The AFL gets its man, one of the games most respected and trusted administrators, leaves the reigning premier to answer the call of GD.
The plight of the Swan's laid bare in an unacceptable home capitulation, or the Hawks are showing to be miles off in another exposing loss.
And privileged access.
On Coaches Nights, Matthew Nicks.
And Chris Fagan come together ahead of their high powered clash on a feature Friday Nights.
We talked about is a step into it, embrace all.
Of it in the room and rentin.
It's unedifying for a senior coach to do that.
They're on the side of Courtia with the brain tape.
The man on they played the best footy I've ever seen at the start of the season, and said the president left the couple order said he, of course they do.
Is the stuff that legends are made of. What is holding the ball? I don't think I could answer it clearly right now that I can do something.
Wrong, you know, And I need to get and the board SEXU the fans lover and with no fans no through sixty year old.
It's winter and round twelve has us halfway through the home and away season games.
Right, Jo, it occurred to me having way too much funny with you. I had a lot of fun on the weekend, some good games if we need to talk about. And there's a couple just under the pump.
You said there was seven games, so the spotlight was a bit narrower and you didn't want to be as it turned out, Sydney or hawthor exactly.
And we got a much better game than.
We thought we were going to get Thursday night, so up until then Brisbane would take care of incident. But that was a magnificent match, and then we saw Friday night, and we're about to talk about.
It all right, we'll delve deep.
Here's what we've got lined up for you tonight and for the remainder of the week. So Chris Fagan and Matthew next join us as we look back on the events of round twelve and then Jack revolted guide the Couch team through Howard all unfolded and what it means for what's to come. Jordan Lewis, Jonathan Brown and Nathan Buckley Tomorrow night. We're super excited to bring this pairing to players night. Darcy and Harry McKay here at the desk together for all.
Their life experiences.
The president of the Players Association for Harry's journey this year, so it'll be splendid to have.
It's a colectic group there with Rags bringing up the rear and.
He's bringing the chicken wings tomorrow night too, and only Premiership coaches need to apply. On Wednesday night, John Longmire and Adam Simpson together Simon Goodwin ahead of the King's Birthday encounter and we will reveal our slider for Big
Freeze Slider number eight SCAZ. Every Monday night starts with the ording of the GVPS the most valuable players from the previous round in the estimation of just one man, Gary Lyon, and the prize is the most sought after and the richest end footing ninety three thousand dollars worth of automobile. The Ford Mustang GT Fastback, iconic design, unreal performance fively that the a engine and it goes like a dream around Albert.
Park, goes like the Clappitts Jared, that's what he say.
I had some engagement with some current day players about this car, and I'm not suggesting that they're looking for any favorable treatment but it is very very well much after so to Bailey Smith and Marcus Windhager and Alex Neil Bullen and Shoe Bolton, I'm sorry.
I couldn't get him into it.
That's a high bar.
I've only got three to give.
So Jamie Ellett continues on his merry way and I put a bit of a rating on the game Friday Night Footy at the mcg Hawthorne, big build up.
And he's kicked five again.
So he's gone five to five, one sixth in his last month in an era of footy or a time of football where key Fords don't kick bags are five and six and he's done it three in the last four weeks.
Thod He is just magnificent.
Got the whole Collingwood Football Club with magnificent and he's finishing off their good work. So he's had a fantastic month Jamie Ellett. So this is just he's going to go right. When he went left, Jack Scrimshaw bought it and he turned around his flomer.
So his career numbers, he's going to smash his career bests in the season that he's putting together.
So what a.
Time Australian Blazer awaits two votes to Hugh mclugg each first time I've given you votes. This is how hard it is to get votes in this magnificent award. But he couldn't deny him and I ended up having forty touches. I didn't look at that until this morning actually, but he just his influence on the game as it unfolded and it got a bit.
Of Harry Yes.
So for the reigning premiers, they needed someone to step up, and he's doing this more and more regularly.
Jaredy does it.
You know, we talk about Australia and if Jamie Elliot's in the right there and then this man surely he's right there. He's having an outstanding season. He's so reliable, so dependable, so clean and consistent.
I love the way it goes about.
It shining all right.
So we've got a Ford, a midfielder.
And Tellum rookie. There he goes.
So this is what was half Marcus Windhage because the job he didn't pick it was outstanding. But by the end of the game you just couldn't go past cal Wilkie. And then people have been lauding him for a long time. You got recognized as an Australian, which outstanding. We talked about it at the start of the year with Spud's game and how dependent he dependable he's become.
