By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Cutting it fine: St Kilda great Nick Riewoldt on Wednesday was officially late to the showcase of Channel Seven’s expanded AFL coverage, racing down the red carpet in his civvies, plastic-wrapped dry-cleaned suit flapping in his wake.
Inside, the Seven commentary newbie was asked on stage for his take on what some of the big storylines will be this year?
Nick Riewoldt will commentate for Seven this footy season.Credit: Simon Schluter
“Is Caro ever going to be able to actually join us? I mean, they’re holding on for dear life, over at the other network, which I can understand because she’s a star,” he replied.
This was, of course, in reference to Age columnist Caroline Wilson. Wilson, who will continue to be a star attraction of The Age’s footy coverage, is defecting from Nine, owner of The Age, to Seven’s TV football coverage. As we predicted last week, she was neither seen nor heard at Seven’s football showcase at the network’s former TV studios in South Melbourne.
But Seven was finally able to deliver good news.
“Legals have finally allowed us today to announce that Caroline Wilson will join,” said Seven head of AFL and sport innovation Gary O’Keeffe.
“We’re not allowed to have her here, but Caro will be there for the first show. So that’s awesome,” said O’Keeffe, announcing she will be a fixture of the network’s Agenda Setters program on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Riewoldt, who has been living in the US, revealed with some feeling a “pivotal moment” in his life when he told his three boys that Dustin Martin had retired – and found out they had no idea who he was. “And I thought, this is it. I’ve got to get home. We’ve been gone for too long.”
The legendary Bruce McAvaney, 71, who is returning to host Sunday night matches, was full of praise for his “rock star” South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and Malinauskas’ mania for major events including LIV Golf. The third year of the AFL Gather Round, which Malinauskas outmanoeuvred NSW and Western Australia to snare, starts on April 10.
And it seems McAvaney had a hand in bringing the whole thing to South Australia, although he tried to play it down. At the 2022 AFL grand final he accompanied Malinauskas into the heart of AFL power, the commissioners’ lunch.
Bruce McAvaney will host Sunday night matches.Credit: AFL Photos
“He said to me: ‘Bruce, do you think I should really go hard and try and get this Gather Round?’
“I said, ‘I reckon it’s good idea. I think we are the perfect state.’ And that day, he worked the room unbelievably.”
Kane Corner
New recruit Kane Cornes (also poached from Nine) was the centre of attention at the Seven launch. The former AFL star turned commentator paid tribute to McAvaney, who helped him when he was drifting earlier in his football career.
“I was out of favour, and I was ready to give up. And Bruce met me for a coffee at the Broadway kiosk in Glenelg [Adelaide],” Cornes said, recalling the rough patch in his career. “He just wanted me to fight a little bit harder than I probably was, so I’ll never forget that.”
Kane Cornes during his playing days with Port Adelaide.Credit: David Mariuz
Cornes then explained how he would navigate working with fellow commentator Dale Thomas, given the celebrated blow-up between the pair of former AFL stars during which Thomas labelled Cornes a “complete f---wit”.
“I’ve spoken to Daisy [Thomas]. We come from two different sides, so that can be really good. I said as long as the respect is there, and as long as if there’s any conversation to be had, it’s had face to face, it can be as hard as it wants to be on TV, because I think that’s good TV, as long as the respect is there when the cameras are off.”
Squad assembles
It’s been months of partying for the global right since Donald Trump’s election victory in November.
And the latest unmissable jamboree is Canadian psychologist and incel fave Jordan Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference, happening in London this week.
It’s drawn the leading lights of the Australian conservative intelligentsia over to Britain like moths to a flame. Tony Abbott was on stage this week breaking with the Trumpian orthodoxy and denouncing tariffs. His former chief of staff Peta Credlin was also on stage, as was ex-deputy prime minister John Anderson.
Former treasurer Peter Costello is due to speak later in the week, while contributors include former prime minister Scott Morrison, anti-Voice campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine and once was ABC and Nine political editor Chris Uhlmann, who metamorphosed into a columnist for The Australian.
But not everyone’s London jaunt has gone without a hitch. Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming, now happily returned to the party room after winning her defamation case against former leader John Pesutto, was all set to attend and skip a couple of Victorian parliamentary sitting days in the process.
After grumbling within Liberal ranks, Deeming promised Opposition Leader Brad Battin to cut her trip short, but she remains overseas because of an unforeseen medical situation.
Meanwhile, it is a different kettle of fish in NSW. CBD can reveal that two Liberal shadow assistant ministers, Tanya Davies and Susan Carter, have quietly headed off to London, despite NSW parliament sitting this week.
Davies, like Deeming, has form causing a bit of division within the party, having popped up at a few anti-vaccination rallies back in the COVID days.
But the duo skipping parliament this week doesn’t seem to have triggered as much internal grumbling among NSW Liberals, nor any sign of a rebuke from that state’s opposition leader, Mark Speakman.
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