Inside 50 with Crawf & Quinny

Three-time premiership ruckman Brad Ottens speaks to Shane Crawford and Nick Quinn about his stellar 245-game AFL career, which began when the Richmond Tigers drafted him with pick No. 2 in 1997 and ended with a third flag in his final game 14 years later.

Ottens discusses his unique path to the AFL system; growing up in relative isolation in the Northern Territory before moving to South Australia, where he began taking up footy seriously at a boarding school. When the Tigers selected him and he was thrust into a locker room with “mega stars” like Matthew Richardson and Wayne Campbell, it all changed very quickly.

In 2001, Mick Malthouse anointed him “the best player in the game”. Ottens had a close relationship with the late Danny Frawley, and shares a couple of priceless stories from their days at Tigerland. But as he struggled with consistency, he was eventually traded to the Geelong Cats for pick 12 and pick 16. And the rest is history: three flags and a crucial part in some all-time classics. This is an episode not to be missed.

In the second part of Inside 50's expansive interview with one of football's most towering figures of the '80s and '90s, Paul Salmon, the two-time premiership player opens up on his souring relationship with the Essendon Bombers that led to his trade to the Hawthorn Hawks.

Salmon's career was revitalised with Hawthorn, as he was named in the side's Team of Century after just five seasons. Salmon and Shane Crawford also reminiscence on an infamous Brownlow Medal night run-in with Craig Hutchison, which Crawford speculates saw Salmon chase the to-be media tycoon down the halls of the hotel in anger.

There are also some unforgettable tales of Salmon playing with Gary Ablett Snr for Victoria, and he recalls the day a fiery Ted Whitten told him he'd never play State of Origin football again.

Two-time premiership player and 324-gamer Paul Salmon discusses his dramatic 19 seasons in the AFL. After a devastating injury at Victoria Park at the beginning of his career, it forced Salmon to rethink his relationship with the game, which saw him focus on his many interests outside of football, including buying his first gym at 20.

Due to the lingering effects of that injury, the Essendon star missed the 1984 Grand Final, but the "unique" Kevin Sheedy made a "secret" promise to Salmon that delivered a spot in the 1985 Grand Final, and saw the ruckman-forward achieve the ultimate dream. Salmon says a number of issues outside of the players' hands contributed to a one-sided defeat to the Collingwood Magpies in 1990.

Salmon would go on to lead the Bombers' goal-kicking on seven occasions and kicked five goals in the "Baby" Bombers' famous victory over the Carlton Blues in the 1993 Grand Final. Eventually, he left the club for the Hawthorn Hawks in 1996, saying: “I’d disconnected from the colours and I was disliked by a vast majority of the supporters and grossly taken for granted.”

In part two, Paul Salmon will talk about his time at the Hawthorn Hawks and playing alongside Inside 50's co-host Shane Crawford.

Rodney ‘Rocket’ Eade’s AFL journey has been unique. Eade won four flags during a dynastic Hawthorn Hawks era, was a foundation member of the Brisbane Bears, travelled to Sydney for his first senior coaching gig, and oversaw the renaissance of the Western Bulldogs before coaching the expansion Gold Coast Suns. And that’s not even mentioning that Will Minson spray! After 259 games as a player and 377 as a coach, he tells Inside 50 hosts Shane Crawford and Nick Quinn some of his greatest stories, including coaching the polarising approaches of Tony ‘Plugger’ Lockett and Gary Ablett Jr. While the Tasmania-born Eade is all for his home state being granted a license in the AFL, he says the start-up franchise will face some significant challenges from the NBL and the Tasmania JackJumpers.

On a special edition of TAB’s Inside 50 podcast, Shane Crawford and Nick Quinn are joined by one of the most polarising figures in all of football, Kane Cornes.

In a wide-ranging interview, the 300-game Port Adelaide Power legend and 2004 AFL premiership winner discusses the “relief” of winning a Grand Final, his “regrets” as a teammate, and his transition to an on-air lightning rod for controversy.

Cornes also chats about growing up in South Australian football royalty, and being a mad Adelaide Crows fan as a kid. Cornes cover how he could “still play” AFL if his mentality was different, the US-based media personalities that inspire his on-air persona, and his short-lived career as a fireman before Craig Hutchison gave him an opportunity to speak his mind.