Well. In the end he was so good the Melbourne just kicking it to him. He just drew Melbourne's kicks to it. And this is all in the.
Last quarterby when he was half a smith. He just said nap, not on my watch. And he's a joy to watch. I love the way he plays. He doesn't get beaten. He plays on whoever comes his way, and he is worthy thirty one touches and fifty marks.
So there they are, all right.
So this is how looks at the moment.
Patrick Dangerfield nine votes, Toby Green sixty side, the chasing Brigade, steel Side, Waterman, Cozy Pickets and then the cluster at three. All right, let's get into a top of the agenda, the first of two plumb rolls that the AFL has been filled the league bringing home Brisbane Lions chief executive Greg swan to lead footing.
Been a CEO for twenty six years, so I won't Yeah, I'm going probably the mothership, I've said into the AFL.
After all this time.
So, but you're looking forward to that heading back to Melbourne obviously probably.
Yeah, there's a few reasons for it.
There's little bit of family reasons, but yeah, it's probably a great, a good challenge for me at this stage of my career.
Look, we had a number of conversations, but I knew that Greg's achieved so much at Brisbane and he was and I knew there was a longing to be home at Melbourne at some stage, so the time he was right. And I think Greg will be a great addition to the AFL footy department and to the AFL executive too well.
I think what Greek does bring his amazing experience within the AFL and he'll have a lot of autonomy to make changes that he sees fit and he'll be able to draw on all of his experience when he's doing that.
Yeah, since we've been in this premises, we've played in five Grand finals in a row. You know, it's been amazing what's happened in this in the last little bit. And just really proud of the footy program and then everybody else that supports it.
Huge announcement. Greg'swan a very experienced man. Ben Big clubs Collingwood and Carlton, ben at in the state clubs when they've been on the bottom and taken them to the top.
Jared, So I don't play in this space.
It was a surprise when I heard his name mentioned as the nominee to be Did they get it right with you?
Surprised?
This has widely been viewed across the foot or world. Is a coup and a coup it is.
This is a job that needed experience and needed some heft and he brings that just in the very announcement of his name. So what he is the classic. What he doesn't know about footall is not worth knowing. You rightly point out the vast array of experience. So if there has been a disconnect between headquarters and clubland, well nobody represents continuity and clubland like Greg swan is Carlton and Collingwood, so two of the big clubs in Melbourne
and then the Brisbane lines. It's worth recounting his journey at Brisbane. So was the AFL that asked him to go in twenty fourteen when the northern outpost was hemorrhaging and in every way financially on the field, player attention so he went and stabilized it. Then the biggest appointment that he makes is Chris Fagin and the true genius of that player attention he rectifies and then makes them attractive to go to.
So he starts to attract players up there.
They become financially sound and then affluent. He plays a huge role in securing the future for the lines at Victoria Park, wrangling throughout the Olympics, the need to get out of the Gabba, which had reached its use by date, and before he finishes his won premierships in the men's and the women's.
Like that is a job spectacular.
They're done, and now the AFL asks him to come home at a time of need. A time of need around umpiring, around the judicial system, around the laws of the game, the day to day operations are footing in the relationships with clubs. So it is his wheelhouse when his name was floated together. Okay, so the triumvirate is going to look like Andrew Dillon a chief executive, Greg's won and another chief executive. They will either be Tom
Harley and Meat Bains or Simon Garley. What a powerful triangle that is to drive the game.
For Yeah, and clubs have been screaming out for experience in an AFL house. So the other thing he's got is he's got an undeniably good relationship with media. Now how big a fact that that is. It's down the list, but he has developed great relationships within powerful media figures, and I think it's going to help sell this this next phase for the AFL.
He's a straight talker, Yeah, he will answer the question.
He's a real good bloke.
So I don't know if the good bloke factor comes into it, but I guess at age sixty three, I.
Thought, well, he's up there. I'm not starting.
It's a cushy job because what you just pointed out is an outstanding role call of what he's done. But to get up and come back, and I know he's got family and grandchildren to come and bring back and throw himself into a big, big job.
It surprised me a bit, but I'm really excited.
What a servant of the game.
So we already had the life membership and now probably his last job in the industry is going to be an immense one inside the Mothership.
When will the other announcement be made.
By probably in a week inside a week. I think the determination is to have it all done before the Hall of Fame dinner, which is next Tuesday night, and the meetings that happen around that.
And you have a leaning, you have a suspicion.
