Hawks' Guerra loses fitness battle

Updated September 24, 2012 19:24:14

Hawthorn defender Brent Guerra has run out of time, declaring himself a non-starter for Saturday's grand final against Sydney.

Guerra had hoped to recover from a hamstring injury he suffered in the final quarter of the Hawks' win over West Coast in round 23.

However he spoke to coach Alistair Clarkson on Monday to tell him he would be unavailable for selection, before sharing the news with his team-mates.

The club issued a statement late on Monday confirming Guerra's decision.

"As desperate as I am to play on Saturday, I realised that I couldn't guarantee to Clarko or the team that I could do everything that would be asked of me in a Grand Final," Guerra said in the statement.

"It was a gut wrenching decision to make and it was difficult to address my teammates and coaches today, but they know they have a job to do on Saturday and that needs to be their only focus right now."

Guerra played 19 games for Hawthorn this season.

He was part of the Hawks' last premiership side in 2008.

Tags: sport, australian-football-league, melbourne-3000, vic, australia

First posted September 24, 2012 18:54:39

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Optus loses court row with AFL chief

Updated February 28, 2012 16:31:12

Optus has lost a Federal Court case in which it tried to stop AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou criticising its new mobile television recording service.

The telecommunications company applied to the Federal Court in Sydney for an urgent injunction to stop Demetriou from repeating his criticisms of Optus' TV Now service, which lets users record matches to watch on their computers and smartphones on a short delay.

Justice Richard Edmonds dismissed the application and ordered Optus to pay the AFL's legal costs.

The judge said Demetriou's recent comments that the behaviour of Optus was akin to stealing were not misleading or deceptive, because they were his opinions and did not purport to be a statement of fact.

Demetriou told ABC Local Radio it was a victory for free speech and argued that the league should be able to protect its commercial agreement with Telstra.

"They are not paying for our content and purporting to be the champion of consumers when they're really charging them," he said.

"And they've got a clearly inferior product to Telstra and it's a disgrace, and now that this court case has been put to bed it's a victory for free speech."

Tags: business-economics-and-finance, telecommunications, sport, australian-football-league, australia, vic

First posted February 28, 2012 13:49:24

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Maric loses but can play

Adelaide Crows footballer Ivan Maric will play against a winless Port Adelaide despite having lost an appeal against a rough conduct reprimand.

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