Collingwood’s cool heads rise to big AFL occasion and make point to naysayers | Jonathan Horn
St Kilda spent the summer talking up Sunday night’s opening round game, and Collingwood spent the summer being talked down.It was St Kilda’s occasion, but it was Collingwood’s game.The Saints had the hope, the hyper-inflated recruits, the best paid player in the sport and the largest home-and-away crowd they’d ever played in front of.But Collingwood had cool heads, manic pressure, a wily old fox in his 426th game and two brothers who had 77 touches between them.The Pies didn’t have the greatest of summers.
It felt like the majority of pundits, including this one, had them missing the top 10 (do I have to say that now?).There were all sorts of rumours swirling about regarding the coach Craig McRae, which he and the club were forced to confront publicly.Their captain Darcy Moore was injured.They were coming off less than convincing scratch matches at La Trobe University and Ballarat.This was more their scene.
They excel in these occasions.They revel in spoiling another club’s party (hello Adelaide).And they demonstrated, as they have for the entirety of the McRae era, that they have a system that only the best teams can short-circuit, a system built on frontal pressure, quick hands and fast feet.Without Moore and Jeremy Howe, they went in with a bit of a patchwork back six.But they still devoured space, still had the right appetite for risk, and towelled up a St Kilda forward line that is still green, and still a bit headless at times.
The Daicos brothers and Scott Pendlebury racked up the numbers, the votes and the plaudits and deservedly so.But Dan Houston deserves a shout out for his game on Sunday night.He was a subdued player last year, and never seemed entirely comfortable in the Collingwood system.Not every Collingwood player is wired like Braydon Maynard, but Houston always seemed to be holding something back.He was everywhere on Sunday night however – lurking forward, drifting back, prowling the wings and spearing through the middle.
He finally looked like the assured, sublimely skilled footballer he was at Port Adelaide.And Collingwood clearly played through him a lot more than they did last year.This was a big occasion for St Kilda and they didn’t quite meet it.They lobbied hard to get this game.They thought they were ready.
They feted their only premiership-winning team.They released a documentary that leant heavily into how much this game meant, and how important it was to step up.They were far from disgraced but they weren’t quite ready for what Collingwood threw at them.They squandered a lot of chances whenever they attacked.Too often, they played right into Collingwood’s hands, kicking straight down the line.
Too many fumbles, airballs and shanks cost them dearly.It’s rare in this era that they would go into a game against Collingwood as favourites.Coach Ross Lyon none too convincingly suggested that the Pies should be favourites, and that he was bracing for an ambush.It wasn’t quite an ambush, but it was a wake-up call.He was his usual acerbic, gnomic, increasingly hard-of-hearing self in the post-match presser.
But he wasn’t too shattered.Some of his best players had patchy games and the new look line will take time to properly gel.The hardest thing about the opening round, apart from how much it compromises the draw for the rest of the season, is knowing how much to read into it.Did Carlton burn an entire summer of positivity and goodwill and regeneration in half an hour? Is the best way to approach it to walk into a press conference the way Chris Scott did – arms folded, shoulders shrugged, the demeanour of a man saying “you mugs can all write us off, we’ll be absolutely fine”.It was hard to top what was a crackerjack game at the Gabba on Saturday night.
Brisbane and the Bulldogs were stacked with some of the best footballers in Australia, showcasing a level of skill you rarely see in the first week of March.It was a magnificent win by the Bulldogs, exactly the sort of game they would have found a way of losing last year.They still conceded over 100 points but there was a lot to like about the way they defended.They were more proactive, more composed and more competent than they were in that type of game in 2025.You could tell how much this win meant to coachLuke Beveridge and his players after the game.
But at the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, Carlton had an equally rousing win at the Gabba in the opening round of 2024, and they’ve barely been the same club since.
