Eddie Betts has the first feel-good story of Sir Doug Nicholls Round after his specially designed boots were stranded on the other side of the country, prompting a plea for help on social media. Meanwhile, The Front Bar has had a massive ratings win.
Welcome to our footy blog, AFL Daily!
Every weekday we will be bringing you all the breaking footy news from across Australia as it happens.
We will be providing rolling news as it happens and giving you all the latest insights from our experts around the country.
SCROLL DOWN TO RECAP ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
That's a wrap for another big day – and week – of footy news.
Good luck to your team, your SuperCoach side and your footy tips this weekend.
We'll be back at 7am Monday with another edition of AFL Daily leading into the mid-season draft – see you then!
The six teams playing on Sunday have finalised their squads, with some good and bad news for SuperCoach players.
Will Setterfield has been dumped by the Blues but Matty Parker has kept his spot for St Kilda and mature-age recruit Brett Bewley will make his debut for Fremantle.
Here are the final changes:
MELBOURNE v GWS GIANTS
Demons: In – Wagner. Out – Neal-Bullen
Giants: In – Cummings, Coniglio. Out – Williams, Lloyd
ST KILDA v CARLTON
Saints: In – Long. Out – Paton
Blues: In – Simpson, Plowman, Cunningham, Kennedy. Out – Murphy, Macreadie, O'Brien, Setterfield
FREMANTLE v BRISBANE LIONS
Dockers: In – Bewley. Out – Taberner
Lions: In – Hodge, Taylor. Out – Berry, Mathieson
Recruiting coup for Harcourt!
A fan has answered a plea from Eddie Betts to help get his special indigenous round boots to Adelaide.
Betts put out a call on social media to get the boots to Adelaide Oval in time for the Crows' meeting with West Coast tomorrow after they were stranded in Brisbane.
Queensland artist Emma MacNeill designed the stunning boots and they couldn't be shipped as planned because they hadn't dried in time.
"If anyone's flying from Brisbane to Adelaide tomorrow, I'd really, really appreciate it," Betts said in his Instagram story on Thursday night.
"Please, help me get my boots back to me."
A mystery Crows fan answered the call but there was still a final hiccup – the supporter forgot to leave the boots at the airport, but Betts was able to make a hastily-arranged meeting in the Adelaide CBD to pick them up – and say thank you.
"It was a long journey, but they're here," Betts told Channel 7.
A fan has answered a plea from Eddie Betts to help get his special indigenous round boots to Adelaide.
Betts put out a call on social media to get the boots to Adelaide Oval in time for the Crows' meeting with West Coast tomorrow after they were stranded in Brisbane.
Queensland artist Emma MacNeill designed the stunning boots and they couldn't be shipped as planned because they hadn't dried in time.
"If anyone's flying from Brisbane to Adelaide tomorrow, I'd really, really appreciate it," Betts said in his Instagram story on Thursday night.
"Please, help me get my boots back to me."
A mystery Crows fan answered the call but there was still a final hiccup – the supporter forgot to leave the boots at the airport, but Betts was able to make a hastily-arranged meeting in the Adelaide CBD to pick them up – and say thank you.
"It was a long journey, but they're here," Betts told Channel 7.
Geelong skipper Joel Selwood admits he needed his injury-enforced break and will look to manage his body throughout the rest of the season.
Selwood spent a fortnight on the sidelines with a leg injury before returning in last week’s win over the Western Bulldogs.
There was confusion during the Cats' Round 8 clash against North Melbourne when Selwood was named as a late inclusion, then withdrew less than an hour before the game.
“I needed the couple of weeks, to be honest,” the 279-game veteran told reporters at Melbourne Airport today.
“I travelled down and was going to play the (North Melbourne) game and it came over me that I probably needed another week off as I was driving down. “I missed a couple but I feel better for it.”
The six-time All-Australian will line up in Saturday’s clash against Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium but will consider resting himself later in the season.
“It’ll really just depend on how the body is feeling. For a couple of weeks there, it wasn’t up to playing the standard of footy the AFL’s got to these days,” he said. “We’ll just wait and see on that.”
Star midfielder Patrick Dangerfield will miss the Suns’ clash with an ankle injury but Rhys Stanley and Tom Atkins are both back.
“He didn’t train throughout the week so it was a pretty easy decision, I think, from the coaches,” Selwood said of Dangerfield.
“He’ll prepare over the weekend and then we’ll just see how he is next week.”
– AAP
Geelong skipper Joel Selwood admits he needed his injury-enforced break and will look to manage his body throughout the rest of the season.
