Beyond The Lead

Football has long styled itself as the sleeping giant of Australian sport, and the coming months and years are shaping as the sport’s next significant attempt to usurp the nation’s existing order.

One of the biggest sporting events on the planet, the Women’s World Cup is set to hit Australia and New Zealand in 2023, and the Socceroos are knee-deep in their quest to appear at a fifth straight men’s World Cup in Qatar in 2022. The much-loved FFA Cup has made a return and will soon be launched with a new name, and the A-Leagues have undergone their own reformation in the wake of their independence ahead of the 2021-22 season.  

There is also the potential introduction of one of the most sought-after reforms in Australian football: a national second-tier. 

With so much on the horizon, Football Australia CEO James Johnson sat down for an exclusive one-on-one with ESPN’s Joey Lynch to break down what lies ahead for the world game Down Under.

The full conversation can also be found on YouTube.

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On Oct. 27, Josh Cavallo altered the landscape of football around the globe with one simple sentence: "I am proud to publicly announce that I am gay." 

In a message posted across his and club Adelaide United’s social media accounts, the Reds’ utility revealed that for six years he had been hiding his sexuality from the world; battling feelings of pain and shame as he battled with the fear that being gay meant he wouldn’t be able to continue to play the game he loved. 

There have been a select few male players that have come out before, of course, former A-League Men player Andy Brennan recently did so while playing in the semi-professional NPL Victoria competition and the women’s game has a bastion of inclusivity and safety for LGBTQIA+ athletes. But his announcement, coming at the beginning of his professional career -- and when there was not a single other out male footballer in any top-flight competition around the world -- was significant. 

The reaction to Cavallo’s announcement was swift and, heartwarmingly, overwhelmingly supportive. Messages, first from around Australia and then around the world, from football, other sports and broader society, began to pour in expressing solidarity and pride in his bravery.

Across the whirlwind 24 hours that followed Cavallo, wanting his coming out to serve as an inspiration to others that were in his position, expressly tried to do as much media as possible and he spoke to Beyond the Lead about his brave decision, the reaction, and what was next for him.

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In his own words, Australian UFC fighter Alexander Volkanovski proved the doubters wrong in September: defeating challenger Brian Ortega via unanimous decision to retain his featherweight title at UFC 266 in Las Vegas. 

Ortega at one stage looked to have the title won in the much-anticipated bout when he sunk in multiple chokes in the third round - only for Volkanovski to escape twice and land some vicious strikes that left Ortega seemingly out on his feet.  

The champion ended up outlanding his challenger 214-88 in significant strikes, with a 53-0 margin for strikes on the ground, on his way to a deserved unanimous win - the third-most strikes landed in a featherweight fight in UFC history and the seventh-most in UFC history in any division.

Having retained his title and put on a third-round quickly labelled as an all-time classic, Volaknovski took his time to do a bit of partying in Vegas, as you do, before returning home to Australia with his coach Joe Lopez and entering quarantine - something he’s gotten pretty used to as of late. 

While in quarantine, he caught up with ESPN’s Sam Bruce to discuss his fight, that famous third round, his future plans - and perhaps if Conor McGregor fits into that, getting respect, and more.

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She cut it a bit fine -- the second last player announced during the Super Netball contracting period -- but Jemma Mi Mi will mark her sixth season in purple in 2022. Running out for the Queensland Firebirds, she's looking to bounce back from a torn calf muscle, while her side, which is set to look a little different next season, seeks to end a two-year absence from Super Netball’s finals. 

Beyond bringing her agility and creative nous to coach Megan Anderson’s side, Mi Mi is also set to remain her league’s only Indigenous player in 2022 - saying when she re-signed that “I hope to still be a role model to young Indigenous kids out there who love sport and one day want to play at the elite level.”

The opportunity to serve as a role model and an inspiration is one she relishes, and even has tie ins to her goals after netball but given the heavy lifting she continues to do in this space, does it ever get fatiguing? 

Beyond that, she spoke with ESPN’s Joey Lynch about Super Netball’s direction and its international vs. domestic player debate, her love of the game, the Firebirds coming season, and much more.

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Without question, Peter Bol was one of Australia’s biggest stories at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. 

Running in his second Games, he made history when he became the first Australian man in 53 years to qualify for an 800m final - a final that he set the pace in before eventually finishing fourth. Though he just missed out on a medal, he quickly embedded himself in the hearts of a largely locked-down nation anyway: declaring that “the whole of Australia was watching - and that carried me on."

And as more Australians learned of his story and the man behind the athlete, the affection only deepened. 

The 27-year-old had very few chances to sit back and ponder his accomplishments in Tokyo -- immediately jetting out for more competition in Europe -- but now, months on from the Games, he’s finally had a bit of a chance to reflect. 

