🏉 Cripps Scripts Epic Brownlow Win

Good morning, it's Monday, 19 September. The AFL Grand Final is all set - Cats v Swans - MCG - Saturday 2:30pm AEST. Cats love to eat birds, but swans can be massive, so using that logic the GF could go either way. What we do know is who was the fairest and best player this season and he ain't got the Blues no more.

⏱ 1,345 words = 8 minutes

👀 Now that's a hat-trick!

THE MAIN GAME

🏉 Cripps, Bloods the big winners this weekend

AFL's night of nights didn't disappoint with a thrilling Brownlow Medal count, glitz and glamour on the red carpet and Libba. The Swans also won a prelim final for the ages, but more on that in a bit.

Golden points: Patrick Cripps won his 1st Brownlow Medal, edging out favourite Lachie Neale by a single vote.

• Going into the final round, 4 players were in with a shot - Cripps, Lions star Neale, Fremantle's Andrew Brayshaw and Touk Miller from the Gold Coast.

• Bradshaw and Miller didn't get a vote in the final round, so they were ruled out. Neale polled 1 vote in the Lions' loss to the Demons to go 2 clear of Cripps. But in the final round, Cripps put in a performance for the ages in Carlton's heartbreaking one-point loss to Collingwood.

• Cripps polled the maximum 3 votes to take his tally to 29, which was just enough to sneak past Neale to be the 1st Carlton player to win the Brownlow since his idol Chris Judd in 2010.

• It's a remarkable win by Cripps considering he was initially suspended for the final 2 rounds of the season for a hard bump on Brisbane's Callum Ah Chee, but his ban was overturned by the Appeals board. Brownlow co-host Hamish McLachlan even made a Dennis Denuto joke about it. It was the vibe of the night.

They said it: "I don’t know whether to laugh or cry ... it’s unbelievable. I can’t put it into words - it’s a massive honour," - Cripps was lost for words.

What's next: There's only one thing left - THE AFL GRAND FINAL. It's the Cats against the Swans this Saturday arvo at the MCG. The Swans scraped through by one point over Collingwood to make the GF, while the Cats were far too good for the Lions on Friday night.

QUICK SINGLES:

🏉 Rugby: Rugby Australia has complained to World Rugby about last week's controversial Bledisloe Cup ending. A report in The Australian says Rugby Australia ain't too happy about the decision to award the All Blacks a free kick for time-wasting with 90 seconds to go by French referee Mathieu Raynal. It was a pretty big call because the All Blacks scored after the siren to steal the win and pretty much end Australia's hopes of winning the Bledisloe Cup and The Rugby Championship. Wallaby Nic White said as much to Raynal after the match.

🎾 Tennis: Australia advance to the Davis Cup quarters. Wins against France and Belgium had already locked in Australia's spot in the quarters before last night's tie against Germany, so captain Lleyton Hewitt mixed things up. It didn't quite go to plan - Max Purcell lost his singles and doubles matches, but Thanasi Kokkinakis won his singles match to go down 2-1 to the Germans. But that experience could prove invaluable when Australia plays the Dutch in the quarter-finals in Spain starting on 22 November.

🚴‍♀️ Cycling: The world's best road cyclists are Down Under and an Aussie has already got a medal. Grace Brown won silver in the women's time trial at the UCI 2022 World Road Championships in Wollongong, missing out on the gold to Holland's Ellen van Dijk by just 12 seconds. The men's time trial was won by Norway's Tobias Foss, who couldn't believe he got the gold. The world champs run from 18-25 September with 9 more events left to race.

🏉 NRL: Four teams remain in each of the rugba leeg comps. In the NRL last Friday night, the Eels beat the Raiders 40-4 so they'll play North Queensland in Townsville this coming Friday night. Then on last Saturday, South Sydney's dream run continued, they beat Cronulla 38-12 to knock the Sharks out in straight sets. The Rabbitohs now play the Panthers this coming Saturday night at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney. In the NRLW, Brisbane has missed out on the finals for the first time in the comp's history. So it'll be the Roosters playing the Eels and the Knights playing the Dragons in the 2 preliminary finals this Sunday at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.

⚽️ Football: A young gun makes Premier League history. Ethan Nwaneri is not just a young gun, he's the youngest gun ever in the Premier League after he made his debut for Arsenal in the last few minutes of stoppage time overnight. Nwaneri is 15y 181d old and is the 1st player under 16yo to play in the EPL. He's already got 91k Insta followers - we suspect he might have a few more in the coming days.

LEFT OF FIELD

⚽️ Football: It's estimated more than a million people have visited Queen Elizabeth II's coffin in the past week ahead of her funeral in London today. One of those people was England football legend David Beckham. But Becks didn't skip the queue like some VIPs. No, he lined up for 12 hours to pay his respects. He says he joined the queue at around 2:15am on Friday morning thinking it would be a bit quieter but admits he got that slightly wrong. The line went for miles so he passed the time by sharing stories with those around him, eating Pringles and donuts and of course drinking plenty of coffee. When he got to Westminster Hall it looked like he wiped away a tear before he paid his respects to the Queen. He was there for less than 10 seconds before leaving, probably to get back into bed or at least have a seat.

📽 Highlight reel: Tottenham's Son Heung-min hadn't scored a goal in the 1st 6 games of this season. He was out of form and dropped to the bench. But he's gone from zero to hero with a stunning hat-trick against Leicester on the weekend. 3 goals in 13 minutes and the 1st 2 are world-class strikes.

THE POLLING BOOTH

Friday's result: 74.65% reckon the Wallabies were robbed against the All Blacks last week.

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

• ⚾️ 9:00am - MLB - Giants v Dodgers - Oracle Park, San Francisco - Foxtel, Kayo

• 🏉 9:30am - NFL - Packers v Bears - Lambeau Field, Green Bay - Foxtel, Kayo

All times AEST

THE MANAGER'S OFFICE

There's only one thing the manager hates more than a bunch of wet towels on the floor, and that's a referral that's gone missing... Tell your teammates, supporters, and physio about us. No one likes a ball hog...