Essendon Bombers cult hero Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti retires for a second time

“[I got] feedback of, ‘You’re still young, even though you retired’. That support from people … I think that gave me a drive to go, ‘OK, well, I’m 29, let’s just try and get back in line again’. It’s been a hard, long road, but I’ve really enjoyed my time doing it.”

McDonald-Tipungwuti received a huge reception when he ran onto the ground in his comeback game this year as the substitute early in the last quarter of the round-one game against Hawthorn – and the reaction was even louder when he kicked a goal soon after.

Coach Brad Scott described it at the time as a “great moment for Essendon fans and for our club”, and was effusive in his praise this week after the 30-year-old revealed he was hanging up the boots a second time.

“I said to the playing group that, of all the great champions who have come through the Essendon Football Club, it’s actually hard to think of someone who has made such an impression on our supporter base and club on so many different levels,” Scott said.

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“It’s a celebration for ‘Walla’. The turnaround from where he was to where he is now has been incredible, but by his own admission, [playing] next year is just a bridge too far for him, both physically and mentally.

“It will be an unbelievable opportunity for all Essendon people to get to the MCG and celebrate what’s been an incredible career.”

McDonald-Tipungwuti had to wait until he was 22 for his AFL shot.

He represented Gippsland Power as a junior then the Bombers’ VFL team before Essendon finally selected him in the rookie draft of 2015.

He has kicked 157 career goals to date, including being the club’s leading goalkicker in 2020 and three times slotting 30 or more in a season.

‘Hasn’t worked’: Coach admits Grundy experiment has not gone to plan

Marc McGowan

Melbourne premiership coach Simon Goodwin has conceded the Demons’ bold call to trade for Brodie Grundy in an attempt to form a dominant ruck partnership with Max Gawn has failed to date.

Million-dollar ruckman Grundy became expendable at his previous club Collingwood because of the size of his wage, and how many years he was still contracted for, despite being a dual All-Australian.

The timing of last year’s development coincided with Luke Jackson requesting a trade from Melbourne to Fremantle, creating a scenario for Dees list boss Tim Lamb – who has a reputation for being aggressive and creative at the trade table – to consider Grundy as a replacement.

There was industry-wide curiosity about how the ruck tandem would work ever since the trade went through. After Melbourne persevered with the combination for much of the season, the ex-Pie has played just once in the past six weeks while being axed twice.

Grundy now seems at long odds to be an on-field factor in the Demons’ push for a second flag in three seasons, barring an injury to six-time All-Australian Gawn.

“In terms of the way they function in the team together, from a forward-half perspective; I think it’s pretty clear … that it hasn’t quite been the success that we were hoping for – and that certainly hasn’t been all on Brodie,” Goodwin said, a day after extending his tenure as coach to the end of 2026.

“We were hoping for Max to play big time forward [time] as well, and between the two of them we haven’t quite had the impact that we would have liked throughout the year, and we’ve had to look down a different path to how we structure up the forward half of the ground.

“At this point, that’s impacted Brodie’s ability to play in the team in the last five or six weeks, so I think from that perspective, we acknowledge that part of it hasn’t worked.

“There are certainly areas of the combination that have worked, and there are certainly areas of having them both on our list that have worked as well. We certainly haven’t had a closed book to what it might look like, and potentially what the opportunities are moving forward.”

Grundy’s recall from the VFL for the round-22 clash with Carlton followed swingman Harry Petty’s season-ending foot injury – but he was dumped again last week after another ineffectual performance up forward.

As a ruckman, the 29-year-old remains among the league’s elite, and that is why there will be no shortage of suitors if he pursues a trade.

Port Adelaide, Sydney and Geelong loom as the most obvious landing points, while St Kilda wanted to partner Tom De Koning with Rowan Marshall, as they had previously done with the now-retired Paddy Ryder.

However, Melbourne’s ruck depth is shallow behind Gawn and Grundy, with rookies Will Verrall and Kyah Farris-White – an ex-basketballer still developing in the Coates Talent League – the only other recognised ruckmen. Josh Schache can play that role as well, if required, but is not a specialist.

