AFL Grand Final: Half-time Legends

  It’s half-time in the big one. The game’s a bottler. We’re all happy little Vegemites, excited, hairy, overgrown children, bundling out of Roland’s beat-up Grand Final shed to piss, fire up the barbie, wince at daylight, and kick the footy. “You in it, Dippa?” I ask. No idea how he got the nickname, he [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 29: Full-Backs

It’s late. I’m all over the road like a goddamn zombie. My left wheel keeps hitting the gravel, I’m constantly falling asleep. I can’t even remember where I’m heading. A central Queensland mining town, I think.

Off Season Odyssey – Part 28: Starting Late

Starting Late. If.   If this Off Season lasted forever I’d hang around at each town, each truck stop and city, until I really got to know the people, the place. I’d stay until that person who I was sure, given time, would be a good mate, became a good mate. If time could be [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 27: Gods, AFL Footballers and Human Beings

    The Gold Coast is L.A. with cane toads. A paradise they’ve layered a blanket of bitumen over, then pinned down with big boats and shopping centres. It oozes money and ex-Victorians. At its heart is Broadbeach. A wonderland of towering, round-edged, honeycomb apartments, swimming around a sea of top dollar restaurants. There are [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 26: Bread and Sports

Somehow, while heading towards work on the Gold Coast, the ute stops at a pub.    Well, I never! How could it not? The town is high in the mountains, full of trees and old school buildings, which make it look much smaller, more forgotten than it is, in good ways. The pub’s the St.Kilda [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 25: What Makes a Champion?

Matt Zurbo reaches Tamworth, and catches up with Greg Champion.

AFL Grand Final: Betting on O’Keefe

    Roland and I are walking through our small town between bouts of sideways rain, doing it easy. I’ve just cut a load of wood to pay for my grog over the Grand Final weekend. We slip into the tavern to be warm for the length of a lazy traveller. “Give me your iThingie,” [Read more]

AFL Grand Final: Let There Be Football

  Right now it’s past midnight. Tomorrow. Saturday. Grand-damn-Final day! Praise be and hallelujah Grand! Final! When jets play on jets. Champions are put on Champions. Redemption stories are put on redemption stories. One tale to be confirmed, etched in stone. The other to be shattered and fade like false dawns. I’ve said it before, [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 24: Addictions

    Jesse’s Aboriginal. Light, like his Mum, who he grew up with down south, in the bush where I’m from. He’s gone to work with his Dad, who is full-blood, on the Central NSW Coast. It’s been ages and is great to see him. He’s nineteen now, but, due to his height, still looks [Read more]

AFL Preliminary Finals – Sydney v Collingwood: Revenge, Redemption and Jetta

    It’s been a huge fortnight. September, surely, is Christmas for footyheads. A whole month of it, longer than we get for holidays. I’ve been to the mainland, watched the game’s oldest, greatest rivals, Port Melbourne and Williamstown slog it out in a VFL Semi, at a ground where you could sit or stand [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 23: Spent… Cooked…Content

Off-season Odyssey Pt. 23 Leo Barry was a good player, no doubt. 200-odd games for the Swans. A struggling forward, and honest backman. A ripper full-back! With nothing more than the build of a flanker. He’s smaller than me, for Christ’s sake! Had it over Gehrig. Knew Fev was a confidence player, so whacked into [Read more]

The Brownlow Medal: Brownlow Thoughts?

Brownlow Thoughts?   Well done Jobe! You are a jet! A superstar! All those other fancy words. A Brownlow winner! A Brownlow! Hell, yeah. And, I thought, a damn worthy one! I loved watching you play this year, your hardness. Your want! Geez, you have want! And you seem like a top bloke! Anyone else [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 22: Unnoticed Echoes

    The day’s been perfect. Lost and perfect. I have money in pocket, hard work behind me. There’s only five clouds in the sky. Each one worn by a mountain range, making their own weather. The town is perfect, to look at, anyway. To drive through. To drink at. Walking into the pub, surrounded [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 20: Empty Bars and Back Pocket Legends

  Empty Bars and Back Pocket Legends.       The hotel hangs over a winding road that cuts down into town. Above its door is a sign that says Top Pub, simple and honest. I’ve been on the road for ten hours and slouch over my beer as if it’s a lead-lined magnet.    [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 19: Blood

    Uncle Les is dying. It’s not right. I have such vivid memories of him being so damn imposing. So solid. All Hungarian, with that slicked back hair, the angular face, barrel chest. That way. Straight down the line. Now he’s skin and bone, there nothing there. He sits opposite me in his house [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 18: Running In Cathy Freeman’s Steps

    It’s grey when I get to Canberra. I’ve been to dot-towns all over the country, found teammates and ex-teammates underground and in cities, yet not one of them lives here. Not that I know of. I wonder what that says about us – me and the Grey City? I have a kick with [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 17: Nowhere Rugby

  I’m driving through some town in NSW. I’ve well lost count of names and details. It looks like a beaut. Rural. No coast for miles. Nothing but giant waves of mountains. They’re everywhere, weaving into and out of horizons. The people in this place are different to those on the coast. They live here, [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 16: Not Every Club Is Roses

Off Season Odyssey Pt.16.   Not every Club is Roses.   The plan is simple. Vaguely bounce through Kingston, S.A., then wobble towards Gypsy Point, somewhere on the other side of the ranges, where there’s work on the coast. About two days away, give or take. But there’s a beaut pub just off the highway, [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 15: The World is Round

  The World Is Round.   The world is round. Drive far enough through any desert and you’ll find a river, or the ocean. I wake up beside what I later figure is the Wimmera River. A superb, muddy thing with no rush to it. The trout let me know they’re there, and I swim [Read more]

Off Season Odyssey – Part 12: Aussie Humour

AUSSIE HUMOUR.   “No tribal colours,” the bouncer tells me, holding his hand out. We both look at the North jumper I’m wearing. “It’s okay, he’s with the band,” Gav says. “I know the band,” the bouncer says. He’s from Warrnambool. So are the Monaros. Like the King and Queen are from England, and David Boon [Read more]