VFL Rewind Radio Program

Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti. 133 AFL Games. At 16 years of age couldn’t read or write plus couldn’t speak much English. 4 Years later he was a AFL player and Fan favourite.

The Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti story is a testament to what you can achieve if you give it 100%.
It’s a story of resilience, overcoming many obstacles, making it to the AFL and becoming a great forward for the Essendon Football club.

It’s a story that needs to spoken about more as it’s one of the great rises of development in a human we’ve ever seen in the AFL over the past 20 years.

This is why Tippa is universally loved by not just Essendon supporters but the whole AFL community.

Anthony lived on Melville Isand which has a population of 1,000 people.

At 17 he took an opportunity. The opportunity was having a shot at bettering his life and having a crack at being the best version of himself he could possibly be.

He left Melville Island for the bright lights of Melbourne. Not being able to speak or write English proficiency this was the big chance for Anthony and he grabbed it with both hands.

He was mentored by Jane McDonald in Victoria who helped him dramatically with developing in everything in life. He honoured Jane for her dedication by adding her surname to his name.

He went to school in Gippsland and worked so hard to learn everything he needed including reading and writing.


Anthony spent three seasons at Gippsland Power before joining Essendon VFL where he worked extremely hard to turn himself into an elite forward of the VFL.

In November 2015 Anthony’s name wouid be called out in the AFL Draft with Essendon selecting Anthony with pick 22.

Anthony went on to play 133 AFL games. In his 133 games Anthony kicked 4+ goals 10 times and won Essendon’s leading goalkicking award in 2020.

He played on the MCG on anzac day in front of almost 100,000 people many times. To think he was only on Melville Island a few years earlier with a population of 1,000 he had made it to the big time.

Picket Palace even made a great song about Anthony which was a huge Hit.

At the end of 2023 Anthony Retired from the AFL after a great career.

Fast forward to today and Anthony is giving back to the community and often helping out at the local hospital.

Anthony’s story of resilience is one of the great footy stories of overcoming adversity, working his way though the VFL and becoming one of the most exciting players to watch in the AFL.

Maybe you’ve woken up this morning thinking I want to be the best version of myself in 2026, well here’s an inspirations story to prove if you believe in yourself you can achieve anything.

Well done on a great footy career Anthony and making your family and community proud.

The EJ Whitten Legends game is Back in 2026. It is one of the great traditions of footy. It was always much watch TV with plenty of laughs.

From the mid 90’s to 2019 to its massive return in 2025. it was one of the best rated AFL games on TV year after year. You just had to expect the unexpected.

In 2025 Craig Hutchison had a vision that the game still had a place in footy. He was absolutely right. Last years game was one of the best watched games of 2025 and the crowd came out in droves to watch the game at Marvel Stadium.

From the early days in the mid 90’s to huge crowds at Marvel Stadium in the 2000’s.

Greats of the game like Shane Crawford,Brendan Fevola, Kouta, Carey, Tony Modra. All the greats were involved in the game.

The great Shannon Noll & Guy Sebastian were together as teammates one year and who can ever forget Craig Hutchison’s goal with his snap shot from 40 metres out.

The game was a tribute to the great EJ Whitten and the RULE formerly EJ Whitten Legends Game was set up to raise funds for the RULE formerly EJ Whitten Foundation.

Games were first played at Whitten oval and even games at Geelong, Princes Park and even a game in Adelaide. The crowds came out in full force with crowds of 25,000+ getting to games

One of the great footy games on the calendar for a good cause

It’s fantastic that the game is back again in 2026. most importantly for raising awareness for Prostate cancer.
Well done to everyone who has made this game happen and has brought it back.

Cyril Rioli - 4 AFL premierships. Norm smith medal. 3 time All Australian. One of the greats of our game

Cyril was silky smooth on the footy field. He didn’t need to have 40 disposals to have an impact. Often he’d have 15 disposals and be the match winner. He could do things on the footy field that others only dreamed of.

Cyril arrived in Melbourne as a boarder at Scotch Collage after living in Darwin as a 14 year old and as much as he got homesick in the early days stuck it out and went on to graduate year 12 and put his name up in lights as a potential top 10 draft pick.

Hawthorn couldn’t believe it when he was available at pick 12 and pounced. In his first year he played 25 games and lifted the premiership trophy in just his 25th game. Cyril stood up on grand final day kicking 2 goals.

In the first few years Cyril became a consistent forward who would impact with a goal of two and help set up teammates for goals.
In 2012 he was acknowledged for a great individual season by being named All Australian kicking 39 goals.

Cyril struggled a bit with injuries in 2013 but played in the Hawthorn premiership kicking an important goal
In 2014 Cyril had missed a lot of games due to injury but made a late play to the AFL team through the VFL. Cyril was named in the grand final team and won the premiership

In just his 133rd game Cyril was a 3 time premiership player but he saved his best for last.