AI chatbots point vulnerable social media users to illegal online casinos, analysis shows
AI chatbots are recommending illegal online casinos to vulnerable social media users, putting them at increased risk of fraud, addiction and even suicide.Analysis of five AI products, owned by some of the world’s largest tech companies, found that all could easily be prompted to list the “best” unlicensed casinos and offer tips on how to use them.These operators, operating typically under the fig leaf of a licence from tiny jurisdictions such as the Caribbean island of Curacao, have been linked to fraud, addiction and even suicide.But tech firms appear to have few controls in place to prevent AI chatbots recommending them, drawing condemnation from the government, the UK gambling regulator, campaigners and a leading addiction expert.Some of the bots offered advice on bypassing checks designed to protect vulnerable people, while Meta AI, part of the social media group behind Facebook, described legally required measures to prevent crime and addiction as a “buzzkill” and a “real pain”
The Guardian view on AI in war: the Iran conflict shows that the paradigm shift has already begun
“Never in the future will we move as slow as we are moving now,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned this week, addressing the urgent need to shape the use of artificial intelligence. The speed of technological development – as well as geopolitical turbulence – is collapsing the distinction between theoretical arguments and real world events. A political row over the US military’s AI capabilities coincides with its unprecedented use in the Iran crisis.The AI company Anthropic insisted that it could not remove safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its technology for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons. The Pentagon said it had no interest in such uses – but that such decisions should not be made by companies
Ben Affleck sells his AI postproduction startup to Netflix
Ben Affleck has sold his artificial intelligence company to Netflix in a surprise deal, saying he had been driven to embrace a technology that had initially “really scared” him.Netflix has acquired the postproduction startup InterPositive from the Oscar-winning actor, director, producer and screenwriter for an undisclosed sum.Affleck had kept InterPositive below the radar and had previously played down AI’s creative abilities. This year, he told the podcaster Joe Rogan he did not think the technology would be able to “write anything meaningful” or make films “from whole cloth”.However, in a video announcing the transaction, the Good Will Hunting and Gone Girl actor said he had moved from being scared of AI’s potential impact when he first encountered the technology to viewing it as a “really meaningful innovation”
UK arts must not be sacrificed for speculative AI gains, peers say
The UK’s creative industries must not be sacrificed in the pursuit of speculative gains in AI technology, a House of Lords committee has warned, as the government prepares to reveal the economic cost of proposals to change copyright rules.A report by peers has urged ministers to develop a licensing regime for the use of creative works in AI products and abandon proposals to let tech firms use the work of novelists, artists, writers and journalists without permission.The call from the House of Lords communications and digital committee comes as the government prepares to release an economic impact assessment of proposed changes to copyright law, as well as a progress update on a consultation about the legal overhaul, by a deadline of 18 March.Barbara Keeley, a Labour peer and committee chair, said the UK’s creative industries faced a “clear and present danger” from AI firms using their work without credit or payment.“AI may contribute to our future economic growth, but the UK creative industries create jobs and economic value now,” she said
Mark Zuckerberg says criminal behavior on Facebook inevitable
Harms to children, such as sexual exploitation and detriments to mental health, are inevitable on Meta’s platforms, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram leader Adam Mosseri said in taped depositions played at a trial in New Mexico on Tuesday and Wednesday.“I just think if you’re serving billions of people, the unfortunate reality is that some very small percent of them are going to be criminals, and we should work as hard as we can to stop that activity from happening,” said Zuckerberg. “I don’t think that the standard for our platforms would be that you should assume that it will ever be perfect.”Meta’s apps, which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, are among the most popular in the world, each with 3 billion monthly active users.The trial has set the social media giant against New Mexico’s attorney general, who alleges that Meta’s platforms put profits and user engagement over child safety
Trump says he fired Anthropic ‘like dogs’ as Pentagon formally blacklists AI startup
Donald Trump boasted about severing ties between the US military and Anthropic on Thursday, the same day multiple reports said that negotiations between the Department of Defense and the AI startup had resumed.They’re among the latest developments in the twisting rift between the US government and the AI company.“Well, I fired Anthropic. Anthropic is in trouble because I fired [them] like dogs, because they shouldn’t have done that,” Trump told Politico on Thursday.Hours later, the Pentagon officially designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, a move that prevents all government contractors from using the company’s technology
Martha’s rule may have saved 400 lives so far in England, figures show
How ADHD diagnosis helped my mental health | Letters
Labour should aim to end sexual exploitation, not just curb its visibility | Letter
NHS is letting women down through ‘medical misogyny’, says Wes Streeting
A death scholar on why we need to stop being naive about dying: ‘I always hear, “Can’t you just put me into a nice meadow?”’
Politicians seek meeting with Travelodge CEO after Maidenhead sexual assault case