The Footy Lowdown

🏏 Ash is back with another stroll into the strange, nostalgic and wonderfully unpredictable corners of cricket. 🏏 This week, instead of naming an all-time XI like so many listeners demanded, he zigs where others zag — building an XI made up of the players who shaped his school years of the 80s and early 90s.🏏 There are rules (of course), a few surprising omissions, and some choices that will raise eyebrows. No Sachin. No Sri Lankans in the final cut — though one Sri Lankan cult hero gets an honourable 12th-man nod. And a left-field wicketkeeper pick that absolutely no one will see coming.🏏 Why these players? Why this era? And who makes the XI that carried young Ash through joy, heartbreak and early cricketing identity crises?🏏 Hit play and find out.

🏏 Ash is back with episode 6 of Weird World of Cricket, and with the Ashes done and dusted, it’s time to unveil the Team of the Series. 🏏 With Australia taking the urn 4–1, Ash breaks down a quirky summer where reputations rose, fell, and floated somewhere in between — making selection tougher than ever. 🏏 Three Aussies were absolute certainties, and the rest… well, they scraped in by the barest of margins. 🏏 Dive in for analysis, banter, and all the weirdness you’ve come to expect.

G’day cricket tragics! Ash is back with Episode 5 of Weird World of Cricket — and this week we’re diving into the fascinating (and slightly chaotic) club of players who represented two nations at international level.It’s been a spicy few weeks in world cricket, media madness on both sides, and… has Kerry O’Keeffe officially peaked? Ash has thoughts — and wants yours.Then it’s onto the main event: an XI of cricketers who played for two Test nations. From the unique dual success of a South African who wore the baggy green, to a Zimbabwean Englishmen’s rare twin centuries, to the wild journeys of some of the earliest test stars and more — this team is as weird as it is wonderful.Ash also gives a quick life update and for now it’s cricket, cricket and… more cricket.Stay weird, legends.

G’day Lions fans — Ash here, back (barely) from a busted shoulder. But enough about the injury report — let’s talk footy.🦁 In this season finale, I wrap up everything that’s happened across the Lions’ men’s and women’s programs since I was last on air. From draft hauls and list changes to big contract calls, AFLW trade moves, and a history-making draftee, it’s been a massive few weeks on and off the field.🦁 I’ll break down the recruits, the risers, the reshuffle, and the storylines that actually matter — plus the club’s record membership, debt-free milestone, and the huge news of our future home at Victoria Park.🦁 There’s All-Australian honours (and a couple of eyebrow-raising decisions), Club Champion results, a quick word on the Lachie Neale noise, AFLW accolades, and a look back at a Grand Final that left us all feeling a little flat.🦁 And to cap it all off, I’m handing out my end-of-season Lions Lowdown Best Player awards — with a few surprises thrown in.🦁 Strap in for the final Lowdown of the year. Let’s get into it!

🏏 G’day cricket degenerates — Ash here, welcoming you to Episode Three of Weird World of Cricket, where we rummage through cricket’s dusty attic, pull out the strangest relics imaginable, and proudly wave them around like a kid showing off a frog from the backyard.🏏 This week, we unveil the One-Test Wonders XI — a full team of blokes who played one Test, did something outrageous, unforgettable, or downright heroic… and were then immediately banished by selectors with the attention span of a startled goldfish. Expect nostalgia, chaos, trivia, and plenty of “how on Earth was he not picked again?” energy.🏏 We also go Around the Grounds, featuring Ash’s own Fourth Grade misadventures, plus a tour through the latest Ashes nonsense, global cricket weirdness, and WBBL happenings — from Stokes on an E-scooter to the Renegades spiritually napping through the season.🏏 Then, when the dust settles… we get WEIRD.🏏 Strap in as we introduce the ONE-TEST WONDERS XI — the greatest team ever assembled that selectors immediately forgot existed.

🏏 G’day cricket tragics, Ash here. Today’s special episode hits a little differently - we’re pausing the banter to honour a genuine cult hero of the game — the incomparable Robin “The Judge” Smith.🏏 We pay tribute to a cricketer who wasn’t polished, wasn’t pretty, — but was pure theatre. A bloke who could look out of form in county cricket, then walk into a Test match against world-destroying West Indies quicks and start belting them like it was backyard Christmas cricket. A man who wore bouncers to the face like most people wear sunscreen.🏏 We look back on his unforgettable knocks. We remember the courage, the swagger, the moustache that should have had its own central contract — and yes, the slightly Cullinan-esque struggles against leg spin.🏏 But more importantly, we honour the man off the field: warm, funny, generous, unfiltered, and in later years, brave enough to speak openly about mental health long before it was fashionable or encouraged.🏏 Robin Smith didn’t just play cricket — he lit it up.

G’day Lions fans — Ash here, and if your heart rate hasn’t come down yet, don’t worry… neither has mine. In this episode, we’re breaking down the night OUR girls unleashed a third-quarter firestorm so fierce it sent us roaring into a FOURTH straight Grand Final.Brighton Homes Arena was heaving — 6511 in, November air thick enough to slice — and after a scrappy, nervy first half where we owned everything except the scoreboard, the dam wall finally burst.Enter Ruby. Bloody. Svarc.Four goals. One finals masterclass. Absolute chaos agent energy.From Shannon Campbell backing into traffic like she’s made of steel, to Daks bending physics on the boundary, to Belle Dawes running on what I can only assume was caffeine and vibes — this one had it all.A 35-point win that stamps our ticket to a seventh Grand Final in ten seasons.And yep… it’s us and North Melbourne again. The trilogy. Brisbane–North III: The Decider.We won 2023.They pinched 2024.2025? That’s on us.Strap in, back the girls, and get ready — history’s calling.Go the Mighty Lions.

G’day cricket tragics — Ash is back with Episode Two of Weird World of Cricket, and this week we’re diving into one of the most infamous chapters in the game’s history: the Bodyline series.After kicking things off last episode with an Aussies-and-Poms XI built entirely from blokes who provided top-tier unintentional comedy (plus the compulsory inclusion of Gary Pratt), we’re sticking with the same nations… but cranking the intensity way up. This time, Ash builds an XI made solely from players who took the field during the brutal 1932–33 Bodyline Ashes — picking the top bats and bowlers across the whole series, with a few selection quirks, naturally.Along the way, we swing around the grounds and reluctantly mention Ash’s own Div 2 Fourths heroics.Then it’s back into the history books: the myths, the real story, the villains, the victims, and why the series was far more nuanced than the “Jardine bad, Bradman good” folklore we all grew up with.If you love cricket, chaos, questionable selection logic, and stories so wild only this sport could produce them — hit play. This one’s a beauty.