The 2015 season was one of Cyril’s best. He’d overcome his injuries and played 24 games. He was named All Australian for the 2nd time and going into the grand final was full of confidence. On grand final day he stood up. Kicking 2 goals setting up a handful more, he had 18 disposals and won the Norm Smith Medal.

The crowd was unanimous. Cyril was the best on ground that day.

Cyril went on to be named all Australian again in 2016. After that he would only play just 11 more AFL games and retire at just 28.

We got to see Cyril at AFL level for 10 years and he left an impact on us all. A phenomenal player who few could stop.

Well done on everything you gave to footy Cyril.

AFL draft & AFL debut success story
Campbell Lake from St Kilda. Geelong Cats VFL Captain Daniel Capiron & 4 time Port Melbourne VFA Premiership player Jim Christou join us tonight on VFL Rewind from 7pm

Listen live on 94.1FM or stream live on the 3WBC website

Carlton & Collingwood soccer clubs. The AFL’s forgotten soccer clubs. In the 1990’s the world was full of creativity and part of that was unique concepts. Carlton & Collingwood soccer clubs were exactly that.

As the Socceroos take Australia by storm in the 2026 World Cup it’s time to reflect on a time in Australia when the chance to combine AFL and Football was attempted.

Both linked to the Collingwood & Carlton AFL clubs the hope was they’d both collaborate with each other to build two strong clubs in two different football codes.

Based upon two different business models they both played in the NSL which was the national soccer league in Australia before the A league.

Collingwood Soccer club was founded in 1996 and was an existing club in the NSL which took on the rebrand as Collingwood.

The club was originally known as Heidelberg United and played about 10km away from Collingwood in Heidelberg. The club moved games to Victoria Park Collingwood’s home. The club wore a black and white home jersey and yellow stripes as the away kit,

The plan was they’d sell out Victoria park for home games, but the unfortunate reality was Collingwood AFL fans didn’t embrace the club the way they expected.
The club lasted just one season but won the NSL cup. The team reverted back to being named Heidelberg United Alexander FC and is currently one of the most successful soccer clubs in Australia outside the A-League:

Carlton Soccer Club was built from scratch and was the brainchild of legend football administrator Lou Sticca, Lou was able to get then current Carlton president Jack Elliott to support the soccer clubs business model and both clubs formed a partnership.

In their first season they dominated making the grand final but unfortunately lost to South Melbourne in the NSL grand final.

Like Collingwood The club played at the AFL club home ground with Carlton calling Princes Park home.
The club had a plethora of stars play for the team including Socceroos Mark Bresciano and Archie Thompson, Vinnie Grella & Josh Kennedy and Simon Colosimo who went on to play for Manchester City after playing at Carlton.

The Carlton soccer club started well but sadly the crowds slowly dropped off and the club ended up playing games at Epping Stadium to keep costs down. They were an extremely well supported side though.

Ultimately both clubs failed. But it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

The business models were trailblazing and in hindsight if they entered the clubs in 2005 in the new Aleague there’s no doubt they would have been more successful.

Two clubs never forgotten that broke down boundaries between AFL and soccer in Australia.

Tim Watson. AFL debut at just 15. 307 games, 3 Premierships. 4 Essendon BnF’s. One of the greats of our game.

A Dimboola boy almost half way between Adelaide and Melbourne Tim made his way to Melbourne in 1977.
Not many can say they made their AFL debut at just 15. In fact only 3 players in VFL/AFL history made their debut younger than Timmy.
His first game was ironically a draw vs Richmond at Waverley.

Tim would go on to play 16 games in his first year then backed it up with 19 in his second year. In 1980 Tim kicked 42 goals

Tim was excellent at finding the ball and could play a variety of positions.

In 1984 Tim won his first premiership and had a big impact on the game with 22 disposals and 2 goals. The bombers went back to back and Tim had 21 disposals and kicked 3 goals in 85.

In 86 and 87 Tim missed pretty much both seasons due to injury, but he came back with a bang in 89 winning the AFL MVP and had 6 games on 30+ disposals.

Tim played in the 90 losing grand final and at the end of 1991 retired from football.

West coast drafted Tim with pick 13 of the pre season draft but he never went to the eagles.

In 93 Tim announced he would be back and Essendon signed him, Tim went on to play in the 1993 Essendon premiership before 9 more games in 1994 and retiring for good.

Tim coached Stkilda in the AFL for a few years and is now right into the media doing great things on sen and channel 7.
In the Essendon team of the century and hall of fame. Tim will always be remembered as a Essendon Great.

A great career, well done Tim