![Tania Hird leaving her home on Friday.](/web/20170106230011im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/n/6/b/g/image.related.wideLandscape.460x259.gtn6hr.png/1483683115186.jpg)
Tania Hird breaks her silence on husband James Hird's overdose
James Hird's wife, Tania Hird, has broken her silence over her husband's alleged drug overdose on Wednesday night.
James Hird's wife, Tania Hird, has broken her silence over her husband's alleged drug overdose on Wednesday night.
Essendon chief Lindsay Tanner and mental health advocate Jeff Kennett want the media to leave struggling ex-AFL champion and his family alone.
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley spoke out on Friday morning against personal attacks against sportspeople, after football contemporary James Hird was hospitalised for a reported overdose.
Former AFL champion and Essendon coach James Hird was rushed to hospital after suffering a health scare.
Unrelenting pressure on a sporting field or a coaching box is one thing. But that ceases, at least temporarily, when the game is over.
The formula for premiership success in football is something the game's greatest minds have battled over for years. But there's one ingredient they all agree on.
Xavier Richards will be playing for Sydney in 2017 after all. Sydney University, that is.
The new year is just days old but the weight of expectation is already heavier on some coaches than others.
One of Essendon's most successful pick ups in 2016, former Cat James Kelly says he's enjoying a full pre-season with a keen list of younger players
In light of Brisbane youngster Archie Smith's unfortunate run-in with a stingray on Monday, we thought it was an opportune time to reflect on some of the AFL's most bizarre pre-season injuries.
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It may have been one of Melbourne's biggest storms of the year outside but on a South Melbourne rooftop on Thursday afternoon, things seemed picture perfect.
After a disappointing 2016 marred by injury and poor form Freo coach Ross Lyon has lay down the law expecting his players to step up in their preparation for 2017.
Mystery surrounds an expletive-laden social media rant, aimed at Fremantle and attributed to their former player Shane Yarran.
An off-season of change has continued at Hawthorn with chief executive Stuart Fox leaving to become the Melbourne Cricket Club's new chief.
Triple-premiership winger Isaac Smith has signed a contract extension that ties him to Hawthorn until the end of the 2020 AFL season.
Essendon defender Mark Baguley has hit the training track hard after fully recovering from the knee injury which sidelined him for the second half of the 2016 season.
Greater Western Sydney has been handed a $100,000 fine and a penalty of 1000 draft points after it was found guilty by the AFL Commission subcommittee over the Lachie Whitfield case.
For all the hand-wringing over its abolition, the third man up at ruck contests has hardly been a cornerstone of AFL football.
Half of the AFL's coaches were against the outlawing of the third man up at ruck contests, according to league football operations manager Mark Evans.
The Gold Coast Suns got some happy Christmas news on Thursday, when tall forward Peter Wright signed a new contract to stay at the struggling expansion club.
Statistics that proved the "third man up" does not help ease congestion gave the AFL the green light to ban the tactic from next season.
Fairfax Media's top 10 people of the football year aren't necessarily the most popular, or the most successful, but each left a sizeable imprint on the game's landscape in the past 12 months.
Melbourne defender Heritier Lumumba has retired from the AFL after struggling with repeated concussions.
North Melbourne is confident that gun defender Scott Thompson will be fit for round one despite suffering an injury relapse that required surgery.
Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury is expecting his first baby with wife Alex in May next year.
Essendon coach John Worsfold is desperate to rectify his club's disastrous recent inability to score before the start of next season — and believes he now has the right pieces to solve the puzzle.
The 2016 AFL season saw great comebacks, neck and neck tussles, and several kicks to win games, one in a final no less. These, in our view, were the 10 best games of 2016.
The Dockers released a statement on Monday evening announcing the double WAFL premiership player was to retire in a mutual decision just one year after joining the club.
His desire to move back to his native Adelaide was thwarted, but Carlton's Bryce Gibbs has reassured the Blues that with three years left on his contract, he's more than content to see out his AFL career at the one club.
Geelong Football Club should be debt free for the first time in over half a century at the end of next season.
The Carlton on-baller has plenty he wants to get off his chest. And in an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, the first since the drama blew up, he does.
Richmond's new-found midfield depth is set to allow superstar Dustin Martin to spend more time forward in season 2017.
Three of the greatest players of their generations will be part of The Age's footy coverage in 2017.
The Outer Sanctum, the unconventional footy podcast that broke one of the biggest stories in the game this year, has struck a partnership with The Age for the historic first AFL Women's season.
Brendon Lade is returning to Port Adelaide after seven years as an assistant coach at AFL rivals Richmond.
The Western Bulldogs won't look back at their painful history of preliminary final losses in the lead up to their Saturday night clash with GWS Giants.
Melbourne great David Schwarz says the potential defection of Jesse Hogan would not be "as catastrophic" now as it would have been last year.
There’s two very contrasting narratives developing heading into the penultimate weekend of the AFL season. And sentimentally, they’re at opposite ends of the spectrum.
The thing that AFL fans love about the game is risk and the unknown outcome accompanying it: the risk players take when they commit to a physical contest, when they launch three deep in a pack to stand on someone's shoulders in a marking contest, when they have a shot from the boundary. All are weekly features on highlights reels.
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