Mark Haywood

The ‘new coach bounce’ is a well-worn theory in the AFL. Unfortunately, purely in terms of wins and losses, it’s a myth. Studies of the data have that.

The Lions are my tip (and plenty of others) as the big risers this year. Five wins in 2018, but their percentage of 89% probably tells a better story of competitiveness. Beams is gone, but Neale is a great in and joins a pretty solid senior core that includes Martin, Zorko, Hodge and Rich.

Predicting the AFL 2019 season felt like a pretty tough job. It feels that way every year, but the league seems really even at the moment.

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So the new AFL season is upon us, and it’s time to join in and do some predictions. Pre-season predictions are never much (or easy). I’ve found one thing that helps me though – one of the AFL tipping competitions I’m involved in is a little different and requires you to tip the whole season – all 23 rounds – before it starts.

Footy’s back! The first weekend of the pre-season has been and gone, with only four matches played due to the staggered first round of the JLT Community Series.

They don’t care. They’re soft. They’re weak. They don’t take responsibility. They’re overpaid. Overrated.

Perhaps the greatest gift of the reality-defying Foxes of Leicester is just that: to momentarily suspend reality and take us back to a more innocent time.

He’s a man with a plan, Eddie McGuire. He always has been. And more often than not he pulls it off.

As revealed in her column on Friday, members of the AFL commission have been detailing for Caroline Wilson their hopes and dreams.

If James Hird’s pithy excuse for a tell-all interview offered anything in the way of revelations – and it was spectacularly light in that regard – it was a look at the level of denial that has completely consumed the man.

It was a case of two cities, one story to kick off east coast racing in 2016, with both Melbourne and Sydney playing host to eye-catching long-distance performances in their New Year’s Day main events.

The Ashes aside, Day 2 of the Melbourne Test can have a low-key feel about it.

Jose Mourinho saw it. Back last season, when ‘The Special One’ still knew his football (just joking… I think), he reportedly approached Jamie Vardy in the tunnel after Chelsea’s win at Leicester and summed him up with one simple question.

Departing slightly from the question of what Dustin Martin did to a woman in a restaurant last weekend, it would appear the AFL have once again tripped themselves up in doing what they do: attempting to gain control of a situation and engineer an outcome.