The latest down under on all fronts!

The top all-footy news show in Australia, Footy Feed, looks like it's the best and quickest way to catch you up to speed on all the wild and varied goings-on in the AFL on and off the field...strike that: off the field. The lingering Essendon supplements scandal, the revelation early in the week about the banned painkiller in Fremantle star Ryan Crowley's system last September, the strangely insubstantial seeming betting scandal involving Western Bulldogs Lachie Hunter, and the weird situation involving the Melbourne Demons' Heretier Lumumba questioning the AFL about the doping rules as they might be applied to (of all things) passive marijuana exposure due to his connection with Rastafarianism during his time in the Caribbean.

It's been a wild few weeks in Australia! (And it's only the pre-season...excuse me: the "NAB pre-season"!)

ON the field, there were three games Thursday and Friday VERY much worth watching: 

1) Essendon's second stringers came up big against Melbourne Friday, stealing an errant pass to score an uncontested goal that won the game, 77-75. (And you don't think it meant something to those 'kids'? Watch their celebration at the end of the video!) Both teams look like they're heading the right direction.

2) Speaking of which, my two favorite Queensland teams, Gold Coast and the Brisbane Lions, played to a 63-all tie (a rare but not ridiculous occurrence - it happens once or twice a year), with both teams looking up and down, mostly good but also missing a few key bodies. (Gold Coast has played all pre-season without two-time MVP - that is, Brownlow Medal winner - Gary Ablett Jr, as they played the last eight games of 2014 when they fell out of finals. With him, the Suns figure to be favorites to make at least the top 8, maybe even the top 4.)

3) And on Thursday night, Hawthorn and Saint Kilda played a highly uncompetitive game, but it was just as entertaining because it was an absolute clinic by the two-time defending champions in a 145-39 spanking of last year's "wooden spoon" winners. Hard not to tab Hawthorn as the pre-season favorites after their pre-season performance.