Finished Heated Rivalry? It’s Time To Read After the Siren

Weeks into 2026, Hot Gay Sports Summer is going strong thanks to HBO hit Heated Rivalry. The show’s stars stole headlines at the Golden Globes and copies of the Rachel Reid books it’s based on have reportedly sold out in Australia. Plus, it’s been spoofed on SNL.

Melbourne author Darcy Green is a long-term Rachel Reid fan and follower of the (yes, hockey-heavy) sports romance genre. A few years back, they wondered why there wasn’t similar steamy queer fiction dedicated to Aussie Rules. After the Siren – published late last year by Penguin – is the result.

The book follows the enemies-to-lovers journey of Jake Cunningham, poster boy at the fictional Brunswick Falcons, and Theo Bestavros, a club newcomer with plenty to prove. On-field tension quickly turns into tension of a different kind, and a hot rom-com plays out as the boys try to make it to the finals.

Here Green talks us through the Heated Rivalry discourse, what it’s like to research sex scenes, and how they’re building a fictional queer AFL universe one sexy book at a time.

Answers have edited for clarity and length.

This is your debut novel – where do you come to writing from?

I’ve been an avid reader and writer my whole life – not just of romance, but of everything. From my teens and into my twenties I wrote a lot of fan fiction, but I didn’t really start taking my own writing seriously until five years ago. It was actually this book, and the idea that I had for it, that made me do the joyful and laborious work of writing a whole novel. Outside of my writing life I’m a lawyer, so I spend a lot of time thinking about words and writing.

What’s your relationship with footy?

I loved it as a kid, then sort of fell out of love with sport in my teens, then in my mid-twenties I started to play AFL at a very low level. And it was shortly after I started playing that I came out as queer.

My experience with AFL was so positive in terms of being a queer person – the team I played in was probably 90 per cent queer, and it was my first experience of meeting non-binary people and trans people. It was this wonderful affirming space, and then I’d watch the [men’s] AFL: a space where there wasn’t an out player in this very hyper-masculine environment. There was a real dissonance between my experience and watching the game I loved.

How did all that translate to After the Siren?

I was reading a lot of sports romance – there are some crossovers, I think, between the vibe of ice hockey and the vibe of AFL – and I was like, “Oh, come on! I really need an AFL romance!” There are a couple of independently published ones, but it’s not a big genre by any means.

Then I was watching a game with my wife and it had one of my favourite footy archetypes, which is the pest of a small forward running around being a gremlin. And I thought, “It would be kind of funny if the first out player wasn’t some serious respected leader of the game but was a bit of a shit-stirrer instead.”

From that point in time Jake was in my brain as a character. And then I was like, “Well, who is the person who would really dislike Jake upon meeting him?” And then Theo came into my life. I’m probably a lot more like Theo as a quiet, anxious, introverted person. And I think all of us who are like that have probably met a Jake and been like, “God, this person drives me crazy.”

Did you do much research for the book – and did any of it include watching gay porn?

I’m so glad someone’s actually asked me that question! There were two main types of research for the book. I did spend a lot of time watching social media of players and clubs, because while there were some aspects of footy culture I was quite familiar with, I didn’t have as much insight into how 22-year-old men relate to and speak to one another, or what it’s like to be at training or just in those spaces.

The other type of research wasn’t really about gay porn. For any logistical questions I needed to investigate, Reddit was really useful. I also sent some questions to friends. But at the same time, when you’re writing sex scenes … everyone’s individual experience is really unique. So to me, writing about two people with a different gender to my own isn’t that different to writing about two people of the same gender, or one person of the same gender and someone else, because I think those experiences of intimacy are really hyper-individual. It’s less about the gender and more about the individual characters and staying true to that.

Any plans for an extended After the Siren universe? Are we going to get more sexy stories from the Brunswick Falcons?

Yes, there’s going to be a second book – I just signed the contract. It’s not about Jake and Theo, although they are in it. It’s about the captain of the team, Yelks, who is very dear to me. It’s quite a different book because both characters are in their thirties and it is more of a domestic romance than an on-the-field, enemies-to-lovers type romance. It’s a different vibe but I loved writing it and I really hope people will enjoy reading it.

Heated Rivalry has really put sports romance in the spotlight. Can you tell us a little bit about the audience appeal of the genre?

Readership and authorship of romance in general, both historically and now, has been dominated by women. That’s partly because men are actively discouraged from reading and enjoying romance, and also partly because genre fiction has typically been disregarded, poorly paid – all of those things. So there are lots of reasons why it’s tended to be a space dominated by women. And the percentage of women romance readers generally pretty much translates to readers of sports romance and queer romance – but I have to say for my book, I’ve gotten a lot of lovely messages from queer men who have read it.

As for why people enjoy sports romance, I think there’s a huge range of reasons. For me, it’s the ideal setting for romance, because you have this environment where there’s a lot of intensity and competition. You have your teammates, who you’re spending all of your time with, and you have people you’re competing with, so there’s this complex web of really intense relationships. And then, let’s be real, a lot of very beautiful people wear very small shorts.

It’s rare to read this kind of book set locally. Do we need more sexy Australian books?

I would love that! I really enjoy writing in Australia. I think the barrier to it is probably that, commercially, it is much more sensible as an Australian author to write books set outside Australia. But I love reading Aussie romances, and I really enjoyed writing a book that was extremely Australian because, for me, that’s part of the AFL culture.

Many of the book’s characters contemplate what it would mean to come out publicly, something that’s been mooted in the news lately with stories about Mitch Brown and also Josh Cavallo. Are we ready for our first gay AFL player?

I wish I could say “yes”, because I really want us to be. But as a queer footy fan, the idea fills me with mixed excitement and dread, because I don’t know that we are. I like to think that within the team environments it would be okay. But when I look at the stuff that has been said to Mitch Brown and the comments on any pride post that’s put out by the AFL, I don’t know.

I feel like if a player was to come out, that would carry with it an enormous burden. Not just suddenly being a figurehead and a spokesperson, but the awful stuff people say on social media and the fact that they would undoubtedly have to deal with stuff while they were playing. So while I really would love to say, “I think we’re ready”, I just don’t know that I would wish that on anyone. But I would love to be proved wrong.