Punch writers get in the game

That dopey Spaniard. Three-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has been banned for two years, and is now officially just a two-time Tour de France winner, after copping a two year ban for drug use.

Contador was overnight stripped of his 2010 Tour win by the Court of Arbitration for Sport for testing positive to the banned anabolic agent clenbuterol. The Spaniard says he ingested the substance by eating contaminated steak.

Sure he did. The Punch has dined on more than occasion at a delightful tapas bar near our office and we can say with some confidence that both the chorizo and the steak was steroid free.

Continue reading "Other stuff to be angry about today (with chorizo pic)" »

If badminton was the World Game there would probably be just as many riots as there are now with soccer. The graceful swoop of the goose-feathered shuttlecock would not calm the madding crowds.

If only badminton had the power to invoke the passion, it could rival the semi-religious fervour that soccer induces. If only. Then we could blame badminton for all violence in sport and stop making soccer out to be evil.

Soccer is, globally, inextricably linked to violence in people’s minds. But it’s not soccer’s fault. Soccer just happens to be the medium for the message. It is the excuse, the scapegoat.

Continue reading "Don’t blame the beautiful game for riot shame" »

Went to a Super Bowl once. Hung out afterwards with 160 kilo nude, crying black dudes in the losers’ dressing room. Oh, but you don’t want to hear about that. The Super Bowl is all about the ads, which this year are said to cost $3.5 million for 30 seconds. Some recession they’re having in America.

When the 100 million Americans watching the Super Bowl go to the toilet in the ad breaks, they say city sewerage systems overflow. That’s actually a myth. No one takes a pee during the ad breaks. The ads are too good. The Super Bowl is the opposite of normal telly. That pesky football keeps interrupting some damn fine viewing.

Super Bowl ads are so highly-anticipated that you get teased beforehand. This year we’ve had the (thankfully false) threat of a Ferris Bueller remake and a sneak peak of David Beckham’s undies ad, which to be frank is more torture than tease. Fortunately, there have been some brilliant ads down the years. Let’s go the video(s).

Continue reading "Pass the Doritos… the greatest 13 Super Bowl ads" »

Nevermind the result. All the talk today is about Dave Warner’s remarkable “switch hit” against India last night. Wow. Talk about skill. But was it legal?

Not according to respected ABC commentator Jim Maxwell it wasn’t. “The switch hit is deadset against the spirit of the game,” Maxwell told The Punch today. “Not to take anything away from the amazing skill of Dave Warner, but if I was the bowler and I saw a batsman do it, I’d chuck it at him!”

The laws of cricket have nothing to say about the practise whereby a batsman changes his grip on the bat and effectively changes from left to right hander, or the reverse, while the ball is in flight. But the laws are crystal clear that a bowler could never do the same thing.

Continue reading "Flick the switch?" »

Once at an NRL match, Wests Tigers fullback Tim Brasher hurled a small novelty footy my way. Pretty sure the thing was intended for his nephew or cousin, but I snatched it, I took it home and that was that.

Leaving aside the fact that a Sydney rugby league fan actually got off his backside and went to a game, there is nothing remarkable about this anecdote. Finders, keepers. Especially at sporting venues.

Yet public sympathy today appears to be leaning heavily towards 14 year old obsessive Novak Djokovic fan Melissa Cook, who missed out on a shirt thrown her way. And public fury is being unleashed on the fan who snatched the shirt.

Continue reading "Other stuff to be angry about today (with video)" »

In the moments after Novak Djokovic crumpled to the ground, fists clenched and screaming to no one in particular, my first thought was that this was the greatest tennis match in history. I wasn’t alone.

But my thoughts quickly turned to why the women’s game doesn’t produce epics like that. This is not to say that the women’s tennis is of poorer quality, or can’t produce incredible matches. It’s doesn’t mean women are weaker and can’t play gripping tennis. The best female tennis players in the world train just as hard and are as dedicated to their sport as any men. But their matches just don’t last as long.

Kim Clijsters’ three set win over Li Na in the fourth round was one of the best games of the last year. The shot-making and tension rivalled almost any match in the men’s draw. Yet as tightly contested as that match was, it still lasted only two hours and 23 minutes. The first two sets of the men’s final alone went for longer.

Continue reading "A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s play" »

There was a famous moment in golf journalism, after an ageing and written-off Jack Nicklaus won the 1986 Masters tournament. A senior writer totally seized up in the media room, clutching his hair and saying “it’s too big, it’s too big, it’s too big…”. What the guy had just witnessed simply defied any words he could write.

You feel the same way trying to describe an Australian Open final like the one we had last night. What do you write? How do you sum up five hours and 53 minutes of the most epic tennis imaginable between two guys with the stamina of marathon runners, the dynamism of sprinters and the skill of marksmen?

Oh, there are all sorts of angles you can take. More angles than a protractor factory. You can take the broad view and start the “who’s the greatest ever?” debate. After all, if Federer has the most Grand Slams ever, but Nadal keeps beating Federer when they meet in Slams, and now Djokovic keeps beating both of them, that’s the kind of argument that could rage on well past pub closing time.

