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About Richard Hinds
About Richard Hinds
Richard Hinds is the Melbourne-based sports writer for the Sydney Morning Herald. Hinds has covered the AFL for almost two decades, several Olympic Games, international golf and numerous Grand Slam tennis tournaments. Hinds grew up in Victoria where he witnessed the expansion of the national competition and, during his time with the SMH, has reported on some of the key moments in the Swans' gradual rise from unloved interloper to Sydney icon - including their stunning 2005 premiership victory.
Ablett casts off illness to get back on track
ON A Thursday morning in early November, four days after he had returned from a holiday in Vietnam, Luke Ablett began to experience the symptoms. "I just woke up feeling a bit cold, a bit feverish," says the Swans midfielder. "Like a really bad flu."
O'hAilpin gets four for attack on Cloke
The verdict on Carlton import Setanta O'hAilpin's practice match attack on teammate Cameron Cloke has proven almost as shocking as the incident itself.
Troubled times for brittle Swans
The Swans' summer of discontent continued yesterday when Irishman
Tadhg Kennelly walked out on the final year of his contract to play
Gaelic football.
Swans reject reports Kennelly's going home
The Sydney Swans have denied another Irish newspaper report claiming premiership defender Tadhg Kennelly is set to walk out on the club before the start of the season to play Gaelic football.
Drugs, crime … and a little footy
NEAR the end of a press conference during which Ben Cousins had been cross-examined about his contact with alleged underworld figures, asked when he had last taken illicit drugs and dealt with the associated issues that stemmed from his addiction, Richmond's new recruit aired a wistful thought.
Cousins sympathy vote falls short
When Ben Cousins was arrested in a Perth street, his bare torso revealing the defiant "Such Is Life" inked across his stomach, it seemed that line was all the drug-addicted footballer shared with its author Ned Kelly.
Risky business for Sydney as fortunes fall on and off field
That the Sydney Swans will announce a loss of about $300,000 today comes as no surprise.
Tassie fails to realise it can't beat 'Boganville'
The Tasmanian AFL club bid is giving a mostly indifferent population some useful emotional leverage - an appeal to civic pride.
It really all comes down to Cousins
Maybe the reason Ben Cousins will not play again is just Ben Cousins.
Sherrin the dream: How AFL gives left-field talent a leg-up
MITCHELL FRAIL does not expect to be selected in tomorrow's AFL draft. But, like a handful of 18-year-olds from Sydney, he will endure the two-hour ordeal with heart in mouth watching names flash up on the internet or clutching a mobile phone in a moist palm.
AFL is taking a big punt on Cousins's powers of recovery
IT MIGHT be the first time a bus tour of Blacktown has seemed like a great alternative to … well, anything.
Bazza's switch a no brainer
As revealed exclusively in the Age, and revealed "exclusively" elsewhere 11 days later, Barry Hall is serious enough about a professional boxing career to fly to the US next month to meet a promoter.
'Marketer's dream' will test Swans with big guns arriving first
Sydney will step back in time next season, playing two matches at the SCG against big-drawing opponents in the long-forsaken 2.10pm Saturday timeslot.
Swans not to Cousins, but O'Keefe on the radar
Sydney say they will not consider recruiting the recovering drug addict Ben Cousins should he be available in the pre-season draft.
O'Keefe finds game is played hard
When Ryan O'Keefe decided test the waters in the AFL's trade week,
he was clearly unaware he would be swimming with sharks.
Mending fences Sydney's priority
SYDNEY pay more than any other club in the AFL to run their football department. So perhaps they can find room in the budget for a structural engineer. This is a club with some bridges to build.
Hawks up but it's only round one
UNLIKE other deposed heavyweight champions, Geelong get no automatic re-match. No instant chance to prove they had merely been caught with their guard down. No easy road to redemption.
Swans can learn from Hawks
There are lessons for Sydney in Hawthorn's strategy.
Swans stagger to end of an era
THIS time, there was to be no twist in the tail. Sydney's season ended last night in the manner that seemed likely for most of a competitive but not stellar year, with defeat to one of the handful of teams that now stand above them in the competition's pecking order.
September stars aligning once more for trench-warfare Swans
Is it an indication of the strength of Sydney's belated resurgence? Or is it the consequence of a slump that has seen the Western Bulldogs lose six of their past eight games?
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