No, I don't want to say that. I do as there's clearly a push for Tom Harley. I don't think they can miss. I think they're three excellent candidates, Harley, Bans and Garlic. So whatever suits Dylan as his right hand man. It feels like this one is a very personal choice and then these three can drive.
In a big five or six days.
Oh yeah.
And the response I think, I think it has most people in footage just nodding their head saying, okay, now we're getting where we need.
Them, desperately needed and decisive, decisive in a way that hadn't been coming out of the headquarters for a while. On the field, it was impossible to miss the horror show that was the Sydney Swans on Saturday nights, and in that just how far a powerhouse of a team has fallen.
The home team have been absolutely slows.
We're now starting to see holes everywhere.
The real Swan, the real Swans, they played in the Grand Final last year.
I understand the grand final team. I'm telling you there, but look at bottom four team. They are at bottom four team, bottom four teable, They're not well well.
It was unacceptable and embarrassing. Embarrassing.
Humiliation lies with the home team.
I have so many questions to answer in the season. I didn't expect that. You know, I'm such a massive night for the footy club. When you have a twenty year reunion, you know, for a team that played desperate, uncompromising, ruthless football, and that was that far from it. So when it is, drew it back and get to work real quick. Everyone.
I hate seeing a coach like that.
Just down and his answers are obvious.
We're not working out enough.
Don't underestimate the fallout of the two Grand final losses.
I think that one hundred sent there with his scars.
Well, are going to fight our way through this, the everyone that's involved at the footy club, and there's going to be no easy way through it. So I said to them, we expect, expect some tough sessions that'll happen.
You were there for the full gory show. Just how shocking was it.
It was a galling night to what it was.
So they kicked the first goal of the game and it went into sort of arm wrestle phase for about ten minutes, and I said, okay, both teams are up for it. And then they the Adelai Crows, kicked another two. And then you realize that this Sydney Swans team can't score and this Satelade team defends so well, and all of a sudden, the four goals just was gaping, and almost as it occurred to ours as a commentary, I think it occurred to the playing group as it unfollowed.
They thought this side that hard to score against, and we're already four down, and then all of a sudden it was twelve hours the goals and I'm down on the ground, you know, to get ready to do the halftime and the two thousand and five premiership team have
been presented, and it just occurred to us. There was a time Jared in the second quarter where Sydney kicked the point and the crowd started clapping, and how don't I look at each other and John oh, is that a special acknowledgment maybe of this, but it was just them getting little bronxed. I guess it's the best way to describe it. So it was a really dark night for the footy club on the back of all the things the boys had just talked about there as a premiers,
as a Grand Final team, they've dropped right away. So it doesn't look modern, and the makeup of the team doesn't look modern, and it was just a procession in the end.
So there's the mechanics, and then there's the intangibles. Where are you inclined to lean at the moment?
It's all of it, mechanics, intangibles and personnel, and the personnel that's missing is that the personnel they can least afford to miss. And I'm talking about Papley and Golden as being spirit and energy tights, but also class.
But the rest of it's just dropped away.
The intangibles is the spirit, it's the commitment, it's the heart, is walking off the ground with looking at each other. And then you know you have the situation where in opposition play. I have no problem with Waye Miller saying that they were a rebel, because they were. We'll talk
about that further when Matthew Nix joins us. So all those things are real, and then You've got the other thing, which we put on your gender last week, that we've been generous and kind to Sydney in terms of the succession plan because they've had good success, great success, premiership success with it. So we go, okay, they know what they're doing. But now to justifiably Dean Cox's rolling all this will be questioned. And that's the big That's what
happens when you're sitting in the big chair. And now Coxy would be feeling that right now. It's not sitting next to the horse and letting him front up. He's got to front up and find a way. I'm not sure bringing the mouthguard is going to fix it.
So he's been hard and uncompromising. He has been blunts at each stage where they've had these performances, and that was the.
Worst of it. What if that's not what's required at the moment.
If it is the emotional exp bows are all healing, and that this is the one moment in time where working harder is not going to be the answer.
It would be the bravest of brave twelve game coaches who then sat down and just threw his arms and throat and started the love in and if that's the alternative you're talking about, is it the mouthguards? You know, let's get some pain and work our way through it, or now let's sit down and talk about our feelings. And that might be what's theyd jo, But she used to be a brave path to take for Dean Cox. I suspect it's more than that. I suspect it's more
than that. And yeah, there's a whole little undercurrency this. As I was watching that unfolded and in the coach's box, callerm Mills are sitting in the back row as the captain of this football club come back for a week and got himself reported and sat out and had to watch that again. It's a pretty hard he would be feeling guilty, I would imagine right now. Call Mills. So, we love this footy club. We've all admired them, but they are, excuse me, like lots of clubs have been
in the last ten twenty years. They're in a deep hole and it was embarrassing and it is embarrassing and now it's up to them to do something about it.
