anytime an interstate team play a team from victoria its sort of state of origin dont you think?

Sorry to repeat myself, but these nsw and qld teams? No origin there, all vics, south australians and west australians there :-k

apologies should have elaborated i mean fan based. Obviously some fans could be mate of vics living in said states but yeh apologies

Allies.

6 out of 7 wins for the Blues. Armfield on fire. Life's good.

Collingwood dont have the list.

Unusual feeling for you lot

Australia's A-League to play regular season match in China
Jun 07,2016
MELBOURNE, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Australia's premier football league, the Australian Football League (AFL), has moved ahead in order to play a regular season match in China in 2017.

Travis Auld, the general manager of AFL operations, visited Shanghai last week inspecting multiple venues for the proposed venture.

The AFL is hopeful that one of its 18 clubs, Port Adelaide, will play one regular season match each season for the next three years in Shanghai, beginning as early as 2017.

Auld was joined on his mission by the AFL's national venues manager Simon Gorr, a Port Adelaide official, a turf consultant and representative of venue and event management firm Populous.

"We decided to get everybody together so that we could look at the sites in one hit. But there are now two or three options worth a serious look," Auld told News Limited on Tuesday.

In order to see a game take place during the 2017 AFL season, which takes place from March until September, all parties will have to reach an agreement on a venue by the end of August.

"We would need a decision by then for fixture reasons and preparation of the turf. It gets pretty cold over Christmas so we need to lay turf works by September," Auld said.

The Jiangwan Sports Center in Shanghai's Yangpu District was one of the venues to come under close consideration, having previously hosted a pre-season exhibition game between the Brisbane Lions and Melbourne Football clubs.

The AFL expects a crowd of 12,000 to attend the first game, likely to feature Port Adelaide and the Gold Coast Suns, but acknowledged that any crowd over 8,000 would be acceptable.

Around 7,100 people were in attendance for the exhibition game between Brisbane and Melbourne in Shanghai in 2010 but the AFL believes a regular season game will be a bigger draw.

Port Adelaide has also agreed to coach Ken Hinkley and his players holding annual training camp every December in Shanghai.

We know Australian rules is the best so why isn’t it popular overseas? :lol: :lol: :lol: ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

Edited by swarth: 7/6/2016 11:11:29 PM

The new age has arrived as Giants make Sydney rivalry a real one
THE AUSTRALIAN12:00AM JUNE 13, 2016

Will Swanton


The GWS Giants bathe Sam Reid in sports drinks as they sing the team song after yesterday’s victory over the Swans. Picture: Phil Hillyard
You can have your hundred-year sporting rivalries where there’s so much seething animosity between establishment teams that the desire to inflict physical and emotional damage becomes nearly obsessive.

Think Rangers versus Celtic in Scottish football. Carlton versus Collingwood in the AFL. Australia versus England for the terracotta urn.

You can have your new age rivalries where an entrenched club or individual has ruled the roost until some chest-thumping upstart rolls in. These rivalries revolve around the psychology of the champion trying to repel a specific and legitimate challenger.

The latecomer may become the dominant force. Think the Broncos and Cowboys in the NRL. Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in men’s professional tennis. Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers in the A-League.

And then you can have your manufactured rivalry where a powerhouse club is rather amused by the hype surrounding their wannabe foe. Everyone is eager for a full-blown rivalry to commence because rivalries bring out everyone’s best, but invariably the rivalry is trumpeted before the competitiveness and animosity really exists.

The confirmation of these rivalries depends on the underling proving their worth. Think the Sydney Swans and the Greater Western Sydney Giants in the running game ... before last night.

Manufactured no more. The Giants were desperate for the real deal. The AFL was banking on it. The Swans were yet to believe it. Supporters were gagging for it.

The faithful and the feral get a spring in their steps from a rivalry. They feel big in victory. They revel in the other mob feeling small. The more they hurt, the better.

As Carlton president George Harris said after the Blues beat Collingwood in the 1979 VFL grand final: “What’s better than beating Collingwood by 10 goals? Beating them by five points.”

What’s better than beating the Swans by five points? Beating them by 42. The Giants had a 1-8 win-loss record against the Swans before yesterday. That wasn’t a rivalry, that was Maria Sharapova against Serena Williams (2-19). Scoreboards had talked and bullshit had walked.

The Giants needed to prove themselves. They did it in commanding fashion. The crowd was big. The crowd was loud. It was the club’s 100th match. The manufactured rivalry had puts bums on seats, including a bum owned by Steve Waugh. Everyone settled in to see if they had been suckered by false advertising.

Rivalries need epic moments. Alex Jesaulenko’s mark in 1970. Jesaulenko, you beauty! The death of English cricket. Mock obituary, you beauty! The Cowboys beating the Broncos in extra time to win the NRL grand final. Johnathan Thurston, you beauty! The Nadal-Djokovic decider at the 2012 Australian Open. Nearly six hours, you beauty! Sydney FC and the Wanderers filling the 40,000-seat Sydney Football Stadium in 2013. Atmosphere, you beauty!

