LAPPIN TO RETIRE TODAY
Triple premiership star Nigel Lappin will today announce his retirement, reports The Courier-Mail’s Andrew Hamilton. The Brisbane Lions are entering a complex player-signing period and it is understood contract negotiations with several young stars may have squeezed the veteran co-captain out of football. Lappin, 32, who has an on-going achilles injury, sought talks with Brisbane coach Leigh Matthews yesterday to determine if the club viewed him as a required player for next season. "I was really desperate to play again, I just wanted some closure on my career and not to finish on the sidelines," Lappin said. "But I've known all year it was time to retire, my wife and I have spoken about it at length. I have always put pressure on myself to perform and I got to the stage even before my injury that I was getting to game day and just not feeling the same intense motivation to get out there and play." The hard running midfielder will retire on 279 games, third on the club's all-time list, and as one of the greatest players of the modern era. He was Brisbane's best-and-fairest in 2004 and has four All-Australian jumpers. The salary cap will pose problems for Brisbane leading up to the trade period as it attempts to meet the needs of its two best players, Simon Black and Jonathan Brown, while warding off poaching raids on young star Michael Rischitelli.

LONG ROAD HOME FOR MILNE
The road to the finals wasn't meant to be like this for Stephen Milne, reports The Herald Sun. The St Kilda forward left Perth about lunchtime yesterday for an uncomfortable 3476km road trip to Melbourne to protect his fractured cheekbone. Accompanied by club doctor Denis Campbell - and not his father as reported - Milne is expected to arrive home late tomorrow night. Club officials last night were unsure where the pair were bunking down at night, but they were expected to rest in Kalgoorlie and then Adelaide. Flying home was ruled out by doctors. "There is an element of risk to flying with this type of injury," Saints football manager Matthew Drain said. The Saints hope Milne will miss just one game - against Adelaide at Telstra Dome on Sunday -- but sports medico Dr Peter Larkins said Milne could be out longer. "I think that (one week) is optimistic," Larkins said.

AFL MATCHES CONFIRMED FOR INDIA
The AFL will push further into overseas markets by playing two exhibition matches in India in early March, in addition to the scheduled Collingwood-West Coast game in South Africa, reports The Age. Feroz Shah Kotla cricket ground in New Delhi and Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai have been selected as the two preferred arena by the AFL. Both have a capacity of about 40,000. The AFL also has plans to play a further exhibition match in Miami. Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has ruled out his club's involvement in an Indian match due to the existing South African commitment, but Richmond, Essendon and North Melbourne have been lobbying hard to be involved in the first games to be played in India. Richmond invited Sujatha Singh, the Indian high commissioner to Australia, to a recent match against Essendon. Anita Nayar, India's Consul General in Melbourne, has also attended two Tigers' games this season.

SPECULATION INTENSIFIES OVER BROWN
Jonathan Brown can play poker for me any time he is available, says The Herald Sun’s Mike Sheahan. Yet another week passes and still no hint whether he will be a "Lion for life", as Brisbane hopes, or continue his career in Melbourne. In short, Brown, who turns 27 in October, has the choices of staying in Brisbane on a four-year deal or coming home to Victoria. Presumably to Collingwood, presumably on a five-year contract. Then again, Collingwood makes lots of offers to lots of big names, most recently Brown, Daniel Kerr and, if the rumour mill is spinning with its usual accuracy, Ben Rutten. What that says is the Magpies are out there having a crack, as usual, and there's no bigger name than Brown. Logic says the longer it goes, the more likely it is he will move. He will be getting asked about his intentions a dozen times a day, and that's got to be driving him mad. But how can he announce any decision other than "I'm staying" with two rounds and, perhaps, finals still to play? As we understand it, he is weighing up an offer of $4 million for five years from Collingwood plus the captaincy, against $3 million-plus for another four years in Brisbane.

CATS TRICKS WORK A TREAT
It is no surprise that Geelong has had the best-performed defence over the past two seasons, writes The Age’s Robert Walls. The Cats concede, on average, only 75 points a game. At the other end of the scale, Melbourne this year has averaged having 118 points kicked against it. Basically, the same seven players line up each week in the Geelong back half. Veterans Matthew Scarlett, Darren Milburn and Tom Harley are there to support the younger Josh Hunt, Andrew Mackie, Harry Taylor and Corey Enright. Of course, the back-line boys get great support from a forward line and midfield that pressures the opposition and prevents an avalanche of leather going into their area. What is intriguing, though, is the way the Geelong back line operates. For years, the rule in football has been that you play your best defenders on the other team's best forwards. But Geelong has turned that theory upside down. The Cats try to free up their best defenders to be attacking rebounders, and give the lesser lights the responsibility to play tight on the opposition big guns. It's generally considered that Scarlett is Geelong's best backman. Some say he is one of the best full-backs of all time. Over 11 seasons and 200 games, he has played on the best forwards. But not now. Because of his amazing ability to read the play and create, the Cats try to free him up. Evidence last year's grand final. Port Adelaide's most experienced and accomplished forward was its captain Warren Tredrea. Milburn played on and controlled Tredrea. That left Scarlett to play on Justin Westhoff, a skinny 20-year-old who was playing only his 16th AFL game. The boy was overawed and had only the four kicks and went goalless, while Scarlett, with 29 disposals, was his team's highest possession-getter. It was excellent coaching by the Cats to maximise their talents.

HODGE TO COP SUSPENSION
Gun midfielder Luke Hodge is the first of a long list of key Hawthorn players to feel the sting from accumulated demerit points, reports The Herald Sun. A loading of carry-over points means Hodge is stuck with a one-game suspension for striking Richmond's Brett Deledio on Sunday. The versatile left-footer must sit out Sunday's game against West Coast in Perth unless he successfully fights the penalty at the AFL tribunal tonight. Even if Hodge pleads guilty and accepts the match review panel's enforced rest, he will have a fresh swag of 71.38 points hanging over him for the finals series. Hodge is one of 10 Hawthorn players currently with those dreaded demerit points hovering over them

BOMBERS PAIR OUT FOR SEASON
Essendon pair David Hille and Courtenay Dempsey are out for the season and Dustin Fletcher is expected to join them, reports The Age. Scans yesterday confirmed Hille (broken hand) and Dempsey (fractured fibula) would miss the last two games of the year after going down against Adelaide on Saturday. The casualties take Essendon's highly publicised injury list to a staggering 19 names after 20 rounds of football.

BIG DAY FOR HARVEY
Some 200 St Kilda players past and present will form a guard of honour for retiring champion Robert Harvey in what the Saints are dubbing the Robert Harvey Tribute match against the Crows on Sunday, reports The Age. The club has been busy trying to contact the 220 players that Harvey has played with throughout his 21-year career — including current players — to be there on Sunday when Harvey runs out on to the Telstra Dome with his wife and three children. "Hopefully we should get the vast majority of them," club spokesman Matt Schmidt said yesterday. "It's going to be quite incredible." While the Saints will play at the Telstra Dome again in round 22, and could extend their season into the finals, Schmidt said they had chosen the weekend's match to dedicate to Harvey as it will be their last home game of the season. "We thought it would be best to mark it as our last home game and then regardless of how far we stretch into finals — if we make finals — we have marked it properly already," Schmidt said. "It's a pretty emotional time, having a legend like Harvs' career coming to an end, but certainly we wanted to be able to mark his last game at some point."