Defender meaning to follow a game (9)
I believe the answer is:
apologist
'defender' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'meaning to follow a game' is the wordplay.
'meaning' becomes 'gist' (gist is a kind of meaning).
'to follow' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'game' becomes 'polo' (polo is a kind of game**).
'a'+'polo'='apolo'
'gist' put after 'apolo' is 'APOLOGIST'.
(Other definitions for apologist that I've seen before include "One who argues in favour of something controversial" , "Defender of something controversial" , "One who defends a policy" , "Justifier" , "One defending the controversial" .)