Rugby League
Is the Storm in decline and does the game want them dead?
These are strange times. The pandemic, while ushering in fear and uncertainty, has also had a hand in fomenting unrest. Grievances are…
Sport
Sixteen years of sportswriting, mostly rugby league and AFL.
50 essays
Rugby League
Rugby League
Is it time to go Brodie?
Two years ago the words “A star is born at AAMI Park!” were heard as the gushing accolade for a teenager who…
Rugby League
A Tale of Two Cities: A Preview Of The 2018 NRL Grand Final
(Originally published on The Roar) https://www.theroar.com.au/2018/09/30/a-tale-of-two-cities/ Many years ago my father was offered a job in Sydney. No one in the family…
Rugby League
Confessions of a Grand Final Coward
It has been a year, minus a week and a day and a half. Since the night my shaking finger refreshed the…
Rugby League
Hail To The Melbourne Storm
At the time of its conception the Melbourne Storm was deemed – and some still subscribe to this notion – to be…
AFL
The Awful Price of Playing Football
It was inevitable, in light of the growing evidence that there is a link between repetitive concussion and permanent brain injury, that…
Rugby League
Confessions of a Rugby League Convert – Taking the Hard Hits in Rugby League
When Muhammad Ali surprised George Foreman with a powerful right in the opening seconds of their famous Rumble in the Jungle, Norman…
Sport
Healing and Performance Enhancing Drugs
Despite the wonderful achievements of western medicine, not all of its practitioners have been fine people. There have been real-life monsters who…
AFL
Goalkicking: The Art and Desire Lost In the Modern Game
In the dying seconds of the 1977 Grand Final, Collingwood’s Ross ‘Twiggy’ Dunne prepared to kick, requiring a goal to level the…
Sport
A Carnival of Sporting Clichés
While discussing sports related brain injuries, Canterbury Bulldogs captain James Graham commented recently, without irony or attempt at humour: “For me, concussion…
AFL
The AFL Unlikely All Stars
Australian poet Les Murray once said he had never seen a decent poet who actually looked like a poet. It’s amazing how…
Motorsport & Cycling
Great Sports Documentaries Part Two: “Hell On Wheels”
The director of Hell On Wheels (2004) wanted to reveal “what it means to go to the edge of physical possibilities, to…