He sat down with ESPN’s Stephanie Brantz to discuss his past few months, how his story has been told compared to his own recollections, his pastimes outside of running, the support structures that had delivered him to where he is today and much more.

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October is here, and that means it’s time for spooky season and playoff baseball. 

Across the next month, the eight ballclubs still standing after Major League Baseball’s 162 game regular season and the AL and NL Wild Card games are set do battle for the right to call themselves the 2021 World Series Champions. 

There’s nothing really quite like postseason baseball, so to make sure you can tell your Brewers from your White Sox, to your Astros, Beyond the Lead turned to ESPN MLB Insider Jeff Passan to help break it all down. 

One of Baseball’s leading voices, Jeff’s work and Twitter feed is a must-follow for anyone with even a passing interest in baseball, and he joined Joey Lynch to break down what the current state of play was, the regular season just gone, who his Australian Rules Football team should be and … cheese boards?

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The FIFA video game franchise is one of the biggest entertainment products on the planet -- selling over 31 million copies of its latest iteration, FIFA 21, alone -- and since 2019, Derek Rae has served as its voice. Initially coming aboard as a commentator for the game’s Champions League mode, the Scot has since become the main caller across the game’s modes and returns to this year’s iteration alongside new additions to the booth Stewart Robson and Alex Scott.

Beyond his work in gaming, the venerable commentator serves as one of the most prolific callers in all of football; currently providing commentary of Bundesliga and La Liga games for ESPN and also serving to call the German league’s world feed. This is in addition to a resume that includes stints behind the microphone at World Cups, Olympic Games, Champions Leagues and some of the biggest domestic leagues in the world. 

It’s a career that has afforded him the chance to see some of the biggest moments in recent footballing history live, including the 2005 World Cup qualifying playoff between Australia and Uruguay that saw the Socceroos break their 32-year drought between appearances on football’s biggest stage. 

Ahead of the release of FIFA 22, he joined Joey Lynch to talk commentary in both the virtual and real worlds, his past brushes with Australian football, the Bundesliga, and much, much more.

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Australia is experiencing somewhat of a boom in professional wrestling at the moment, and Indi Hartwell is one of the reasons why. 

Born in Melbourne, the 25-year-old signed with the WWE in 2019 after impressing on the independent circuit and, as she began to find her feet as a performer and character, rose to prominence as a part of “The Way” faction alongside the highly regarded veteran pair -- and real-world husband and wife -- Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae and fellow phenom Austin Theory. 

Alongside LaRae, she has been an NXT Women’s Tag Team Champion and has recently been involved in one of the more well-received storylines in NXT for quite a while: her forbidden romance with a rival of Gargano -- and possible (storyline) serial killer -- Dexter Lumis.   

The WWE having been Hartwell’s goal when she first started wrestling, her current work with both The Way and Lumis has given her an excellent opportunity to not only get in front of the camera, but also learn and develop from some of her industry’s best talents.

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2021 has already been a pretty successful year for Ryan Papenhuyzen’s Melbourne Storm, with the club winning its fourth NRL minor premiership in six years - going on a 19-game winning streak which has equalled the all-time record set by Jack Gibson’s great Roosters’ side of 1975.

But on a more personal level, it’s been a bit more up and down for star fullback Papenhuyzen - a concussion suffered during Magic Round forcing the fullback to miss seven weeks of action.

However, in a year in which fullbacks such as Tom Trbojevic, James Tedesco and Latrell Mitchell have been dominating the NRL, Papenhuyzen has found form at just the right time for his Melbourne Storm -- scoring three tries in the win over Cronulla that secured the Storm the minor premiership and crossing the try line twice as his side convincingly booked a place in the preliminary finals with a win over Manly. 

He spoke to ESPN’s Lucie Bertoldo about returning from concussion, finals footy, bubble life, and much, much more.

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Caroline Buchanan is a big deal in Australian biking. A fixture on the podium in BMX and Mountain Biking events across Australia and around the world, Buchanan represented Australia at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics the BMX -- finishing fifth in London and making the semifinals in Rio. 

Tragically, in 2017 she was involved in an off-road car accident, suffered life-threatening injuries and was forced off the bike as she underwent a long and arduous rehabilitation progress. Helped by their one-year delay, she targeted a third Olympics at Tokyo 2020 but, alas, missed out on selection. 

Not one to rest on her laurels, though, Buchanan immediately turned her focus elsewhere and in August became the first-ever woman to perform a front flip on a mountain bike at an Audi Nines event in Germany. 

Having announced on her Instagram in June that she was set to focus full-time on Mountain Biking, the 30-year-old has a jam-packed schedule ahead of her over the next 12-months, a competitive slate she will balance with her work with Ignite -- a mentorship program for young Australian girls all across the action, two-wheel world.

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