All right, not as deep a hole, but a bit of the varnish coming off the Hawks, who were one of the spruit teams coming into the season thrilling last year and now living the journey.
Of the high Riser that then meets the plateau.
So what's the message to the players after that one?
How's more just ask them actually just have a bit of a discussion around let it all out. What's going on and where you're at, and where are we're at and what do you think? And I think it was pretty clear to everyone that was here and knows watching it home that you know.
Where at this point miles off it, where do you think the players are at? And like you ask them what's going on? Like, where do you think they're at?
I don't understand the question. Where do I think they're at? We just got beaten by ten goals, so that's where they are up with sandwich just a bad night. I mean, I think you're always assessing where you're at and what we what we've known is we're not We're not the best in it, and that's what we want to be. That was a that was a pretty big reality check for what the best looked like at this stage of the season.
Seven and five.
Two big clashes to come. How did you leave Friday Nights.
Oh no, they got a belting.
I think the team that belted them are very very good, but they've got a belting. And it's the reality is they haven't achieved anything this side, and now we sit there and go, okay, do you understand that as a playing group, because I know the coach does.
I absolutely do, But I don't.
They enjoyed this, as I said, a ten to finish to the year, won the first final, just got mudded, right, So they spent a summer of heaped praise and then they won their first four games of this year. So I got no doubt in their mindset that they are here we go sort of thing, as opposed to here we go and let's let's get to work.
But I think it was more here we go, you understand.
So when the pressure came, I just thought the club itself didn't. They just seemed edgy unnecessarily in the lead up to that game on Friday night. Maybe I'm reading a bit into it, but as I said to you, there were seven games Brisbane Esident. Every Yeah, the game was great as it turned out, but everyone's going, oh well, Essident injured, and so the focus rightly went on that game and the criticism. So then they get critiqued. When you're a big game like that, you get pulled apart.
And then some of it's positive, some of its negative. James Sisley, you know this rubbish about there's been a pile on James Sisley.
Turn it up. So and then the footy.
Manage that comes out, right, Rob McCarthy, I don't actually wear did you give this the you might give relpie on Friday Night? So the quote was I think we've got the quote there. Ye, I was going to have to put my glasses on. I will, He says, there it is. I can't be more emphatic. This is about some of the criticism veiled or not of James. Is there anyone would question is? Of course his leadership can be questioned. That's footy, right, It couldn't be further from
the truth. That's okay too, that's your opinion. You're the manager. You'ren't going to say anything else. But then to say his leadership is in question, that is bullshit. And you can quote me on that. When I read that, they get unnecessarily wound up here and you know, when they're going beautifully and that tend to win and they're four zip and the love's been the media is no one, no gm of the foot.
He's coming out and go yeah, yay, you blugs, come on. Back off our boys a bit.
You know, they're not that good, but when a little bit of heat and pressure comes on, So that was to me, that was kind of the mindset going in. And then they got punched in the nose and they couldn't you know. Sam was a bit his press conference, this is what And then they didn't tackle the week before, so all of sudden, we think this is just going to be a tackle fest and they got more of
the same. So yeah, they're going to get more heat and they'll probably get crankier, but that's not going to do you any good.
No, the critique has been reasonable, and as it turns out, it's been accurate.
Well that's the other thing.
Well, all of the build up to it, you know, it was really no one was saying what did Sam say?
And every one thinks we can't play We're going to win again.
So I know that, yeah, it's in the margins, but I did get a mindset that they felt like they were under siege when they weren't under siege. They're just getting good old fashioned critique.
What's happening on the ground is fascinating. So hot boar was a fad, and it was last year's fad, and our teams are not simply not allowing them to play in that way anymore. They've been scouted and respected as a top team. They haven't made the adjustment to that, and we haven't seen what they're going to be next. So they're not what they were and they're not what they're going to be. And this is the most painful period where you don't look like anything at the moment.
It's a great point, Jared, And you know what they're not prepared to do on the basis of the last two weeks is get their hands dirty and put their head the hull and go and tackle someone. So that's a pretty clear message. Sam's already said at once the response was negligible, So you're right, we don't know what the response is, but right now the response is not get to work and work hard. So let's see their
flud lines all over the shop. They've introduced two prize recruits into their back half, but you wonder whether it's starming some of the run and there and all that sort of stuff.
