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If you want to see the best football code in the world, you have to visit Australia in April-September. Port Melbourne footballer Maddy “Maddawg” Patterson was a tree planter but now she’s a sparky. (Electrician.) Her focus and concentration on the game and on her team is cool, calm, poised and beautiful. And what is it on the field that drives Maddawg’s commitment to her club and her nation’s native game? It’s wonderful goals like this sublimely skilled evasion of opponents by teammate Kaitlyn O’Keefe.

Since I first started following Aussie Rules footy at the age of 9 in 1967, the qualities I have most loved seeing are courage at the contest and skill, speed and flair. Outstanding players I have seen in this regard are Barry Price, Keith Greig, Robbie Flower, Barry Cable, Garry Ablett Senior, Eddie Betts, The Krakouer brothers and the current Number 5 of the North Melbourne Kangaroos AFLW team, Tess Craven. As a human being Tess is modest, kind, friendly and helpful and always puts her team ahead of herself. The strength, skill and determination she shows above in tackling...

Women are rising in western society in all spheres of life. In the picture above North Melbourne defender and co-vice captian Nicole "Flash" Bresnehan points her fellow players to move forward attacking the goal. If the rise in women means a rise in misandry, then men should be very very concerned. But if it means better sharing and caring, we will all be better off. And when it means that football is becoming more beautiful, more collaborative and more impassioned, then I love seeing the shared leadership of women like Flash.

I love watching women’s football (Australian Rules). It provides a better spectacle and healthier community than the men’s game. Watch the strength, agility and quick thinking of number 22 from Aberfeldie as an example of how good the women’s game can be to watch. (click link to see video) With a fantastic tackle she dispossesses a powerfully built Hillside opponent of the football, and then gets to her feet and brilliantly anticipates the trajectory of a handpass from another Hillside player to knock the ball behind an opponent and run around that player to possession for her team and race...

For people like me, the Australia I was born into, was a meritocracy where one wage could get a family a home. Times have changed. The forty hour week is gone for far too many people. But endeavour still inspires me. Youth brings me hope. As in my above poeticised image from a Maribyrnong Park Football Club match last Saturday. Today we need them to be lions. Reminds me of Shakespeare: “To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms...

I have been watching Aussie Rules Footy seriously since 1967. It astonishes me now just how much fun it can be to watch local football. I cannot remember seeing more scintillating evasion of tackles in any code of football at any level than the play of number 68 for North Footscray in yesterday’s game against Wyndham Vale. First of all a “Don’t Argue.” (the act of fending a player off with an outstretched arm) when not in possession of the ball. Then four blind turns in four seconds. 180 degrees clockwise. 90 degrees clockwise. 90 degrees clockwise again.. Then 90...

On this day two years ago I satirically declared Melbourne, Australia’s sporting capitol, dead. I did that because stupid lockdowns deprived Melbourne of the Australian Rules Grand Final in the birthplace of the game. The ridiculous banning and incarceration of Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open tennis tournament last year strengthened that assertion. But the sheer love of sport in the hearts of the Australian people, especially Melburnians, might offer some consolations. I write this post a couple of hours before the count in the Brownlow Medal, the most prestigious individual award in Australian football. In this award, the umpires...

Star Collingwood forward Brody Mihocek yesterday kicked one of the most amazing goals in the history of the game of Australian Rules football. But a commentator who used to play for Collingwood, but has recently been on the wrong end of a social media pile-on for alleged pro-Collingwood bias, now seems negligent in not focussing on how good the goal was. A goal is achieved in Australian Rules Football if the ball passes between the two tallest goalposts and the last part of any players body to touch the ball is the foot of a player from the attacking team....

PRIME Minister John Howard said he has concerns national football finals could be terrorist targets. But Mr Howard said there was no evidence any terrorist attack could occur. The AFL Grand Final between Sydney and West Coast will be played at Melbourne's MCG tomorrow, while fans will also pack Sydney's Telstra Stadium for the NRL final between Melbourne and Brisbane on Sunday. "Like everybody else I worry about the potential (for a terrorist attack on the football finals), and I hope and pray nothing happens," Mr Howard told Southern Cross Radio today. "I don't believe it will. I know all...

IT is looming as the sports fan's ultimate dilemma: the Grand Prix revving up or the footy kicking off? For the first time, two of Victoria's glamour events will collide this weekend in a major sporting feast. Melbourne will live up to its status as the nation's sporting capital when the two major events go head to head. The AFL season begins tonight when West Coast hosts St Kilda at Subiaco Oval, while the first day of high octane action rings around Albert Park. Tomorrow night Richmond clashes with the Western Bulldogs at Telstra Dome, hours after the world's fastest...

THE Swans and Kangaroos could be playing for million-dollar American football contracts on Monday. The Sydney-Kangaroos exhibition match here is primarily to give US sports fans a taste of the AFL but, in the wake of Ben Graham's stunning debut season with the New York Jets, NFL scouts are expected to attend. The match will be held at the University of California (UCLA), home to the country's glamour college American football team, the UCLA Bruins. Members of the UCLA coaching staff will also be taking a look at potential recruits. "Sure, we're interested in looking at these guys," UCLA director...