Titmus, Thorpe break down McKeown's DQ
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West Australian
11 minutes ago
- West Australian
Ryan Daniels: Hayden Young is made for finals and returns to Fremantle Dockers' line-up at perfect time
A rusted on, beanie wearing, Freo die-hard, stumbles home from the Sail and Anchor, fresh from a night arguing if Anthony Morabito or Josh Simpson was the greater 'what if' Docker. He stops to water the Norfolk Pines of the esplanade, and spots something shiny in the bushes. A lamp — faded and antiquey — with a faint purple hue. He gives it a rub and out pops a genie, offering just one wish. He tries fixing the past. A new set of knees for Mora, straight kicking in the 2013 grand final and safer hands for Tom Sheridan. Alas, history cannot be rewritten. This particular genie is more of an in-season list manager type of genie — a blue, cartooned David Walls, if you will. What would our lubricated wharfie add to this team? It was obvious. A big bodied, elite-kicking midfielder — a left-footer ideally — who can go inside our out, depending on need and matchups. One you can be flexible with. Could they play forward and hit the scoreboard? Could they swing down back if needed? Hard, skilful, a little different to what you already have, maybe with long, luscious locks that could be cast in a Pantene Pro-V commercial. Wish, granted. Hayden Young ticks every box. Young's hamstring surgery and subsequent recovery is done. He'll return tomorrow against the Pies, likely on managed minutes, but still, he's back. The other eight finals contenders would kill for a looming inclusion such as Young's. A few do have one: Hawthorn have Will Day in the wings, the Pies have Jordan De Goey and GWS Sam Taylor. The calibre of player who can swing a final. Young's absence this season has been somewhat ignored by many. Don't forget this guy was last season's big improver, third in the Doig Medal and an All-Australian squad member. Young has the ability to be Freo's version of Jordan Dawson, given seasoning. His presence could not arrive at a better time. The Dockers face Collingwood at the MCG and as heavy underdogs, it's become somewhat of a free hit at the premiership favourites. Beat the Pies and, forget finals, the Dockers would be looking an outside chance for top four, or at worst a firm shot at hosting a home elimination final in week one. Lose, and no one should bat an eyelid. Either way, the noise can't become overpowering. Forget Flagmantle, grand statements, outside noise — the Dockers don't need to be anything in particular this next six weeks. They don't always need to be the next big thing, or a rabble, overachieving or underachieving. Every loss doesn't need to bring a spotlight on the coach, and every win come with declarations of inevitable shiny cups. They just need to be. We saw a stat this week emerge; Fremantle are an AFL-leading 5-2 against the league's top nine teams. The losses came against the Cats in round one and the Pies in round nine. The Crows and Hawks are both 3-5 against the AFL's best, while the Western Bulldogs were 1-7 before this weekend. Against the bottom nine teams, Freo are 6-4 (two of those losses came against the 10th placed Sydney), while Collingwood, the Bulldogs and Crows are an astonishing 9-0. The Hawks are 8-1. Translation: the Dockers are well equipped to take on the AFL's best teams, while the Crows, Hawks and Dogs are feasting on the carcasses of the weak. The Pies don't count, they're good at everything. Fremantle have had two disgraceful performances this season; that round one embarrassment against the Cats in Geelong, and the 'Marvel Massacre' — a round eight shellacking from the Saints — which was an abomination and possibly an aberration. Their other four losses are by a combined 38 points. We're about to see one of the all-time races to for finals spots. Thanks to a horde of rebuilding teams piling up losses, and a mid-table mess of mediocrity stumbling home, the AFL's better half are piling up the victories. The team which finishes ninth this year will likely be one of the unluckiest in footy history. We've never seen a team miss the eight with 14 wins. That's in play in 2025. In fact, in the 30 years of the top eight system, no team has missed with 13 wins and only five times has 12 wins not been enough. One of those were the Dockers last season. The next six weekends will be a wild roller-coaster for a bunch of supporters, of a bunch of clubs. Freo are no different to the others. Having Hayden Young along for the ride, will mean the Dockers add a wildcard wish, a weapon unfired in 2025 and it might just be enough to get them to September.
