“He couldn't talk, he was really slow in his speech and was so drawn in the face.”

Henry Playfair, friend of Geelong’s Tom Lonergan, on the player’s slow return from serious injury.

A sad Grand Final tale from Andrew Demetriou, who reported that the number of corporate fat cats swilling Chardy and ignoring the game will be significantly down this year. Tough economic conditions “had an impact on corporate hospitality, on the sale of (corporate) boxes,” he said, to the sound of deafening indifference all round. Jeff Kennett was having none of this gloom, however: “The crowds are a good omen; the weather’s a good omen; the result in 1991 is a good omen,” he intoned, while predicting the death of Caesar, throwing bones and opening a fortune cookie.
The careers of several Broncos players may be dead, but at least no-one’s saying they themselves are. For a few hours yesterday, it looked like the downward spiral of ex-England footballer Paul Gascoigne through depression, alcoholism and increasing madness had ended in his death. Fortunately, he was then photographed “giggling” outside a hotel with a mystery blonde, which is in the same paddock as George Best’s “where did it all go wrong?”