The Demons would almost certainly not consider trading Grundy unless they could bring in another ruckman, with the likes of Giants Matt Flynn and Braydon Preuss – an ex-Melbourne player – Bulldog Jordon Sweet and Essendon’s Nick Bryan all out of contract.

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Power trio Scott Lycett, Brynn Teakle and Sam Hayes have also not signed a deal for 2024.

Goodwin and co have been firm publicly on Grundy being a required player since they dropped him, but he was subtly softer on the matter on Thursday while still not entertaining the topic of a trade.

“I’m in the space of winning games of footy and building the best footy team possible,” he said.

“Those things will be discussed at the end of the year but Brodie, from my end, is a Melbourne player. We need him up and running, we need him going well, and that’s my total focus at the moment.

“I understand the exterior talk and the noise about it, but he’s got four years to go as a Melbourne football player and we’d certainly love to have him at our footy club.”

Bayley Fritsch’s return from a foot setback for Sunday’s SCG clash with the Swans makes Grundy’s hopes of breaking back into the senior side even more difficult. Tom McDonald is another tall forward trying to force his way in after injury. Fourth-placed Melbourne can still finish as high as second, which would deliver a home qualifying final, if they can beat the Swans and other results go their way.

Clarkson whacks AFL’s Suns assistance

AAP

North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson has lit the fuse for an explosive clash with Gold Coast after slamming the AFL’s assistance packages to the expansion club.

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The Kangaroos will claim a third-straight wooden spoon – the first club to achieve the unwanted feat since Sydney from 1992-94 – if they don’t upset the Suns in Hobart on Saturday.

Clarkson swatted away talk of the AFL introducing a lottery system for the draft instead of the bottom-placed team automatically being awarded the No.1 pick.

West Coast appeared destined to collect just the second wooden spoon in the club’s proud’s history after sitting in 18th and last until recording a famous upset of the Western Bulldogs last Sunday. The stunning result put North back on the bottom, with the Kangaroos having won just 11 of 83 games since the start of the 2020 season.

“The bottom line is North Melbourne are where they are because they’ve been the most poorly performed team in the competition for the last four years,” Clarkson said on Thursday.

“There’d be just as many critics to say the lottery system isn’t fair either.

“The league put in place some things several years ago for the Gold Coast Suns to actually equalise and give them a better opportunity, including getting Darwin as a zone and included academy access to their players.

“It’s just accepted that Gold Coast have got three picks in the top-10 this year and it’s like, ‘Oh well, that’s OK’.

“The team on the bottom for the last four years isn’t given any assistance at all and we’re decrying this, ‘Should there be a lottery system?’

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“Bottom line is the team that finishes on the bottom of the ladder should probably get the benefit of the best young talent in the land.”

Clarkson rejected talk North would seek to tank the match against the Suns to ensure they ended up with the No.1 draft pick. The Kangaroos could also end up with a priority pick if key defender Ben McKay, as expected, chooses to leave during free agency at the end of the season.

“I know that there’s a nice prize out there, supposedly. Go tell that to West Coast last week, it didn’t bother them,” he said.

“We’ve tried to win all games that we’ve played to date and we’ve only won two of them. We’re not going to be laying down on the weekend.”

Clarkson said the Kangaroos would ideally like to hang on to McKay. “If we don’t feel like we get the compensation necessary for him then we’ll be fighting for him to stay, we want him to stay,” he said.

Clarkson will not be enforcing curfews or banning his players from riskier behaviours following a week of carnage off the field for the Kangaroos.

Club great Jack Ziebell is making a solid recovery from facial surgery after being the victim of an alleged unprovoked attack while at a bar on Sunday morning, just hours after he ended his 280-game career at the MCG. Star North midfielder Luke Davies-Uniacke will miss a second straight game after suffering a foot injury while surfing last week.

Clarkson stressed the Ziebell incident was a warning to all players ahead of the off-season that “nothing good happens after midnight”.

“There’s part of us that say it was a really unfortunate incident and there’s another part of us that say, ‘Geez, he was lucky’,” Clarkson said of the Ziebell incident. “We’ve taken that line to how lucky he was, it wasn’t a more serious injury because it could have been really nasty.”

