Shane John Russell (born 4 March 1965) known as Dwayne Russell is a former professional

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er and currently a commentator of the sport. Born in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, Russell made his senior football debut as a sixteen-year-old in 1981 for

Port Adelaide Football Club Port Adelaide Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club based in Alberton, South Australia, Alberton, South Australia. The club's senior men's team plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), where they are nicknamed ...

in the

South Australian National Football League The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport. Originally formed as the ...

(SANFL), eventually becoming Port Adelaide's vice-captain, before crossing over to

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

(VFL) club

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

. Russell played 50 games, kicking 51 goals for Geelong until he left the club at the end of the

1991 AFL season The 1991 AFL season was the 95th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), which was known previously as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season ran from 22 March until 28 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away seas ...

. Russell initially considered returning to Port Adelaide to finish his career but instead coached in country Victoria for a few years before retiring from football.

Sports journalism

Russell unsuccessfully applied for a journalism cadetship in Adelaide in 1984 before starting a journalism career in

in 1989. Russell became a full-time sports journalist with ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'' in 1997. Covering the major sporting events of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Russell built up a serviceable record as the number four sports writer at ''The Age''. Following this success he was moved full-time to the paper's coverage of the

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

in 1999, including a stint as the writer for ''The Sunday Age'' Sport section in the mid-2000s. He also joined

95.5 K-Rock K Rock 95.5 (call sign: 3CAT; stylised as K rock 95.5 and previously as K-Rock) is a commercial FM radio station based in Geelong, Australia. K Rock operates a mainstream Top 40 playlist. K Rock’s football coverage mainly consists of Au ...

in Geelong as Sports Presenter in their news updates in the "Big Mattress" breakfast show. Soon, he also co-hosted a sport/comedy segment called "On The Bench" with ex-Geelong player

Billy Brownless Anthony William Brownless (born 28 January 1967) is a former Australian rules footballer and radio and television media personality who represented in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the 1980s and 1990s. Early life Brownless was ...

and the Essendon fanatic "Ferret" (Russell Taylor), twice a week. A long list of Geelong players were included in "On The Bench" as special guests including Barry Stoneham, Tim McGrath and Paul Couch.

Football commentary

In 2002 Channel Nine gave Russell the main caller's role for Sunday afternoon AFL matches before being promoted to the network's calling team for Friday night matches in 2006. His other main occupation this time was as co-host of radio station

3AW 3AW is a talkback radio station based in Melbourne. It broadcasts on 693 kHz AM. It began transmission on 22 February 1932 as Melbourne's fifth commercial radio station. The station is owned and operated by Nine Entertainment Co. Hist ...

's top-rating drive-time sports show, ''Sports Today'' with

Gerard Healy Gerard Healy (born 1 March 1961) is a former Australian rules footballer and commentator. Healy attended St Bede's College in Mentone, where he was the senior football captain. Gerard is a trained physiotherapist. VFL career Melbourne Dem ...

, a role he departed in late 2019. After leaving the Nine Network, Russell received a contract with

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

to call two weekly

matches for the Pay-TV provider for the 2007 AFL season and beyond, under the new AFL TV Rights Deal, of which Fox Sports covered four games weekly during the home and away season. In 2012, Russell moved to the newly relaunched

Fox Footy Fox Footy (stylised as FOX FOOTY) is an Australian rules football subscription television channel dedicated to screening Australian rules football matches and related programming. It is owned by Fox Sports Pty Limited, operated out of their Me ...

which showed every game but covered 5 or 6 games each week. In 2012, Russell joined the Friday night 3AW football team while continuing to host ''Sports Today'' for the station. In 2019 Russell left 3AW to join SEN as host of its afternoon program and a football caller.

Commentary in other sports

Russell expanded his work with Fox Sports by becoming a basketball commentator in Fox's coverage of the 2009/10 National Basketball League (NBL) season. Additionally, he also provided commentary on Fox's coverage of the

2011 Australian Open The 2011 Australian Open was a tennis tournament featuring six different competitions, and part of the 2011 ATP World Tour, the 2011 WTA Tour, ITF Junior Tour and the NEC Tour, as tournaments for professional, junior and wheelchair players wer ...

tennis tournament.

References

External links

*
Profile at 3AW
{{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Dwayne 1965 births Australian rules football commentators Geelong Football Club players Port Adelaide Football Club (SANFL) players Port Adelaide Football Club players (all competitions) Australian rules footballers from Adelaide Living people South Australian State of Origin players