Essendon Bombers legend Dustin Fletcher had the most charmed rookie season a 17-year-old schoolboy has ever experienced at AFL level; debuting in round three, solidifying his place in Kevin Sheedy’s side soon after, and capturing a flag with the “Baby Bombers” in September. His career, which stretched another 383 games after that point to 400 in total, was just as mind-boggling.Fletcher compares that flag with the near-invincible Bombers side of seven years later, where they waltzed to the premiership conceding only a single defeat to the Western Bulldogs. It came a season after the Bombers’ shock one-point loss to the Carlton Blues the year prior, which led to Sheedy forcing the entire team to watch on in-person at the MCG as the North Melbourne Kangaroos defeated Carlton in the Grand Final. It was a unique experience, Fletcher says. Fletcher was coached by Sheedy, Matthew Knights, Mark Thompson, and finally his former teammate James Hird, who nominates as the greatest player he ever played with.Fletcher’s sons Mason and Max are forging their own sporting careers, both in college football as punters at some of the biggest universities in the US. Later this year, the “Fletcher Bowl” between the pair, who play for Cincinnati and Arkansas respectively, looms as one of the proudest moments of his life.

Former Collingwood Magpie and Fremantle Dockers livewire Brodie Holland joins Shane Crawford and Nick Quinn on an action-packed episode of Inside 50 that covers Footy Show skits gone wrong and eight-goal hauls at the MCG.Holland played 155 games at AFL level and narrowly missed out on a berth in the classic 2002 AFL Grand Final (Collingwood’s narrow loss to Brisbane) before featuring in the rematch the following year, which saw the Lions claim their third premiership in a row. The now 42-year-old opens up on his relationships with Mick Malthouse and Eddie McGuire, both of whom gave Holland sprays at different times.Holland also featured in a blockbuster three-way trade, which saw premiership player Peter Bell return to the Dockers as Collingwood also secured two-time All-Australian James Clement. Jess Sinclair went to North Melbourne.

Former No. 3 overall draft pick Dom Tyson had a dramatic journey through the AFL system, drafted first by the expansion Greater Western Sydney Giants before being traded to the Melbourne Demons after his third season.Tyson opens up on the inner workings of that initial deal that saw the Giants receive pick No. 2 in the 2013 draft, and then his second trade to the North Melbourne Kangaroos, where he play three seasons.During his 113-game AFL career, there were hard conversations with Melbourne coach Paul Roos and Greater Western Sydney’s Luke Power, whose blunt assessments are captured in this podcast.There were plenty of fun times, and Tyson details the flashes of brilliance from a young Max Gawn, a former teammate who would go onto captain Melbourne to the 2021 premiership.

After playing 47 games for the Carlton Blues, Michael Gibbons was a surprise delisting at the conclusion of the 2021 season. The 26-year-old livewire forward opens up about his dramatic three years at Princes Park, where he was coached by both Brendon Bolton and David Teague during the Blues’ rebuild.Gibbons came to the club following a standout five seasons at Williamstown Football Club from 2014 to 2018, taking out the JJ Liston Medal in 2016 and 2018, which is awarded to the best player in the VFL.On multiple occasions, Gibbons felt he was on the verge of being recruited only to have his heart broken on draft night. Finally, persistence paid off when Carlton took him as a rookie at the beginning of 2019.Gibbons quickly established himself as a regular in a pressure-forward role in the Carlton Blues’ team, but a freak injury at training caused his hamstring to “explode” in his third season, which Gibbons concedes may have cost him his AFL career.Getting axed came as a “shock” to Gibbons, and he details his heart-to-heart conversation with now Blues head coach Michael Voss. One of Gibbons’ biggest supporters has been former Carlton captain and cancer survivor Sam Docherty, who has provided a rare perspective on the value of a footy career.

Andrew Krakouer, 152-game player with the Richmond Tigers and Collingwood Magpies, joins Shane Crawford and Nick Quinn on an enthralling edition of the Inside 50 podcast.

Krakouer talks about growing up in a family of AFL royalty, as the son of North Melbourne Kangaroos’ Jim Krakouer and nephew of Phil Krakouer, before being drafted to the Richmond Tigers, where he was coached by the late Danny Frawley.

After seven seasons with the Tigers, Krakouer was delisted following a charge of serious assault, which saw Krakeour sentenced to prison in Western Australia. His memories of this period are harrowing, but Krakouer persevered with football following his release with the help of Swan Districts in the WAFL, where he would deliver a premiership in 2010.

Mick Malthouse brought Krakouer to the Collingwood Magpies for their premiership defence, and Krakouer made an impact from the get-go providing a mercurial spark in the forward line. In the 2011 AFL Grand Final, Krakouer kicked three goals by half-time before the Magpies faded in their loss to the Geelong Cats.

Personally, Krakouer admits he would have loved Malthouse to be at Collingwood "a little longer", but acknowledges the handover to Nathan Buckley was "very different" and a decision Eddie McGuire and the board made. Krakouer reflects on the AFL environment and says it didn't give him great confidence when opening up on Indigenous issues.