COLLINGWOOD fans would be breathing easier with the news star midfielder Dane Swan has turned his back on the GWS temptress, and will re-sign with the Pies for the next four years.
Swan's loyalty didn't come cheap. The Herald Sun reports his new deal with the Magpies will net him more than $700,000 over the next four years.
That's an elite pay packet but one the winner of the past three Copeland Trophies richly deserves.
The tabloid says Collingwood will confirm the deal on Wednesday.
Interestingly, The Age also reported Swan's signing was imminent, relying on comments from his manager, Liam Pickering, on Fox Sports on Tuesday night.
The broadsheet dedicated a whole two paragraphs to the story. And if you turned the page to its "2011 Time Capsule" you read 'Clairvoyant' Caroline Wilson, Jon 'Paranormal' Pierik and 'Galactic' Garry Lyon - these nicknames were the paper's doing - nominating Swan as the player GWS would successfully poach this year.
The real fun starts now, however. For GWS has reportedly long had two other Magpie midfielders in its sights, Scott Pendlebury and Dale Thomas.
The Giants can only sign one uncontracted player from the same club over the next two seasons, so they won't necessarily regard missing Swan as a huge blow.
After all, most reports have suggested Pendlebury and Thomas are deemed higher priorities than Swan. At 23, both are four years younger than Swan, and far more likely to be at their playing peaks when the Giants reach theirs.
So, a little advice to Magpie fans. Enjoy the moment, but remember, you've won a battle, not the war.
Dissenting voices in concussion debate
The Herald Sun's coverage of the reaction to Tuesday's news concussed players would no longer be allowed to return to the ground was confusing.
Its report ran under the headline "Docs support new KO rule". Reasonable then to assume, we would have thought, it would have backed this up with comments from at least a couple of club doctors giving the new rule the thumbs up.
All we got, however, was AFL Medial Officers' Association (MOA) director Dr Hugh Seward running through the approach and procedures club doctors would have to follow under the new rule.
No other medical sources were quoted. The only other sources the tabloid referred to, the Hawthorn and Carlton skippers, Luke Hodge and Chris Judd, were "sceptical" about how the new rule would work in practice, Judd suggesting clubs would avoid concussion diagnoses where possible.
A report in The Age, however, showed this scepticism was shared by one club doctor, the Sydney Swans' Dr Nathan Gibbs, who said at least another five club doctors were also concerned the new rule would lead to the under-reporting of concussion.
Dr Gibbs said there was a danger under the new rule that minor concussion cases would not be diagnosed as concussion and, as such, would not be monitored as closely, as they should be.
However, Dr Michael Makdissi, a concussion expert who co-authored the recommendations to the AFL MOA that led to the new rule, told The Age the new concussion procedures were based on leading international sports standards.
Dr Makdissi also said he was confident club doctors would never do anything that put the health of their players at risk.
It is good, isn't it, to hear both sides of the argument?
Almost another Pratt president
So we almost had another Pratt as Carlton president, less than three years after the late Richard Pratt stepped down from the role.
The Age told us this on Wednesday, its chief football writer Caroline Wilson reporting Pratt's widow, Jeanne, recently pushed to be elevated to the presidency, a role she proposed to share with incumbent president Stephen Kernahan.
Wilson said the board was divided on the issue but ultimately decided its constitution did not allow for a shared presidency. Hence, Mrs Pratt's appointment last week as the club's senior vice-president.
Her appointment comes at an interesting time. The Blues' current three-year deal with the Pratt family company, Visy, ends after this season. And to appoint Mrs Pratt to her new position, Carlton was forced to extend its board to 12 members, when a recent club review recommended reducing the board to between seven and nine directors.
Still, Pratt becomes the only woman on Carlton's board, and only the second female board member in the club's history.
And, as Kernahan told The Age, the club needed - and still needs - to improve its female representation at board level.
All aboard the debt demolition bandwagon
Melbourne engaged in 'Debt Demolition', Richmond launched its 'Fighting Tiger Fund', while the Western Bulldogs now want to 'Bulldoze the Debt' and Port Adelaide longs to be 'Back in Black'.
Whatever you want to call it, getting rid of debt is fast becoming many clubs' No. 1 off-field priority.
St Kilda and North Melbourne are the latest clubs to join the craze, according to The Age, with the Saints set to launch a campaign to tackle their $1 million-$2 million debt, while the Kangaroos will appeal to their supporters over the next year-to-18 months to help reduce their $4.75 million debt.
The only thing remaining for both clubs is to come up with a suitable campaign slogan. How about 'Repenting our Financial Sins' for the Saints? And 'Bounding into the Black' for the Roos?
In short
After putting his disappointing seven-year stint at Richmond behind him, Port Adelaide forward Jay Schulz is ready to fill the considerable hole left on the Power's forward line by Warren Tredrea's retirement, The Advertiser reports.
Gold Coast Suns reserves coach Shaun Hart says the newly formed North East Australian Football League would be a "school of hard knocks" for his young players in 2011, The Courier Mail reports.
The AFL Players' Association will seek a pay hike in the finals payments for players of the top-four sides as part of its 2012-16 collective bargaining agreement demands, The Australian reports.
Senior Sydney Swan Ryan O'Keefe says his club's poor recent record at the MCG - it has won one of its past 11 games there - would not give the Swans any added motivation when they take on Melbourne in their round one game on Sunday, The Daily Telegraph reports.
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