Selwood spent a fortnight on the sidelines with a leg injury before returning in last week’s win over the Western Bulldogs.
There was confusion during the Cats' Round 8 clash against North Melbourne when Selwood was named as a late inclusion, then withdrew less than an hour before the game.
“I needed the couple of weeks, to be honest,” the 279-game veteran told reporters at Melbourne Airport today.
“I travelled down and was going to play the (North Melbourne) game and it came over me that I probably needed another week off as I was driving down. “I missed a couple but I feel better for it.”
The six-time All-Australian will line up in Saturday’s clash against Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium but will consider resting himself later in the season.
“It’ll really just depend on how the body is feeling. For a couple of weeks there, it wasn’t up to playing the standard of footy the AFL’s got to these days,” he said. “We’ll just wait and see on that.”
Star midfielder Patrick Dangerfield will miss the Suns’ clash with an ankle injury but Rhys Stanley and Tom Atkins are both back.
“He didn’t train throughout the week so it was a pretty easy decision, I think, from the coaches,” Selwood said of Dangerfield.
“He’ll prepare over the weekend and then we’ll just see how he is next week.”
– AAP
Former Carlton hard nut Mitch Robinson says he hopes the Blues "don't do anything stupid" and sack coach Brendon Bolton.
"I feel for Carlton because they're copping it," Robinson said on his YouTube show Rip Through It.
"You can't just throw the coach under the bus, that's not going to change anything."
Robinson, now a key member of a Brisbane side sitting fourth on the ladder, said he would be watching the Blues with interest on Sunday after a meeting this week in which on-field leaders delivered some "hard truths" to their teammates.
"That can all be just talk, you don't know, you have to see how they come out this week."
He said he had noticed one major difference as his new club also went through some tough times in recent seasons.
"I've been here five years and I've never seen the term 'rebuild' … so the players always had the idea in their head that we were going to try and win every game, we didn't have that excuse that we were going for the rebuild," he said.
"I know internally players know how the club is going and where they sit in terms of win-loss ratio … but the message 'Fages' (coach Chris Fagan) was selling for us was really really positive in terms of where we were going."
Shaun Burgoyne joins an elite club this weekend when he equals Brad Johnson on the 10th-most games played in VFL-AFL history.
There are some huge names in the top 10 – Brent Harvey, Kevin Bartlett, Robert Harvey, Adam Goodes just for starters – but how does the list rank when you try to name the best of the longevity legends?
An expert panel including Jon Anderson, Mark Robinson and Paul Roos have had a crack – see the results here: http://bit.ly/2YLnBXT
Boomer wasn't entirely happy with his ranking when he picked up the Herald Sun this morning …
Hawthorn hopes gun recruit Chad Wingard is ready to fulfil his potential, after overcoming injury and travelling to Launceston for Saturday’s AFL clash with Port Adelaide.
Wingard’s return to face his former side comes after three weeks on the sidelines with a hamstring injury and an inconsistent start at the Hawks.
The 25-year-old battled calf issues during his first pre-season at Waverley Park before booting three goals on club debut in Round 3. He managed just three goals in the next four games then injured himself again in a Round 7 loss to Melbourne, when the two-time All Australian also received some strong on-field feedback from his new teammates.
Coach Alastair Clarkson wants the mercurial forward to treat his enforced break as a chance to reset and find his best form.
“He’s had an interrupted pre-season and an interrupted first part of the year,” Clarkson said today.
“We’re hopeful those troubles are behind him now and he can get going in the second half of the year.
“Only time will tell. It’s an important step for him to get back in the side and hopefully start playing some good footy for us.”
Key defender James Frawley has also overcome a hamstring injury and will line up for the 11th-placed Hawks at University of Tasmania Stadium but former skipper Jarryd Roughead will play in the VFL for a third straight week. Roughead’s forward replacement Mitchell Lewis suffered a concussion during last week’s loss to Richmond but is expected to be available.
Clarkson said Roughead remained in the mix for selection but wingman Isaac Smith could miss several weeks more with his foot injury.
“You just can’t muck around with those foot injuries,” Clarkson said. “They take a long while to settle sometimes and this one’s taken particularly long."
– AAP
Sam Newman drew condemnation for inviting neo-Nazis on his podcast. An activist believes the AFL and Geelong need to reconsider his Hall of Fame and legend status, and Newman has hit back.
With season two ahead, check out how the top 30 players picked in the 2023 AFL Draft are tracking — including a contract update.