So it's pretty good. It makes for a great Thursday night.
Yeah, so the Dogs and Adelaide their next to the biggest winner of the weekend felt like Fremantle. So I was watching this with your words ringing in my ears after the Security loss. You laid out the idea of footy broke. When you invest in your performance, you win, and you take it all out and then you come to the next one rather than reinvesting and rolling and going from one to the next to the next. Each game is not an isolated incident, and each win is not.
They've had four good weeks and now three good wins, two of those on the roads, and they were.
Just all in.
From the Bolton tackle to long Ear in the box, they were all in and it just felt to me like they've had the epiphany.
Yeah, and the people from week to week to week.
And the post game looked like it as well. He was the animated Justin Longo. So yeah, the winning, the story, this is what I loved here. So the wins are just an investment on where you want to get to. You don't go and cash out, just you leave it in and it becomes compounding interest.
That was the phrase I couldn't get out last time.
Talking about this, So let a compound and they've done exactly that. They've lost against Collingwood competitively, and then they beat the Giants, but they didn't take all the money out here and they just said not let it go. Got some interest with Port, got some more interests with the Sons, and now they're looking at a nice solid investment. So I loved it. I love their leaders. Their leaders were the best players.
Again.
Five comes back in Clark. Clark keeps having a fantastic year. So they've got not the double looking this far ahead by the way, they've got the bar. And then they got North on North home game, which happens to be in Perth and Essen and Kilda. That's for us to look at and say, that's three winnable games for them. It's North and nothing else.
Yep.
So get to your ten wins and they don't fumble it like last year.
Exactly right.
And the emotionally wrought aspect of the weekend was what surrounded callum Wards, which was which was tough viewing and it's everything that was feared at the time, and in all likelihood the game's record holder at the Giants.
His career is over.
He's an athletic customer.
The hands and backs that one.
Ward get another look at that, but that doesn't look good the way that.
He's holding that knee.
Who gets gens in due course, but it doesn't great.
So you obviously incredibly disappointing for a fooday club, such an important person, important player.
When he goes for the tackle, he grabs the right knee, it doesn't look great. And when you hold it at the back, and I can tell you that's the feeling you get and I don't want to be the profit of the doom. That's where you grab when your acls.
In all sorts, very emotional scenes and you obviously just seeing there Locky with two of you by hog water think he knows how are you feeling? What's the diagnosis at the moment.
I'm not sure officially that but it feels like about it on like a c L initially probably be in shockground found out there's a lot worse going on the met is.
It in the marketing contest or when the ball hit the ground ren for the tackle in the In the.
Tackle there's just a change direction like a typical ACL. He's a fantastic clubman.
He sees the game really.
Well and there's no doubt that he'll add value in whatever he does. It's just won't be on the field, unfortunately.
I couldn't but feel that little way that cal Warts giving the crowd maybe more symbolic than he's like.
A you Joe.
The coverage was raw and exceptional, from the wave of the crowd, the tears, the kiss from Locky Whitfield and then the three quarter time address. He's met with the surgeon today and is the ACL. So he committed himself to this being his last season. Had left the family back in Melbourne for one last tilt at it and his eighteenth season three hundred and twenty seven games four with the Dogs, where he was a much loved figure.
He's been a cornerstone of what the Giants have been.
Yeah, we'll leave it for him to make any announcement, obviously, but whatever happens he retire, well, when his time comes, he will be remembered as one of the most respected players of the last ten or twenty years. And I don't think there's anything better than the retire with that sort of monicat so all you want in add your career is to say I did everything I possibly could to get the best of myself and to get my team to be as good as they can be. And
he's the embodiment and the epitome of that. So beyond that, I got no other words. I was heartbreaking like everyone else. So and what he.
Meant to his teammates that was three quarter time, wasn't it. He speaks to them and they show it.
It's everything that Sydney didn't do. So Sidney had their two thousand and five heroes in front of them, Jared and looked at them.
And then went out on the ground and gave up twelve goals.
They look at Callum wore at three quarter times staring down the barrel of the was it I don't know what the margin was? And they responded and walked off with a win. They're the two polar opposites. One's respecting your heroes and one's not.
It was for the misty eyed sentimentalists, that's for sure, all right. Our coaches are about to join us, Chris Fagan and Matthew Knicks, so the Lions are.
In the top two.
Matthew Knicks has got his Crow's pair, And so when they meet they sit two and three on the ladder. Oh, come Friday nights, just looking at me.