Recent news

by Johnson Leung, reporting for AFANA in Melbourne

Schedules for the 2007 AFL premiership season and the pre-season National Australia Bank Cup have been revealed in Melbourne. The main features of next year's regular season are the re-introduction of Sunday twilight games and Rounds 15-22 will not be repeats of Rounds 1-7, meaning some teams will clash twice within seven weeks. The 2007 fixture was compiled using state-of-the-art scheduling software which is also used by the National Football League in the US.

2007 NAB Cup Schedule
2007 AFL Draw (schedule)

Sunday twilight matches, last held in the early 1990s, will be played on every weekend of the home and away season for the first time (23 in total), a move aimed squarely at building the AFL's television audience.

by Johnson Leung, reporting for AFANA in Melbourne

Last month's AFL Grand Final between the Sydney Swans and the West Coast Eagles soared into the list of top ten most popular programs for 2006, with an astonishing 91 per cent of people watching commercial television at that time tuning to the game broadcast on Channel Ten.  The GF attracted an average audience of 3.15 million, with 1.184 million watching in Melbourne, 765,000 in Sydney (23 per cent drop from last year's decider), 330,000 in Brisbane, 326,000 in Adelaide, and a record 550,000 in Perth.

With the peak audience of 3.944 million viewers, the Grand Final is the second highest rating program on Australian television during 2006 (to date),

by Johnson Leung, reporting for AFANA in Melbourne

Overseas footy fans will be able to continue to listen to Saturday afternoon matches on Radio Australia, as part of a new three-year radio rights deal. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international shortwave service will broadcast a combination of first and second choice matches on Saturday afternoons, despite ABC Managing Director Mark Scott's public concerns about the government-funded broadcaster being relegated to a "secondary caller" on Saturday afternoons.

by Lisa Albergo, reporting for AFANA from Chicago 

This year's USAFL tournament was held in Las Vegas, and the games were played on a large field adjacent to the University of Las Vegas. It was warm and sunny all weekend with an intermittent breeze providing a touch of relief from the hot weather. Once again, there were a few Australian celebrities in attendance. The biggest - literally - was none other than Robert "Dipper" DiPierdomenico. With him were former Hawk coach and current Match Review Panel chairman Peter Schwab, as well as Dave Matthews and his colleague Tom, who is in charge of AFLQ.

by Lisa Albergo, reporting for AFANA from Chicago

Trades, Delistings, & Re-Signings

The trading period was conducted from Monday October 9 through October 13 with several big names not unexpectedly finding themselves at new clubs. The biggest names were, of course, Jason Akermanis, Peter Everitt, and Michael Gardiner. Both Akermanis and Everitt got their wish as the Bulldogs (Akermanis) and Sydney (Everitt) successfully negotiated with Brisbane and Hawthorn to obtain the disgruntled duo. And Gardiner has traded in his Eagle wings for a halo as he joins the Saints.

by Lisa Albergo,  reporting for AFANA from Chicago

Ross Lyon has been appointed as the new Senior Coach for the next 3 years. Ross Lyon played 127 games with Fitzroy and 2 games with the Brisbane Bears before his career succumbed to injury in 1995. After his playing days, Lyon worked part time as an assistant to Robert Walls at Richmond (1996-97), focusing on the defense. In 2000, he went to Carlton as an assistant and coached Carlton's VFL side the Northern Bullants. He held that position until 2004, when moved to Sydney to be midfield coach for the Swans. 

by Johnson Leung,reporting for AFANA from Melbourne and Rob de Santos, reporting from the USA

Telstra has signed Australia's biggest "new media" content deal ever with the AFL, paying A$60 million over five years for the exclusive right to show match footage on mobile phones and the Internet.   This likely means increased costs for North American subscribers to the AFL web site. 

The deal was announced as part of Telstra's major strategy update and the start of a major expansion of high speed Internet access in Australia.    Telstra's BigPond internet service will offer customers (including presumably viewers outside Australia) full match video replays 12 hours after the final siren, instead of 24 hours after the game currently. 

by Lisa reporting for AFANA from Chicago

As well as the Brownlow Medal, there have been a number of other pre- and post- Grand Final Awards presented. Several clubs have also announced their best and fairest awards. One of the biggest, of course, is the Norm Smith Medal which is presented to the best on ground in the Grand Final. This year it was won by Eagle Andrew Embley. Below is a breakdown of the votes:

NORM SMITH MEDAL VOTES

By Barry Kennedy, AFANA Reporter in Melbourne, reporting from the MCG

Yesterday's mesmerizing festival of football at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), with the reversal of the result, went into another realm and did what few Hollywood films ever do - the sequel was far better than the original.

Headlines in sports pages this year, particularly in Melbourne, have lamented the AFL style of play going ugly and the interstate dominance as a threat to the game. West Coast yesterday obliterated those arguments with a pulsating running game and third Premiership while their opponents, Sydney, proved the bravest of opponents in a Grand Final for the ages. It's taken forty years for another Grand Final to be settled by the lowest of margins (not counting the draw between North Melbourne and Collingwood in 1977), it may take a century for two sides to be this evenly matched again.