Hello & happy Thursday!

On this next instalment of The Forward Line, Annie Poulton and Emilie van Baalen sit down with founding member and former TFL Co-Host, Emily Thompson.

In this conversation Em chats to us about her pathway from Melbourne Law School, to private practice, to landing her dream role as In-House Counsel at the Australian Grand Prix Corporation. Enjoy!

Hello everyone & happy Thursday!

The Pod Squad is back together again & the time has come to sit down and talk about The Hawthorn Football Club.

Today on the show we are covering one of the biggest stories in Footy right now and answering the complex questions:

1. How did historical allegations of racism levelled against one of the biggest clubs in the competition, shake the footy community to its core & taint the reputation of a group of Premiership Greats?
2. What is the role of the AFL in this type of dispute, and do they have an active duty to protect all players from racism at work?
3. And most importantly, what is being done to rectify the hurt of the complainants?

We also referenced a couple of articles in the show! Click here to read more about the Binmada Report and click over here to scrub up your legal knowledge of the concept of Procedural Fairness.

Okay bye! Thank you for listening! We hope you enjoyed the show! If you did, please like, subscribe, share on social media and scream it from the rooftops! Spreading the word helps us grow

Folks, in 2019 when we first launched The Forward Line, we sat down in a room at Melbourne Law School and wrote a “dream list” of guests we hoped to one day interview on the podcast.

Bridie O'Donnell was the first name on our list & it will be easy for you to see from this conversation, why that was.

Bridie started her career in medicine! She is trained practitioner and worked as an Orthopaedic Surgical Assistant for 8 years before taking up cycling. Bridie then rode competitively from 2006 – 2017, with multiple pro-teams and carved our her speciality in the individual time trial.

She has represented Australia 3x at the UCI Road World Championships and in 2016, she broke the Women’s Hour World Record in Adelaide, riding an astonishing 46.882 kilometres

Since retiring from cycling, Bridie has excelled in all that she does – whether it is presenting on Radio or TV, working in Medicine or writing a Memoir. She has also held very senior positions in the Victorian State Government, both in the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation, and in the Department of Health.

But you'll probably know Bridie best for her work on SBS as a Lead in the Tour de France Commentary Team and this was the hat she was wearing when we spoke to her on Friday night

Our interview took place at midnight on Bridie’s time, and she had a HUGE day inclusive of 6 hours of commentary and long drives. Despite these demands, Bridie looked fresh as a daisy and was ever-the professional

This was such a special interview to have been a part of – Bride speaks so well. Her remarks on professional women’s sport & the need for equal opportunity are insightful, and internally challenged me to think about my own biases and the way I use language.

We talk about the supportive workplace culture at the SBS Commentary Team, surprise run ins with President Emmanuel Macron, the history of women’s the pro-peloton, the course and sportswomanship.

To follow Bridie's TDFF journey, you can find her here on Instagram or here, on Twitter.

We hope you enjoy the show!