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Articles by Munro Mike
Best of three: With one premiership apiece, who claims AFLW glory in 2025 - the Lions, or North?
With the preliminary finals run and won we find ourselves for the third year running at Ikon Park on the final Saturday of November, with North Melbourne to host the Brisbane Lions. With the ledger sitting at one premiership apiece, to the victor goes the spoils and the bragging rights. If North slip up, then their two-year unbeaten run will end, with Brisbane effectively claiming an even greater scalp to bring down the ‘invincibles’. Preliminary final weekend didn’t disappoint.
Ten seasons on: The long, tough road to 100 AFLW games, with the exclusive club set to grow to eight this weekend
The first season of the AFLW saw eight teams contest a seven-round season, with a simple top-versus-second system to decide the Grand Final. That meant a maximum of eight games went towards a player’s career tally. Ten seasons on, the 2025 campaign features a 12-round season and a four-week finals program. The maximum number of games available to a player is now 16.
North's all-conquering AFLW team sit on the verge of breaking a 70-year record - and changing footy forever
The current winning streak record in VFL/AFL/AFLW history stands at 23, and it belongs to Geelong. From Round 12, 1952, to Round 14, 1953, Geelong went undefeated, with the middle of that run the 1952 premiership. That great side included the ‘Geelong Flyer’ Bobby Davis and future Australian Labor Party state MP Neil ‘Nipper’ Trezise, along with captain Fred Flanagan and other famous names such as Leo Turner, Russell Renfrey and Brownlow winner Bernie Smith.
Shiel's Tribunal referral proves the AFL has once again missed the boat on making a key stand
This week, AFL Match Review Officer Michael Christian has referred the case of Dylan Shiel directly to the Tribunal. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the matrix perfectly. The case involves Shiel nudging/pushing his opponent, Geelong’s Mark O’Connor, towards a ‘contest’ that happened to involve Shiel’s team mate Luamon Lual flying for a mark and being effectively tunnelled, before landing heavily and being subbed out of the game for unrelated reasons.
Kangaroo court: Xerri ban was the AFL's biggest Tribunal farce yet - here's why
As recently as a month ago, the AFL Match Review Officer Michael Christian was speaking on SEN radio regarding a new crackdown – the issue being players pushing opponents into contests in a dangerous manner. Earlier this year, Richmond’s Rhyan Mansell was the early recipient of punishment with a three-game suspension for a push on St Kilda’s Liam O’Connell. Speaking to Gerard Whateley, Christian spoke of this action being ‘on the watchlist’.
How remarkable Roos have risen to the top in quest for first AFLW flag
The AFLW cops some criticism; fairly or otherwise depending on views. However in season 2024, the bar has been lifted. Judge the standard on the best and not the worst. And that team is the undefeated North Melbourne Kangaroos who have played through the 11-round ‘regular’ season with ten wins and a draw (Round 2 against Geelong). Almost the perfect season. Thus far. The North Melbourne AFLW side have been highly competitive since entering the competition in 2019.
The problem with umpiring self-correction is that it happens too inconsistently: Where should we draw the line with howlers?
There’s been a lot of controversy relating to the umpiring and officiating in the North Melbourne vs Collingwood match at Marvel on Sunday – and justifiably so. What is interesting is what has been missed by very many people. An incident happened in the first quarter – and it involved an on-field rollback to fix an umpiring mistake. There are some interesting possibilities this raises.
Steve Smith v Kane Williamson - is the Test series across the ditch to be their last battle?
Kane Williamson is a year younger than Steve Smith. Both are generational players. Both have captained their nations and have careers to be justifiably proud of. Smith is 34 ½ and Williamson is 33 ½. Cricketing mortality is always a concern for the player approaching mid 30s. Once the ‘eye’ becomes less sharp, once the capacity to overcome technical vulnerabilities lessens, the ‘immortals’ can come back to the field.
The 'tradition' of stupidity that can turn the AFL Grand Final into a farce
Traditional stupidity threatens to make a farce of the 2023 AFL Grand Final due to a winter competition reaching its most important game in the middle of spring. The heat of the contest may be more characterised in the weather than the capacity for players to maintain intensity across 120 minutes of footy. The 2023 AFL Grand Final is, as per tradition, scheduled for Saturday afternoon and according to the BOM (I still use this acronym) we’re expecting 28 balmy degrees.
Third time lucky for opener emerging from crowded pack to replace struggling Warner for Ashes Original
Whether you think he was unlucky or got what he deserved for the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal, Cameron Bancroft should now be on the verge of a rare third chance to become a long-term Australian opener. Bancroft is in career-best form and should be part of the Australian squad which heads to England in June for the World Test Championship final and subsequent Ashes campaign.
