HPN

In the second half of the salary shedding deals at the trade deadline (after the Jenkins move), Collingwood have addressed their need to fit everyone in by tapping someone on the shoulder. Someone they paid two second rounders for in 2015. James Aish had a super hot start to his

At HPN, talk of the Total Player Payments (and third party payment) caps is often only mentioned in passing around trade time. That’s because salary information is withheld from public knowledge almost all of the time. Thanks to the AFL’s annual reporting on the issue, there’s knowledge out there about

Fun fact: one of the origin stories (probably apocryphal) for the nickname “shinboner” for the North Melbourne Football Club derives from the dire early Hotham/North Melbourne sides and Irish lads playing hurling in the same area. The story goes that some spectator shouted that the “shinboners” (a colloquial name for

Before 2017, few knew of Dan Butler. Picked up late in the 2014 AFL Draft, to most outsiders Butler was a player that was on limited time in the AFL. In fact, in 2016 Butler was nearly delisted from the Tigers. Thankfully, they held onto him, and he repaid them

It’s hard being just outside a top four team. It’s even harder when the team has a rude run of health, and you’re a utility that cover almost anyone. After playing at least 11 games a year for the past four years, Tom Cutler only managed three this year –

Hope is conveyed to members of clubs in a number of ways. Sometimes it is a struggling side battling a bit harder against a top four team than they have any right to towards the end of a season. Or maybe it is multiple Rising Star nominations for the club’s

One of the eternal arguments for footy fans and analysts is that of talent against system. Would Player X at Club Y be as successful at Club Z, or is the style of play at Club Y critical to how good he looks on the field. Does a champion player

Since arriving at the Saints from the Giants in 2014, Josh Bruce has cemented himself as the primary forward target at the club. With the Saints essentially reworking their best 22 during the trade period, Bruce has opted for a new start at the Bulldogs, who have desired a reliable

Of all the underappreciated roles around a footy club, the back-up ruck might take the cake. Most players can push for selection (at least at a pinch) in multiple areas across the ground, stoking irons in the fire across the footy department’s whiteboard. Not so the depth ruck. There’s often

Callum Ah Chee is perhaps sneakily representative of the current Suns era, where players are leaving less due to being “wantaway” and fleeing the club and the state, and more moving due to just not fitting into the new list building strategy. Ah Chee, originally from Western Australian, is not