Greg Baum is chief sports columnist and associate editor with The Age
On rate per word, dear to the heart of all journalists, Alastair Clarkson has copped the heaviest fine in footy history. The Hawthorn coached was docked $20,000 for commenting on umpires. In fact, it was $20,000 for one word, "disgraceful". It just as well he did not go on.
High-flyer Jeremy Howe keeps on delivering top marks for all fans
From the moment Andrew Gaze was first down the slide into the giant ice bath, a theme was estabished: there would be no comfort zones at the MCG this Queen's Birthday.
In the hubbub in the visitors rooms at Subiaco Oval after Toby Greene had conjured up two match-winning last-quarter goals against West Coast a couple of week ago, AFL commissioner Gabrielle Trainor cornered Greene and said: "You owed me those." Greene smiles sheepishly at the memory. "I owed everyone," he says. "I'd missed a few."
Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson bit his tongue on the 50-metre penalty that put victory over Gold Coast out of reach late in the last quarter at the MCG on Saturday, but expanded freely on similarities between the Hawks as they were gathering for their string of premierships and as they are now.
Hawthorn gave Gold Coast a nasty scare at the MCG on Saturday, and but for a controversial 50-metre penalty that broke a run of six Hawks goals might even have snatched an heroic victory.
Let's face it: Kurt Tippett and the Sydney Swans have not worked out.
Whatever way you do the sums, Tom Hawkins got what he had coming.
I have seen the future of sport, and it glows in the dark and crackles a bit.
What to do about those St Kilda footballers who last weekend revealed themselves not to have evolved since before most were born, since a time when Tony Shaw said he would use a racist epithet every week if he thought it would gain his team an edge, a time so long ago it can be found only by carbon-dating?
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