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“[I got] feedback of, ‘You’re still young, even though you retired’. That support from people … I think that gave me a drive to go, ‘OK, well, I’m 29, let’s just try and get back in line again’. It’s been a hard, long road, but I’ve really enjoyed my time doing it.”

McDonald-Tipungwuti received a huge reception when he ran onto the ground in his comeback game this year as the substitute early in the last quarter of the round-one game against Hawthorn – and the reaction was even louder when he kicked a goal soon after.

Coach Brad Scott described it at the time as a “great moment for Essendon fans and for our club”, and was effusive in his praise this week after the 30-year-old revealed he was hanging up the boots a second time.

“I said to the playing group that, of all the great champions who have come through the Essendon Football Club, it’s actually hard to think of someone who has made such an impression on our supporter base and club on so many different levels,” Scott said.

Loading

“It’s a celebration for ‘Walla’. The turnaround from where he was to where he is now has been incredible, but by his own admission, [playing] next year is just a bridge too far for him, both physically and mentally.

“It will be an unbelievable opportunity for all Essendon people to get to the MCG and celebrate what’s been an incredible career.”

McDonald-Tipungwuti had to wait until he was 22 for his AFL shot.

He represented Gippsland Power as a junior then the Bombers’ VFL team before Essendon finally selected him in the rookie draft of 2015.

He has kicked 157 career goals to date, including being the club’s leading goalkicker in 2020 and three times slotting 30 or more in a season.

‘Hasn’t worked’: Coach admits Grundy experiment has not gone to plan

Marc McGowan

Melbourne premiership coach Simon Goodwin has conceded the Demons’ bold call to trade for Brodie Grundy in an attempt to form a dominant ruck partnership with Max Gawn has failed to date.

Million-dollar ruckman Grundy became expendable at his previous club Collingwood because of the size of his wage, and how many years he was still contracted for, despite being a dual All-Australian.

The timing of last year’s development coincided with Luke Jackson requesting a trade from Melbourne to Fremantle, creating a scenario for Dees list boss Tim Lamb – who has a reputation for being aggressive and creative at the trade table – to consider Grundy as a replacement.

There was industry-wide curiosity about how the ruck tandem would work ever since the trade went through. After Melbourne persevered with the combination for much of the season, the ex-Pie has played just once in the past six weeks while being axed twice.

Grundy now seems at long odds to be an on-field factor in the Demons’ push for a second flag in three seasons, barring an injury to six-time All-Australian Gawn.

“In terms of the way they function in the team together, from a forward-half perspective; I think it’s pretty clear … that it hasn’t quite been the success that we were hoping for – and that certainly hasn’t been all on Brodie,” Goodwin said, a day after extending his tenure as coach to the end of 2026.

“We were hoping for Max to play big time forward [time] as well, and between the two of them we haven’t quite had the impact that we would have liked throughout the year, and we’ve had to look down a different path to how we structure up the forward half of the ground.

“At this point, that’s impacted Brodie’s ability to play in the team in the last five or six weeks, so I think from that perspective, we acknowledge that part of it hasn’t worked.

“There are certainly areas of the combination that have worked, and there are certainly areas of having them both on our list that have worked as well. We certainly haven’t had a closed book to what it might look like, and potentially what the opportunities are moving forward.”

Grundy’s recall from the VFL for the round-22 clash with Carlton followed swingman Harry Petty’s season-ending foot injury – but he was dumped again last week after another ineffectual performance up forward.

As a ruckman, the 29-year-old remains among the league’s elite, and that is why there will be no shortage of suitors if he pursues a trade.

Port Adelaide, Sydney and Geelong loom as the most obvious landing points, while St Kilda wanted to partner Tom De Koning with Rowan Marshall, as they had previously done with the now-retired Paddy Ryder.

However, Melbourne’s ruck depth is shallow behind Gawn and Grundy, with rookies Will Verrall and Kyah Farris-White – an ex-basketballer still developing in the Coates Talent League – the only other recognised ruckmen. Josh Schache can play that role as well, if required, but is not a specialist.

