FEVOLA looks to VFL
Brendan Fevola, the player without a home after his sacking by Brisbane, has told the Herald Sun he intends to restart his football career as soon as this week.

"I would like to know who I am playing with by as early as Monday because I want to start training straight away," he told the paper.

"I want to know as soon as possible so I can play (football) again."

The VFL has said that Fevola would be welcome to join the second-tier competition. Final lists do not have to be lodged until March 14, with several clubs having expressed interest in recruiting the uniquely talented, yet currently unfit full-forward.

Fevola has completed a period in rehabilitation, but he has missed most of Brisbane's pre-season after an operation to fix a groin problem at the end of the 2010 season. Recent images suggest he can do with some fining down.

Even with all those issues to contend with, and the fact he turned 30 in January, a motivated Fevola would dominate the VFL.

One issue that may not trouble him is fair compensation for his services. It seems he has come to terms with the Brisbane Lions and will receive a hefty payout to compensate for the final two years of his contract not being taken up by Brisbane.

Fev has been given plenty of advice this weekend on how to get back to the AFL. In the Herald Sun, Shane Crawford, like Fevola, a former actor of various parts on Nine's The Footy Show, put out a 10-point plan for him to make it back to the big game in 2012.

Across town, in The Sunday Age, a sympathetic Tim Lane devoted his weekly column to wondering why Fevola had his contract terminated "simply because he has become inconvenient for his club - or because he is Brendan Fevola the serial boofhead".

Lane argued that although Fevola must take responsibility for his fate, "he hasn't been helped by those around him", including two clubs, and a TV network.

"The odds against a return (to AFL) are long," wrote Lane. "Many will find it easy to say good riddance, but the Brendan Fevola story is not one from which football can take pleasure or pride."

Fevola might find the best advice has come from Western Bulldogs captain Matthew Boyd, a few more pages into the paper's sports section.

In an interview with Emma Quayle Boyd discussed an array of matters, including the infamous video of Bulldog players running amok in a street in Hong Kong during their end of season trip.

Said Boyd: "The guys knew we'd done the wrong thing as a group. It wasn't behaviour that's tolerated at this club and it's not behavior that has been typical in any way of this group … the players didn't need to be told they'd done the wrong thing.

"I suppose that's half the battle, isn't it, players accepting responsibility for bad behavior and not making the same mistake again?"

Cuz does his thing
The media's scrutiny of former bad boys knows no bounds: Perth's Sunday Times was alert to the knowledge that retired West Coast and Richmond star Ben Cousins was having a shot at the annual Rottnest Channel Swim.

Cousins told the paper he had been drawn to have a shot at the mainland to island swim after his brother Matt had done it several times.

"It was tough," Cousins told the paper, "but good on a beautiful day like this." It was certainly tough - it took the Brownlow Medallist more than six hours, almost two hours behind the winner.

Cousins, interviewed by the broadcaster at the swim said he had recently returned to Perth after a month's holiday and was about to "plan the next 12 months".

Exposing the Saints
The Sunday Age filled most of its front page with thin air - the paper sent reporter Peter Hanlon to cover the St Kilda-Geelong NAB Cup match, seemingly with one brief: to slot in as many references to recent bad behaviour as possible in a page one essay.

Featuring a photo of Saints skipper Nick Riewoldt stretching for a mark, under the heading 'At last, a photo Riewoldt's happy to see' the story took up the opportunity to - once again - wrap up the pre-season woes of the Saints, coupling the nude photo scandal of December with the current woes of beleaguered player manager Ricky Nixon.

The story included these remarkable lines: "The nude photos of Riewoldt and Nick Dal Santo, uploaded by the teenager from teammate Sam Gilbert's computer, have come to define the forever-altered landscape of a sport that has almost lost the capacity to shock".

Media Watch has been following this story closely over its tangled journey, and would prefer to make this comment: the way the media covers the AFL game has come to define the forever-altered landscape of a media that is forever seeking a capacity to shock.

Inside, the paper reported that barrister David Galbally QC, appointed by the AFL Players' Association to investigate the Nixon affair would start his investigations as soon as possible. He told the paper: "It is in the interests of everybody this is completed as soon as possible."

Didak the best, says SA paper
What does the media do in that period between NAB Cup and the opening of the season?

Well, if you're Adelaide's Sunday Mail, with both home clubs out of the NAB Cup, you create a list of the best SA players currently playing in the AFL.

Topping Jesper Fjeldstad's annual list is Collingwood's brilliant forward Alan Didak, ahead of the Western Bulldogs' double, Brian Lake and Adam Cooney.

You might be surprised to see Fremantle's Matthew Pavlich at six, with Hawthorn's Shaun Burgoyne at nine, but that's the beauty of a list: no two people will ever have the same list in the same order.

There are no players ranked from Richmond or Brisbane, and former Adelaide defender Nathan Bock makes it at number 15 for the Gold Coast Suns.

Geoff Slattery is the managing editor of AFL Media.

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.