As a nation we’re obsessed with football. Whether your code is AFL or NRL, we fanatics worship our footy heroes and follow their glamorous WAGS (wives and girlfriends) via Insta and gossip mags. We’re no longer just spectators, we’re voyeurs, thanks to media reportage of certain high profile players’ off field aggression, drug abuse or sex scandals.
Cleverly weaving fact into fiction, is Network Ten’s racy new TV soap drama, Playing for Keeps. Episode one debuted on prime TV this week with 583,000 metro viewers, which is testament to our fixation with the private lives of these footballers.
In the opening credits, Kath, wife of Southern Jets coach Brian Rickards, is in the bedroom applying the finishing touches to her glamorous outfit. She twists her engagement ring and pauses reflectively just long enough for viewers to intuit all is not well in her marriage.
We get a further glimpse into the secrets and lies shadowing the main characters lives when rookie, Daniel Fletcher, and his gauche country girlfriend, Paige Dunkeley, rock up for an Aussie ‘barbie’ at the coach’s grand home only to discover it’s a champagne (not beer and sausages) affair.
Paige’s naïve bumblings as she tries to negotiate this artificial milieu of high fashion, Insta fame and glamorous socialite press events, gives us the idea this is an illusory world where reputation and fame hang on the thread of whether a premiership is won or lost.
So far the show has managed to avoid the pitfalls that befall other try-hard Aussie TV productions. These strong, smart, sassy, successful yet also vulnerable and fallible, women are not “cookie cutter” characters delivering ocker one-liners just for gags.
Screen siren Madeleine West (aka Kath) is a woman in her 40s who’s hot, sexy and sensual. She’s devoted to Brian and the club, yet her 25-year marriage is evidently rocky as the plot tells us she has longstanding adulterous liaison with a toy boy. Go, Kath!
Maybe I notice such things because I’m a woman, but I really think the fashion outscores the football in this compelling TV drama.
Interestingly, Kath makes a bold statement on ring finger by wearing Secrets rose gold wide band bezel ring with white gold accents.
“It’s a bold style of ring, which suits her persona because she’s a strong and independent woman,” says Secrets creative, Xanthe.
“She also has heart because she acts as ‘den mother’ to the WAGS, especially Paige when she first arrives on the scene.”
“This is visually depicted in the storytelling by the large Secrets rose gold circle of life pendant she’s often seen wearing.”
“Kath’s sophisticated and has an edgy glam to her; our Secrets jewellery really reflects her ‘alpha-female-with-heart’ persona.
“Her character would be incomplete without her Secrets jewellery because we have a sense early on that she’s harbouring many of her own ‘real life’ secrets.”
Well, I’m hooked and I urge you to tune in too, even if just for the fashion and some Secrets spotting. See our ‘related products’ section for a teaser of some other Secrets jewellery you can expect to ‘star’ in future episodes.
Playing for Keeps airs Wednesdays at 8.30pm on Network Ten. You can also catch up your viewing with Ten Play.