The Demons would almost certainly not consider trading Grundy unless they could bring in another ruckman, with the likes of Giants Matt Flynn and Braydon Preuss – an ex-Melbourne player – Bulldog Jordon Sweet and Essendon’s Nick Bryan all out of contract.

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Power trio Scott Lycett, Brynn Teakle and Sam Hayes have also not signed a deal for 2024.

Goodwin and co have been firm publicly on Grundy being a required player since they dropped him, but he was subtly softer on the matter on Thursday while still not entertaining the topic of a trade.

“I’m in the space of winning games of footy and building the best footy team possible,” he said.

“Those things will be discussed at the end of the year but Brodie, from my end, is a Melbourne player. We need him up and running, we need him going well, and that’s my total focus at the moment.

“I understand the exterior talk and the noise about it, but he’s got four years to go as a Melbourne football player and we’d certainly love to have him at our footy club.”

Bayley Fritsch’s return from a foot setback for Sunday’s SCG clash with the Swans makes Grundy’s hopes of breaking back into the senior side even more difficult. Tom McDonald is another tall forward trying to force his way in after injury. Fourth-placed Melbourne can still finish as high as second, which would deliver a home qualifying final, if they can beat the Swans and other results go their way.

Clarkson whacks AFL’s Suns assistance

AAP

North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson has lit the fuse for an explosive clash with Gold Coast after slamming the AFL’s assistance packages to the expansion club.

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The Kangaroos will claim a third-straight wooden spoon – the first club to achieve the unwanted feat since Sydney from 1992-94 – if they don’t upset the Suns in Hobart on Saturday.

Clarkson swatted away talk of the AFL introducing a lottery system for the draft instead of the bottom-placed team automatically being awarded the No.1 pick.

West Coast appeared destined to collect just the second wooden spoon in the club’s proud’s history after sitting in 18th and last until recording a famous upset of the Western Bulldogs last Sunday. The stunning result put North back on the bottom, with the Kangaroos having won just 11 of 83 games since the start of the 2020 season.

“The bottom line is North Melbourne are where they are because they’ve been the most poorly performed team in the competition for the last four years,” Clarkson said on Thursday.

“There’d be just as many critics to say the lottery system isn’t fair either.

“The league put in place some things several years ago for the Gold Coast Suns to actually equalise and give them a better opportunity, including getting Darwin as a zone and included academy access to their players.

“It’s just accepted that Gold Coast have got three picks in the top-10 this year and it’s like, ‘Oh well, that’s OK’.

“The team on the bottom for the last four years isn’t given any assistance at all and we’re decrying this, ‘Should there be a lottery system?’

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“Bottom line is the team that finishes on the bottom of the ladder should probably get the benefit of the best young talent in the land.”

Clarkson rejected talk North would seek to tank the match against the Suns to ensure they ended up with the No.1 draft pick. The Kangaroos could also end up with a priority pick if key defender Ben McKay, as expected, chooses to leave during free agency at the end of the season.

“I know that there’s a nice prize out there, supposedly. Go tell that to West Coast last week, it didn’t bother them,” he said.

“We’ve tried to win all games that we’ve played to date and we’ve only won two of them. We’re not going to be laying down on the weekend.”

Clarkson said the Kangaroos would ideally like to hang on to McKay. “If we don’t feel like we get the compensation necessary for him then we’ll be fighting for him to stay, we want him to stay,” he said.

Clarkson will not be enforcing curfews or banning his players from riskier behaviours following a week of carnage off the field for the Kangaroos.

Club great Jack Ziebell is making a solid recovery from facial surgery after being the victim of an alleged unprovoked attack while at a bar on Sunday morning, just hours after he ended his 280-game career at the MCG. Star North midfielder Luke Davies-Uniacke will miss a second straight game after suffering a foot injury while surfing last week.

Clarkson stressed the Ziebell incident was a warning to all players ahead of the off-season that “nothing good happens after midnight”.

“There’s part of us that say it was a really unfortunate incident and there’s another part of us that say, ‘Geez, he was lucky’,” Clarkson said of the Ziebell incident. “We’ve taken that line to how lucky he was, it wasn’t a more serious injury because it could have been really nasty.”

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