Following on from the BBL season, these Sheffield Shield talents are ready to shine
The 2022/23 Sheffield Shield Season is nearing its climax, largely off broadway though. The Australian Men’s team has had its up and downs in India, the Women’s team took out another T20 World Cup and now the WPL has kicked off. And so, what of the Sheffield Shield and the talent working away in relative obscurity? The Sheffield Shield season is split in two – pre-BBL and post-BBL.
Arden Street: Bottoming out in Covid, 6-6-6 and priority picks
North Melbourne Football Club has been the subject of much attention this year; arguably for all the wrong reasons. Poor on-field performance combined with off-field instability. North Melbourne last tasted premiership success in 1999. And since then the club has made finals in nine seasons from 2000 to 2021 inclusive. 17 finals matches for just 6 wins. Arguably the last successful era was the 2014/2015 seasons of back-to-back preliminary finals which included four finals victories.
The 'midfielder's sweet spot' is why Brisbane can win and the Kangas can't in 2022
In 2019, GWS Giant Steve Coniglio asserted that he and fellow Giants mid Josh Kelly were each in the “sweet spot” of their AFL careers. The question is – for midfielders, just what is and where is the ‘sweet spot’ to be found; in essence the question of whether it is really a thing. Well, it is, and it’s exactly why North Melbourne cannot compete in 2022 and why Brisbane are a genuine contender. In 2019, Coniglio lined up in Round 1 aged 25 (and a bit) and with 118 games under his belt.
Goldy, are you still helping North?
Todd Goldstein has been a fine servant at North Melbourne and has been desperate to remain a one-club player. He turns 34 this year and if he played every home-and-away game, then he would reach the magic 300-game mark in Round 5 of 2023. That would be a fitting milestone. However, can North Melbourne afford to play out that sentimental narrative? I can’t help but to think back to 1984.
Dare to dream about a full season of winter footy
While the professionals have managed to provide us with a footy season both in 2020 and 2021, each year looked and felt markedly different to normal. However, you need only understand that the second tier – in COVID-impacted states – was a very, very different experience even to the AFL. There were almost absent local footy seasons in Melbourne. 2020 was lost and 2021 was half but without resolution. Sports opinion delivered daily And so we find ourselves on the verge of season 2022.
Will concussion hasten the decline and fall of S.P.D.Smith?
We’ve seen the major concerns regarding young Will Pucovski who just seems destined to be a lost talent. It appears he is unable to get any momentum to kick start what should be a fine career. However – at the other end of the career spectrum – we have Steve Smith who arguably is teetering on the edge after his third career cricket concussion during the just completed T20I series against Sri Lanka. The Steve Smith story was never more pressing than during the 2019 Ashes series in England.
The four players who could make or break North Melbourne in 2022
As North Melbourne have the second youngest list on average, with an average age of 23.5 per player going into AFL season 2022, the expectations of them shouldn’t be too high for the upcoming season. One positive is the arrival of Hugh Greenwood from the Gold Coast Suns, which may help Jy Simpkin and company out in the midfield. I’m running my eye over four key players for the Kangaroos, who will have a major say in whether they can make a surprise run up the ladder this season.
State League bolters to make AFL lists in 2021
The fairytale stories of long undrafted WAFL players Tim Kelly and Marlion Pickett being plucked out of South Freo and thrust into the AFL spotlight only to shine far more brightly than their much more highly fancied first-time drafted teammates are not going unheeded in 2021. Accepted wisdom in AFL recruitment circles gets continually tipped on its head, yet every year at draft time all the buzz is about untested teenage talent while the best of the State Leagues are most often overlooked.
From last to first pick: Why there's plenty of hope at Arden Street
North Melbourne Football Club is an interesting beast, and for many years it had been assumed that the club just couldn’t afford to bottom out lest it financially collapse. So having finished 2021 in the wooden spoon position – the first time since 1972, in the then 12-team VFL – North Melbourne should be by all predictions on the verge of collapse as supporters desert the club with dwindling hope. And yet the supporters haven’t left and the club is still intact.
Five father-son picks prove romantic rule is alive and well
AFL premiers Melbourne have shown their sentimental side by using the final pick of the national draft to recruit Taj Woewodin as a father-son selection. Unlike top-end father-son prospects Sam Darcy (Western Bulldogs) and Nick Daicos (Collingwood), Woewodin did not attract a bid from a rival club. It allowed the Demons to wait until pick 65 to snap up the East Fremantle midfielder.
NSW should leave Mitchell Starc out of the side for the Shield final
With Queensland and New South Wales now locked in for the 2020-21 Sheffield Shield final, we can look back on an interesting final instalment of the competition with a bit of free air, even if much of it was moisture-laden. We saw the Australian Test captain, Tim Paine, keeping wicket for Tasmania – and rolling his arm over in club cricket. We’ve seen many of the Test stars re-join the domestic first-class circuit. That’s a good thing, I believe, for benchmarking the aspirants.
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