At any good party, along with the pies and sausage rolls, there’s one hushed topic of gossip that seems to keep popping up. At the AFL grand final function in the MCG’s Olympic room last weekend, muckraking centred on who would take over as GWS club president as Tony Shepherd exits the stage.

That’s because a few days earlier, a candidate to replace him used the pages of this newspaper to make his pitch. GWS deputy chairman Adrian Fonseca gave an extensive interview to AFR’s BOSS about his life and career, putting it on the record that he wanted to “put my hat in the ring”.