GATHER ROUND DATES CONFIRMED

Footy fans across the country have been rushing to travel websites this week after the AFL and the South Australian government announced the dates for Gather Round 2024 on Monday.

The second Festival of Footy, where all nine matches are played in South Australia, will be held one round and two weeks earlier next year, from Thursday-Sunday, April 4-7.

The earlier date has been locked in early to coincide with the middle weekend of Victorian, Queensland and West Australian school holidays and to give footy fans plenty of time to make their plans.

All nine matches sold out this year, with more than 60,000 people travelling from interstate and a combined 268,000 people attending the footy – no mean feat when you consider the AFL’s 49th and 50th venues – Norwood Oval (two matches) and Mount Barker’s Summit Sports Park (one) – only hold 12,000 and 7500 respectively.

And it really was a Festival of Footy, with supporters of all 18 clubs enjoying a wonderful weekend where friendship, camaraderie and bantering were on show wherever you looked – in fact, at one hotel on the Saturday night, drinkers spent two hours singing the club songs of their rival clubs virtually without taking a breath.

“South Australia really turned it on (this year) – all the activity across the state, the nine matches, the footy festival and the community football engagement were some of the best days and events the AFL has ever delivered,” AFL CEO elect Andrew Dillon said.

“It was said to me so many times that the city itself felt like a Grand Final week, 18 times over, because every club in the competition was part of the build-up, the energy and the delivery, and every supporter base had their moment in the sun for their particular game.

“The opportunity ahead is to build on this, and by locking it in to South Australia and today announcing the dates for 2024, we are giving everyone a longer runway to put together a bigger and even better event, and our fans certainty around booking travel and accommodation.”

Monday’s announcement coincided with the release of the documentary Inside Gather Round: A Festival of Footy, which takes people inside the fun and excitement of Gather Round 2023, both on and off the field, which can be viewed at AFL.com.au.

South Australian Premier and active footballer Peter Malinauskas urged footy fans not to wait if they wanted to be part of what is a weekend to savour for anyone who follows the greatest game of all.

“The inaugural Gather Round was a success beyond anyone’s expectations,” he said.

“The event contributed tens of millions of dollars into the state’s economy and helped fill hotels, bars and restaurants.

“The atmosphere was simply incredible and the only way to truly experience it is by being here.

“Book your flights, book your accommodation and start planning your trip to South Australia because Gather Round 2024 promises to be even bigger than this year.”

As St Kilda prepares for a big week to celebrate Spud’s Game, star defender

Jack Sinclair is helping to drive the standards that could produce September action for the Saints.

ASHLEY BROWNE

The 2020 season was like no other in the history of the game.

It was long and interrupted. It was dislocated. It was a season that most AFL players could not wait to put behind them.

But for St Kilda’s Jack Sinclair, 2020 was the season that made him.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t played much until then.

He entered that season with 84 games under his belt, but he had been thrown around a fair bit – half-forward, wing and inside midfielder; his name appeared all over the team sheet and then in games all over the field.

It even took some time off in 2020.

He was named an emergency for the first seven games and with no other real football being played that year, he had to bide his time.

Upon his return to the team, he played every game for the rest of the season, one which ended with the Saints playing finals for the first time since 2011.

The move to half-back came about late in the pre-season of 2021.

As Sinclair explained in an interview with the AFL Record, it was simply a matter of then coach Brett Ratten telling him it was something he wanted to try for a couple of weeks.

“I guess I haven’t moved out of there since,” he said.

The Saints had an abundance of pure midfielders, but Sinclair was too good a player not to carve a niche for himself elsewhere on the ground.

He took his game to another level in 2021, finishing second in the best and fairest, and went one better last season, claiming the best and fairest and his first All-Australian blazer.

Since 2019, his average disposals a game have leapt from 16.8 to 28.2.

With his speed on the ball, footy smarts and ability to pinch-hit through the middle, he has become an essential ingredient at the Saints and a key part of what Ross Lyon is trying to build in the first year of his second stint as St Kilda coach.

The coaches love him.

It’s a cerebral brand of footy required by Lyon, especially by the back six, and Sinclair said only partly in jest that, “we bring the notebooks to the meetings and we take notes.”

He hears the talk about how smartly he plays the game, which

St Kilda assistant coach Lenny Hayes recently told The Age was at the level of former Hawthorn champions Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell.

Hayes, of course, was no slouch in that department either during his decorated career with the Saints.

“I feel like naturally I’m a pretty composed player so I make good decisions and I think naturally people think you’ve got footy smarts,” Sinclair said.

“But what are footy smarts? It’s kind of hard to say.

“Certainly moving into defence the past couple years, I wouldn’t have been too confident down there initially in terms of my decision-making and things like that.

“But it’s definitely developed over the past few years and playing a number of positions helps.

“I think I’m just someone who’s probably got a good awareness of the state of the game and what’s required to challenge the opposition and to sort of play without risk at times.”

Half-back is the new glamour position of the AFL. Those with brains, speed and skill need apply. Interceptors are welcome as well.

“These days it is a pretty good spot to be, certainly up around the footy a lot as the highest defender,” Sinclair said.

“So the opportunity’s been massive and I guess there’s a lot of belief, not just within myself but also for my teammates to trust me to play there, to be a good defender first and foremost and to get the ball in my hands when it’s appropriate.”

What are footy smarts? It’s kind of hard to say

JACK SINCLAIR

He has learned plenty from his line coach Corey Enright, who played in three Geelong premierships and won six All-Australian blazers while plying his trade across half-back.

“At the end of the day, you can’t defend everything,” he said of Enright’s main coaching mantra.

“He’s just about managing the risk of it, being smart, let the opposition have it in certain spots, but we can’t give up everything.

“It’s about trying to be smart about the way we defend, not giving easy goals out the back and really trying to make the opposition have to work to score.

“He’s given me a lot of belief in my ability to defend.”

Enright is the main holdover from Ratten’s coaching staff from last season.

Ratten’s departure, both its nature and timing, shocked the players and Lyon’s arrival left them a bit on edge.

“The new coach, what’s he going to think of you? Does he rate you, does he not?” is what Sinclair remembers pondering at the time.

“But at the end of the day, I just had to come back to training and show why I’ve been playing well the past few years. So nothing really changed for me.”

So far, so good. Through 13 games, the Saints are 8-5 and in fifth place and looking reasonable things for a return to the finals.

When asked what the team is doing best so far in 2023, Sinclair said it was work rate.

“Our ability to support the ball and get numbers to the footy was a real strength of ours and when it dropped off recently, we had some really poor performances,” he said.

“If we can get numbers to the ball, we’re able to use it and I think we’re strong defensively.”

Sinclair, 28, is in his first year as part of the leadership group at the Saints.

When he looks around the locker room he sees that only Jack Billings – his best mate from their days at the Kew Comets and Scotch College – Seb Ross, Tim Membrey and Jimmy Webster have been at the club for longer.

He feels a sense of responsibility towards St Kilda through family ties as well.

While he grew up a Carlton supporter, his late grandfather Bill Gleeson played 14 games for the Saints in the mid-1950s.

Sinclair lives in Melbourne’s inner southeast, in the heart of the club’s supporter base, and he doesn’t need to stray too far from home to understand it is a region with deep affection for the club.

He gets the romance of St Kilda and admits how great it would be to be part of the team that wins that elusive second premiership.

“If we were the next group to do it, yeah, I think it’d be pretty special,” he said.

“But you can’t look too far ahead.

“I know last year we had a really good first half of the year and we probably got ahead of ourselves and it all unravelled, so as good as it is to think about it, we haven’t really achieved anything yet.”