven only provides AFL footage directly to Nine and the ABC, forcing Ten to rely on its interstate stations to tape the matches played in Melbourne and send the reports back to Sydney.)
*Arriving at work after Malcolm Blight has been sacked as coach, St Kilda communications manager turned on her computer to find 180 emails waiting to be opened, along with dozens of voicemail messages on her three phones.

Did you know?
Last Sunday’s match between Essendon and North Melbourne was the 39th time in VFL/AFL history that a team has kicked 12 goals or more in a quarter but only the second time that that team has then gone to lose. According to statistician Kevin Taylor, the Kangaroos’ first-term avalanche of 12.1 is matched only by Fitzroy which, in round 17, 1983, recovered from a poor start against St Kilda to boot 12.6 in the second quarter but still lost the match by 20 points.
Also, all Essendon players wore green armbands last Sunday to raise concern for the environment, after a request from the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Finally, remember the female goal umpire officiating at the Gabba when the Lions play their home matches? Katrina Pressley made her debut in 1999. Now 30, she is still the ONLY female AFL goal umpire, having stood on both goal ends for more than 20 matches (considering the Lions play 11 home games at the Gabba each year). She recently told a free newspaper in Melbourne about her experience.
“I was at high school and I saw an ad looking for junior umpires. You got paid to do it and when you’re 16 years old that’s shopping money, so I put my hand up to do it. They were looking for goal umpires in the state league (QAFL, now AFL Queensland) so I spoke to the guy in charge, he picked me and I never looked back. The best part is I get to umpire in the top grade of the biggest game in Australia and that’s an awesome feeling. I say get in there and have a go. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
“A lot of the guys were pretty stand-offish to start with. After a year or so I started to get respect. At the time there were a lot of older umpires and now there’s a lot of kids going through. With the players it did not seem to matter as much. A lot of people think that goal umpires don’t do anything. We actually have to do a lot of training. I spend about two-and-a-half hours training once or twice a week in between my regular full-time work as a conveyancing officer at a bank.”

That's all for today. See you soon.

Regards,