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Kane Cornes sparks debate after slamming contentious AFL season guide move

The AFL publication's latest move has left fans seriously divided.

andrew reid
·6-min read
Pictured right is Kane Cornes and the cover of the AFL's official 2024 season guide on left.
Kane Cornes has criticised the decision not to publish the weights of players in the AFL's official 2024 season guide. Pic: X/Nine

Debate has erupted across the AFL world over the decision not to include player weights in an iconic publication. Kane Cornes has led the outrage after the weights of players were omitted from the AFL's official 2024 season guide.

AFL Record editor Ash Browne revealed it was a new AFL policy not to publish players' weights due to privacy concerns. “They’ve decided in this day and age it is inappropriate for weights to become public matter, in a publication like the season guide,” Browne said.

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“They would say that people support that it’s not appropriate to publish weights and that it’s private information now.” The move puts the men's competition in line with the AFLW which also chooses not to publish the weights of its female stars. However, former Port Adelaide player and AFL pundit Cornes has slammed the decision and says player weights should be public record like in other sports.

Kane Cornes slams omission of players' weights

The 300-game Port great argues that the information forms an important part of a broadcaster or journalist's analysis of a game, especially match-ups between players. “Can you believe it? I was alerted to this information yesterday because this is just hot off the press," Cornes said on SEN Afternoons. "The books have been printed and if you get your book and you want to look up what Jordan De Goey weighs, you will no longer be able to find it. The world has gone so soft that I can’t believe it.

“You’re a professional athlete. You’re not an influencer on social media. Any other sport I can look that up. I wanted to look up the average weight of an NFL player and I can tell you that it’s 245 pounds or 111kg. I can tell you that one of the most famous tight ends at the moment Travis Kelce was 113kg. I can tell you his quarterback Patrick Mahomes weighs 102kg.

“No longer in my role as a commentator can I go and say Jake Lever is playing on Charlie Curnow, Curnow has an 8kg advantage – he should take him deep to the goalsquare, try and get him in one-on-one situations and try to use his 8kg advantage in one-on-one duels and Carlton can use that an exploit that. I can’t do that anymore because the AFL have said that we are that soft that we can’t include player weights in the bible.

Cornes says the move opens a worrying can of worms in the AFL and questions why publishing a player's weight is different from revealing their height. "I don’t know where this is going to lead to. Are they going to ban us from knowing that Caleb Daniel is 168cm? He could easily be offended by being one of the shortest AFL players in the game.

Kane Cornes says knowing the height of players such as Caleb Daniel (left) should be no different from knowing their weight. Pic; Getty
Kane Cornes says knowing the height of players such as Caleb Daniel (left) should be no different from knowing their weight. Pic; Getty

“What about Nick Watson, there’s been a lot of debate about the new Hawthorn recruit with pick No. 5 in the lead up to last years’ draft. He’s 17, 18 years of age and we’re debating whether he’s too small to be taking top 10 of the draft and whether Hawthorn should or anyone should use a really high end pick on a player who is 170cm. How would that affect his mental health in his last year of schooling? It didn’t seem to bother him, in fact I’ve spoken to him about it, he loves it. What is going on?”

AFL weight issue leaves fans divided

West Coast 2018 premiership winner and fellow broadcaster Will Schofield also hit out at the move on social media after calling it a "complete embarrassment". When questioned by another user about how it affects him, Schofield echoed Cornes' concerns around his ability to provide more thorough analysis during a game.

“When working on games – sometimes adds some context to match-ups, one-on-one contests, changes from year to year for new players... Lots really." Others suggested that players have every right to keep certain details about themselves private, with the issue proving particularly divisive on social media.

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