Perth Now
41 minutes ago
- Perth Now
Wallabies' task to surf Sea of Red to relevancy
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt knows any of the ground his side's made up with the Australian public can be washed away in 80 minutes by a Brisbane red sea. The British and Irish Lions - and an estimated 40,000 supporters - are back in town, 12 years after a one-sided Sydney decider tipped the scales in their favour. They'll start heavy favourites at a sold-out Suncorp Stadium on Saturday, the Wallabies this week jumping from eighth to sixth in the world after their unconvincing defeat of Fiji earlier this month. Up 1-0 in 1989, the Wallabies were rocked 19-12 in a violent Brisbane Test, dubbed the "Battle of Ballymore", before losing the Sydney decider. In 2001 the Wallabies were world champions and, after a Gabba ambush that changed the way Australians supported their team, found another gear to win the series 2-1. Kurtley Beale slipped attempting the match-winning penalty in Brisbane 12 years later, James Horwill's men prevailing in a similarly tight Melbourne affair before that Sydney boilover. In 2025 the Wallabies are coming from further behind, two years ago at rock bottom when unable to escape from the World Cup group stage for the first time. In Brisbane they're missing two of their most important players in the injured Rob Valetini and Will Skelton. A new halves combination, 22-year-old flyhalf Tom Lynagh in his first Test start and veteran scrumhalf Jake Gordon, is another unknown. Still, Schmidt has created some optimism following a Spring Tour that featured the arrival of flash new toy Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii from the NRL. "We've felt a bit of a shift," Schmidt said of the public support. "There's a bit of a groundswell and the players are conscious you need to earn that every time you lace up. "We know that in recent times perhaps we haven't earnt that. "I don't know which is the cart and which is the horse, but we need each other." The cynic would say there's a reason Rugby Australia have made the historic call to emblazon the Wallabies jerseys with the players' surnames. But unlikely captain Harry Wilson, who until last year spent seasons in the Test wilderness after surging to a debut as a 20-year-old rookie, wants to take the chance to join John Eales as a Lion tamer. "It's something a lot of us haven't ever had," the scruffy No.8 explained to the media scrum of the build-up to the game. "We love seeing rugby being talked about and it's come at a really good time for us." Thousands of Lions supporters crammed into Brisbane's King George Square on Friday, singing Oasis, Neil Diamond and Queen songs as they waited for their heroes to walk onto stage. Queues for a beer at the nearby British pub stretched out the door. It was that Sea of Red that flooded the Gabba in 2001 and forced Rugby Australia to respond with a golden wave in Melbourne. With plenty to prove, Wilson is adamant his underdogs are up to it and Lions star-turned assistant coach Johnny Sexton isn't surprised. "We're just trying to put a great performance out there because that's what's going to be needed," he said. "A great performance, not a good performance, to beat this Australian team." Schmidt, who's coached with and against most of the Lions players and staff during his time in Ireland is smiling at the challenge ahead. "We've had one Test match. We've got 15 this year ... we thought we'd ease our way into the year," he grinned. "That's the magnitude of it, really."
Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Perth Now
'Happy' Plappy shines at Tour as Pogacar reigns supreme
Australian champion Luke Plapp has delivered an exceptional mountain time trial at the Tour de France -- but it was still a mere sideshow to yet another sublime stage triumph for runaway leader Tadej Pogacar. The 24-year-old Plapp gave everything to finish fifth over the unforgiving 10.9km uphill slog against the clock from Loudenvielle to the Pyrenean ski resort Peyragudes on Friday. The Melburnian found himself leading for a couple of hours from all challengers after covering the brutal course in 24 minutes 58 seconds, until the Tour's biggest guns came down the ramp among the final 10 starters. And while Germany's Florian Lipowitz (24:56), five-time Grand Tour champ Primoz Roglic (24:20) and two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard (23:36) all surpassed the Australian's time, it was Pogacar who once again showed them all he was in a different league as he clocked 23 minutes dead. It was his fourth stage victory of the Tour that he's turning into a one-man supershow as he put another 36 seconds into his advantage over Vingegaard, who's now four minutes and seven seconds behind with the toughest stages still to come. Plapp, the big engine of the Australian Jayco AlUla team, had won the national time trial championship at the start of the year and annexed his first Grand Tour stage win at the Giro d'Italia. This time, he had focused all his energies on this stage. "The last minute, though, was painful, but all in all I enjoyed the race, nevertheless," he said. "I've missed the break these last few stages, and that enabled me to take it easy in the grupetto. I'll definitely be feeling today's effort in my legs tomorrow … but anyway, I wanted to represent the colours (of the Australian flag) well and I'm happy." He predicted, as he sat in the provisional leader's chair watching the rest of the field trying to catch him, that the winner would be "a minute or minute-and-a-half quicker", but Pogacar was so brilliant he ended up almost two minutes faster. Yet Plapp earned one big scalp in particular, as he proved 41 seconds quicker than Olympic champ Remco Evenepoel, who was suffering on the climb and only just clung on to his third place in the GC, now a massive 7:24 behind Pogacar. Lipowitz is just six seconds off a podium place. Pogacar's latest amazing display came just a day after he had destroyed the field on the famed Hautacam climb, and he reckoned his 21st Tour stage win felt just as sweet. "I'm super happy. I wanted everything to be perfect. I almost blew up in the end but I saw the timer at the top and it gave me an extra push because I saw I'm gonna win," said the 26-year-old who is set to be crowned champ for a fourth time.