Without a timeless incident, a close contest might be a start. The Giants led by one point after the first quarter. A grandstand finish? You beauty!

The manufactured rivalry provides a mental hurdle for the underlings. They need to compete as if they actually believe they can win. In lopsided series such as Sharapova-Williams or NSW-Queensland for the past decade in State of Origin, the losing team finds a way to keep on losing. As if a small part of them expects it to happen. So they make it happen. Even when they should win, they find a way to lose.

The Giants were physical and combative and slick. Thrilling passages swept the ball from one end to the other. They led by 12 points at the main break and, even then, the rivalry was on.

Did the Giants really believe? They led by 36 points in the third quarter. Steve Waugh was watching in a Giants scarf. Steve Johnson, you beauty! They had jagged a win over the Swans in the opening round of 2014 but that result was an aberration. This was the test.

The Swans surged back to spark a 20-point ball game at the start of the final term. There was push, shove, niggle, harsh words, aggro, fist-pumping, desperation. Everything you sought in a rivalry.

The Giants are still the challengers. It’s June, not September. But they proved they deserved their place in the ring.

You can have a contest when a previously manufactured rivalry no longer feels contrived. The Giants went toe-to-toe with the crosstown powerhouse and they prevailed. No fluke. No aberration. No false advertising.

Rivalries become legitimate when the post-match reactions are extreme. The Giants celebrated like little brothers always do when they win their first arm-wrestle at home.

The Swans lost their air of amusement and bemusement. They were properly pissed off. Their abject disappointment — and the talk on the scoreboard — said it all. Manufactured no more. The new age arrived.

New AFL-backed league a game-changer for women
Date
June 14, 2016 - 9:00PM
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Samantha Lane



Not since Australia's dominant sports code committed to national expansion three decades ago has it enacted something so significant.

On Wednesday, the Australian Football League will announce up to 10 new teams. Simultaneously.

Unlike the Sydney Swans, Brisbane Lions, West Coast Eagles, Adelaide Crows, Fremantle Dockers, Port Adelaide Power, Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Sydney Giants before them, these teams will not be the product of relocation or invention. Nor will they be AFL Commission constructs giving fans new colour combinations and songs to love or loathe.

These will be teams we already know, only unveiled in a fashion and combination never previously seen.


At this game-changing announcement – to be held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, no less – the Western Bulldogs and Melbourne will be front and centre for sure.

Collingwood will almost certainly be there too, and perhaps Richmond, or – if not – one of Geelong, North Melbourne, Carlton or St Kilda.

Guaranteed to be involved from beyond the borders of Victoria are the Giants, Brisbane and Adelaide. It's expected Fremantle will be confirmed as having edged out cross-town rival West Coast in their particularly competitive battle to win a place.

From 2017, women will play in a new AFL-sanctioned, AFL-supported national competition.

They will wear the same jumpers, play on the same fields, sing the same club songs and share the same club headquarters as Robert Murphy, Jeremy Cameron, Eddie Betts, Tom Rockliff and Jesse Hogan.

Overnight, your local girl Auskicker has won the opportunity to become a 200-game AFL legend.

She now stands to be applauded – and awarded – for her feats on field in a way that men around Australia have for decades.

She now stands to earn a living from pursuing sport as a full-time career.

Women, from 2017, will be crowned AFL Brownlow medallists, or a more appropriately named equivalent prize for being their competition's best player.

Women will be named in AFL All-Australian teams. They will be AFL club captains. Their kicks, marks and handballs will be broadcast on television and on radio. They will win sponsorships. In elite sporting surrounds they will be professionally coached and groomed.

The breakthrough offers opportunities for the likes of 12-year-old Caley Ryan.

Caley picked up AFL full time this year, for the Beaumaris Football Club, but to do so she had to drop her first love - dancing.



The budding midfielder's favourite part of AFL is tackling, she says. "You can't do that in dancing," her father, Craig Ryan, says.

Caley's three older brothers all play for the Sharks, and in a few years will be of drafting age. The launch of the women's AFL competition means Caley can share their dreams.

First bounce in what will begin as a two-month season – which will steadily grow - is pencilled in for February.

The AFL, at long last, joins soccer, cricket and Olympic sports in not merely saying women athletes deserve this stage, but giving it to them.

Just a click into his second year as the code's chief executive, this is a legacy moment for Gillon McLachlan. It's something the AFL Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, on the tail end of his time steering the league, can take with him. Both men can - and surely will on Wednesday - thank the AFL's first female commissioner, Sam Mostyn, who recently stepped aside from that role, for helping them see women's footy first-hand so they could understand and believe what is possible.

Since bringing the AFL women's competition launch forward from the original 2020 vision, McLachlan has clearly delighted in declaring the time of "revolution".

