GWS could get draft penalties in 2017 over Whitfield case
AFL remains determined to penalise Greater Western Sydney for conduct unbecoming over the Lachie Whitfield affair but could now defer draft penalties until 2017.
Caroline Wilson has been chief football writer for The Age since 1999. She was the first woman to cover Australian Rules football on a full-time basis and the first woman to win the AFL's gold media award. She has won the AFL Players' Association's football writer of the year (1999) and the AFL Media Association's most outstanding football writer and most outstanding feature writer (2000, 2003, 2005). In 2014 she won the Melbourne Press Club's Graham Perkin award as Australian journalist of the year. She also won a MPC Quill Award in 2003.
AFL remains determined to penalise Greater Western Sydney for conduct unbecoming over the Lachie Whitfield affair but could now defer draft penalties until 2017.
Even allowing for the appropriate sensitivity afforded Essendon's devastated Jobe Watson, the inescapable impression is that the AFL has danced around the practical details of how to manage the handover to Sam Mitchell and Trent Cotchin.
If behaviours within Australian sport and particularly football mirror the behaviours of society, Â then clearly we are a most forgiving nation.
The resignation of another long-serving Richmond board member and the club's move to legislate against dead wood directorships should be seen as a victory for those challengers to the club who have been portrayed in recent months as the lunatic fringe of AFL supporters.
Even on the day that the AFL hoped to have finally shut the book on the Essendon drug scandal and awarded retrospective Brownlow Medals to Sam Mitchell and Trent Cotchin, the other drug saga involving Greater Western Sydney's Lachie Whitfield, Graeme Allan and Craig Lambert remains the intriguing talking point looking forward to 2017.
Sam Mitchell and Trent Cotchin must surely be awarded the 2012 Brownlow Medal.
Greater Western Sydney stand to lose early draft picks as well as star player Lachie Whitfield as part of the final damning conclusion to the 18-month saga.
The AFL's failure to place a woman at the helm of its new national women's competition represents for the game a practical and symbolic opportunity lost.
Gillon McLachlan's acknowledgement that supporters deserve better treatment at Etihad Stadium has seen the AFL second the Melbourne Football Club's marketing boss to work over the summer to help transform the venue in time for 2017.
Chris Yarran's future at Richmond remains in serious doubt with the 25-year-old still struggling to reach the fitness levels demanded by the Tigers after a long lay-off from the game.
Search pagination
Save articles for later.
Subscribe for unlimited access to news. Login to save articles.
Return to the homepage by clicking on the site logo.