The Editorial [19/10/2026]

Mark Duffield (0:11)

This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA.

Hello everybody, welcome to the SENWA Radio Studio. We're out here at Optus Stadium Monday morning in Perth. We are here thanks to Beaumont Homes' award-winning design built to be loved forever. It's going to be mostly sunny in our fair city today, with a few clouds about, a top of 21 degrees. Made in WA for WA. This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA.

They call the AFL trade period the silly season, but really the entire off season can be the silly season if you can't trust your players to keep their heads screwed on. So Sydney knows this. Their 2026 finals campaign was derailed by the behaviour of a few at the Pullman Hotel after hours after round 23 The Swans had finished second. They were expected to take a big swing at winning the flag. The next thing you know, five players, three of whom are absolute stars, were being investigated by police, and Sydney's flag hopes lay in tatters. In the words of their own president, Andrew Pridham, their season had been torpedoed. The fallout goes on. So Nick Blakey has left the club disgruntled, because while he acknowledged that he had had a big night out and had stayed out too late, he was adamant that he had little to do with anything that happened in that hotel room that has triggered a police investigation and led to the threat of sexual assault charges being laid.

The modern game now, off field behaviour or misbehaviour has far reaching ramifications for clubs. We're still waiting to see how the Swans move to reintegrate the other four players involved at the Pullman back into their footy program. But Blakey is out the door. He has joined North Melbourne, the club that his father John served with such distinction. So Carlton officials will view the events of recent weeks involving three players at their club with some misapprehension.

The Blues, who overcame a 1-8 start to the season to win 10 and draw one of their last 14 home and away games, they played in the wild card series. They earned a spot in the final eight.

And now they are shocked and angered to hear of Lockie Cowan being carted to hospital after a party at Will Hayward's house. Now media have reported witness accounts of people at the party snorting a white powder laced with something. Cowan will miss the opening two Home and Away games next season after suffering what has been reported as a seizure, a medical event that prompted health authorities to warn about the dangers of using illegal drugs. It was not helpful to club authorities or their mood when they heard that Hayward had also been hospitalized the morning after the party. He claimed to have slipped and fell in the shower, hitting his head on a soap container and opening a wound severe enough that it required six stitches. And the mood deteriorated further when the club learned that young defender Wade Dirksen had blown 0.174 at a roadside driver sobriety test in the Northern Territory, which came hot on the heels of the Blues exiting the finals courtesy of a loss to Geelong. So Dirksen played 15 games for the Blues this year. He had shown promise in a tall defensive role. He's a big bloke, 197cm tall. In the wake of the higher blood alcohol reading, he is now expected to miss all of Carleton's preseason games while under a club suspension, as well as the club's first three home and away games. Cowan will miss two home and away games. Haywood's explanation that his injury was suffered in a completely separate incident has been viewed a little cynically, but he has escaped suspension. So stuff like this can alter a club's trajectory, as well as a player's career trajectory. Both Dirksen and Cowan are 21 They are a long way off their peak in a team that improves significantly under Josh Fraser in the back half of this season, but a team that will need to improve again next season. Now, we're going to be waiting to see how the goings on at the Pullman Hotel affects Sydney when the remaining four players rejoined the footy program. We will wait and see how the shenanigans at Will Hayward's Party affect Carlton when the next season starts, and in particular, how it affects the form and status at the club of Cowan and Dirksen as they try to further their AFL careers. It's also worth noting that while North Melbourne have brought in Nick Blakey, they've had to explain their recruiting of him and placate concerns amongst their AFLW cohort. The ripple effect of off-field behaviour these days at AFL clubs is far wider and far more severe these days when it was back in the Boys Will Be Boys days. 487 736 736 is the text line. 13 12 55 is the Barra and O'Day open line. Barra and O'Day because the little things are everything.