MELBOURNE Victory goalkeeper Lawrence Thomas drew comparisons with AFL legend Wayne Carey after flying high over a pack to claim a dangerous cross against Brisbane last week.

That Victory is again playing the Roar in Friday’s A-League elimination final at Suncorp Stadium is largely due to last Saturday’s heroics of Thomas in denying Brisbane the chance to go top and earn a week off.

But the reference to Carey both in commentary and match reports was lost on the man who is fast becoming a cult hero at Victory.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Thomas said. “But I actually asked somebody when I got home, ‘who’s Wayne Carey?’

“I didn’t know if he was an ex-goalkeeper or something like that.

“I’m a Sydney-boy, so I apologise for that. I know now.”

media_camera Wayne Carey flies high during his AFL career.

TEAR DROP

IT was the biggest moment of his presidency.

And David Koch had assembled an impressive crowd for the history-making announcement that Port Adelaide were to play an AFL game for premiership points in China.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and AFL boss Gillon McLachlan had made the trek to Shanghai but when everything was in place for the press conference on Thursday morning there was one thing missing ... Koch.

The night before Koch’s flight had been delayed at Hong Kong airport because of bad weather.

He changed airlines but was then stuck on the tarmac for almost five hours as air traffic was caught in a backlog.

Koch eventually did arrive in Shanghai but as the press conference started he was only just picking up his bags at the airport.

McLachlan joked about Koch’s absence saying each text message he received on Wednesday night from the Port president had included a teardrop emoji.

THE WHISPER

Port Adelaide’s move to sell its own TV rights to China has raised some murmurings at rival clubs given they’d always been told the rights were off-limits and were solely the domain of the AFL.