It's a punchy tag line, but it does women's football a disservice. According to history books, last year marked the 100th anniversary of females playing footy in an organised, competitive capacity.

The truth is that it has taken the AFL 100 years to recognise this meaningfully. Now that it has, girls, women and their male champions all around the country are saying: hallelujah.

Full cost to run stadium is a secret

Daniel Mercer - The West Australian on June 15, 2016, 12:55 am
Full cost to run stadium is a secret
The new Perth Stadium. Illustration: Twitter
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WA Treasury will not disclose the full cost to the State Budget of operating the new Perth stadium over the next 10 years, despite revealing the impost for the next four.

Treasury officials told an Upper House Budget estimates hearing this week even though indicative costs from a 10-year operating contract had been booked over the forward estimates, figures beyond that were “commercial-in-confidence”.



The hearing came amid revelations the Federal Government had tipped in $100 million for a stadium in the north Queensland city of Townsville but ruled out a similar commitment for Perth.

Premier Colin Barnett had wanted Canberra to help pay for the $1.4 billion venue’s construction.

He said yesterday the lack of any Federal money was disappointing and likely motivated by politics.



It emerged yesterday West Coast Eagles members faced big increases in their annual memberships under the move from Domain Stadium to the new venue in 2018.

With the stadium about 40 per cent complete, last month’s Budget revealed the hit to the State’s bottom line from its operation would be at least $60 million a year by 2018-19.

Depreciation and finance were among the costs along with subsidies amounting to $18.9 million a year for public transport services.


Construction work at the Perth Stadium. Picture: Michael O'Brien/The West Australian
Under a decision announced in February, the Government tapped Stadium Australia - which runs venues including ANZ Stadium in Sydney - as its preferred operator.

User agreements with several sports, including the key one of AFL, are yet to be struck.

Treasury’s strategic projects executive director Richard Mann said “life cycle costs” such as maintenance would be covered by Stadium Australia.



But faced with questions from Labor’s Ken Travers, Mr Mann said taxpayers would be required to make those payments to stadium builder WESTADIUM even in the event the operator could not.

And although many of the costs to the State of the operating contract were factored into the Budget out-years Mr Mann said those for the remaining six years were commercially confidential.

AFL warned about links between pokies addiction and domestic violence

THE AFL has been told it must cut ties with poker machines if it is serious about tackling domestic violence and violence against women.

Anti-gambling groups have seized on the Triple M drowning jibe that embroiled club presidents Eddie McGuire and James Brayshaw to highlight the links between pokies addiction and domestic and family violence.

Nine of the 10 Victorian clubs run poker machines taking almost $100 million a year from gamblers’ pockets.

The AFL on Friday signed up to Our Watch, committing to “high impact and systemic actions to prevent violence against women”.

Several clubs — including those with links to pokies — have taken the White Ribbon oath to call out and act on domestic violence.

The Rev Tim Costello of the Alliance for Gambling Reform said it was time for the AFL and clubs to “join the dots” on pokies and violence.

“Women and children are being assaulted just so the AFL clubs can buy better turf, or pay their players even more money,” Costello said.

“Surely, after all that has happened this week it’s time for us to join the dots, and those dots are incredibly close together.”


Independent Senator Nick Xenophon and Reverend Tim Costello want con-free machines.
Costello and independent federal senator Nick Xenophon met AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan last December to discuss the league’s links to gambling and the possible introduction of “con-free” machines at club-run venues.



Leading public health advocate Dr Susan Rennie has called on AFL bosses to stop wearing white ribbons until their clubs leave the poker machine industry or endorse the non-addictive “con-free” machines.

“The AFL bosses can’t hide behind a tiny white ribbon on their lapels while their machines are driving up domestic violence rates,” Rennie said.

“Tragically, having no food on the table often leads to blood on the floor. This sick cycle has to be stopped.”


Research conducted by Melbourne University associate professor Nicki Dowling and published on the federal government’s Australian Institute of Family Studies website outlines the links between problem gambling and violence.

Dowling’s research, conducted in 2014, reveals that more than one-third of people with gambling problems report being the victims of physical intimate partner violence (38 per cent) or the perpetrators of the violence (37 per cent), while 11 per cent of offenders of intimate partner violence also report gambling problems.

More troubling still is data suggesting 56 per cent of people with gambling problems report perpetrating physical violence against their own children.

Several respected club bosses have publicly and privately told the Herald Sun they would get out of pokies if they could.

The Alliance previously has called on the AFL to use its enormous cash reserves to help extricate the clubs — and the Melbourne City Council is to write a letter to the league urging the AFL to formulate an exit strategy.

Brayshaw’s North Melbourne is the only Victorian AFL club not running pokies.

So take away the pokie machines and domestic violence will plummet. Interesting....

Surely you can't say pokie use it causing domestic violence rather it is one of surely a number of common links between offenders

Is there a link between socio economic class and Dom violence?

Is there a link between socio economic class and Dom violence?