Continue reading "Match of the century!" »

Morning, Punchers. Ant Sharwood here. Last Friday, journalist Amanada Shalala made a fair point on the TV show The Drum. As the panel previewed the Australian Open women’s tennis final, she asked why they were only talking about the grunting.

Should they have talked more about the actual tennis? Was it somehow sexist or gruntist or some such not to do so? And while we’re talking tennis, did anyone catch the men’s final last night? I’m writing this thing at 6:40 pm Sunday night, and I expect Nadal to beat Djokovic in four sets. How’d I go? And what did you make of the final?

What else has got you talking around the water cooler this morning? And hey, why don’t you see as many water coolers as you used to these days?

I went to the KFC T20 Big Bash League game at the Sydney Cricket Ground in character. My self-assigned role was to play the sporting curmudgeon, a cricket connoisseur abhorring the form of the game designed for people who don’t like cricket, and left-wing romantic appalled by the abominations of corporate consumption capitalism at its most bone-headedly tasteless.

Attending my first live Twenty20 event was an exercise in leisure and education, meaning that I was looking for fun but brought my notepad along.

Following the pedestrian flow through Surry Hills to Moore Park and breathing humid evening air spiced with vehicle and restaurant emissions, the collective feeling was unmistakeably that of summer carnival.

Continue reading "Shh! Don’t tell my highbrow chums I liked the Twenty20!" »

Around Australia today as the snags sizzle and the beers flow cold and bitter, people will also be becoming Australian citizens.

The Government says a bunch of boring questions plus a bit of pomp and ceremony allow someone to declare ‘I am Australian’. Which is a great thing, don’t get us wrong. We just thought the questions are probably due for a revamp. So here’s our Alternative Australian Citizenship Test.

Answers are in! Yet-to-be-confirmed prize at this stage goes to S.L because he looks like he needs some cheering up!

Continue reading "How Australian are you? Take our test…" »

The viewers are sick of it. The commentators are sick of it. The other players are sick of it - to the point where they’re asking the WTA to act, and even worse, taking the piss out of them behind their backs (see below video of Caroline Wozniacki and Kim Clijsters).

Whether it’s cheating or not is open to discussion, but there’s no denying Maria Sharapova and her fellow screaming grunters are driving everyone around the bend.

This afternoon as Sharapova hits Rod Laver Arena for her Australian Open quarter finals match against fellow-Russian Ekaterina Makarova, Seven may as well give the commentators an hour and a half off work. No one will be watching with the sound on.

Continue reading "Maria Sharapova, would you Just. Shut. Up…" »

Not for a minute did I fail to enjoy watching Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting make the Indian “attack” look like a very weak defence yesterday afternoon.

And if you think that two double negatives make for a confusing opening line to this story, you’re right. But it’s hard to be positive when there were so many negatives in the big picture of yesterday’s first day of the Adelaide Test.

India are dead. They are last week’s vindaloo. They are a bloated cow carcass floating down the Ganges. And they should go home. They should not even be playing this Test.

Continue reading "A great batting display, but it’s hardly a true Test" »

When Australian skipper Michael Clarke raised his bat to celebrate his historic triple century at the SCG it showed a man becoming aware of his stature in the game.

Instead of pointing to a bat sponsor - a deal which can be valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars - he gestured towards the McGrath Foundation sticker placed there earlier that day.

Clarke’s manager James Erskine later explained the skipper had split with Slazenger and he is still mid-negotiation with two or three companies to finalise a deal.

Continue reading "Hey Pup, keep your bat clean and your image squeaky" »

OK, so having spent half the summer bagging old buggers who don’t know when to quit, let’s give some love to those who continue to ripen on the vine without rotting.

Firstly, Roger Federer. The Swiss master is known as FedEx because he delivers results fast. Last night, the Ex stood for Exhibition, as in exhibition match. There were two tennis players on Rod Laver Arena last night – Federer and Jim Courier, who interviewed him after the game.

Bernard Tomic was apparently also there, but pretty much just as a hitting partner. Oh, he tried. He came with a plan. A plan to blast Federer off the court instead of teasing him with deft touches he’d employed so well against lesser opponents. It was the Malaysia Solution of sporting strategies.

Continue reading "Old dudes who still got it" »

In between promos for Revenge, My Kitchen Rules and Please Marry My Boy, tennis star Marcos Baghdatis had a wee meltdown at the Australian Open on Wednesday and smashed his way through four shiny blue tennis racquets.

Given he scored a pay cheque of $20,000 just for winning round one, the $770 fine meted out to Baghdatis must have made those poor racquets feel positively worthless.

I love the Aussie Open. Like interminable school holidays (“Muuum!” “Muuum!” “Muuum!”) it’s synonymous with summer. But if tempers can fray on the court, imagine how the rest of us feel at home.

Continue reading "The tennis is awesome but I don’t love all" »

The racquets smashed by Marcos Baghdatis in last night’s Australian Open outburst have spoken out exclusively about the pain, the hurt and the trauma of racquet abuse.

“This sort of thing should never be tolerated,” said a severely twisted and broken T-Flash 315 Speedflex who preferred to remain anonymous.

“I don’t care if you’re at the Australian Open, Wimbledon or the Kazakhstan Invitational,” the racquet said. “It is simply never acceptable to abuse a racquet in this way.

Continue reading "Racquets have feelings too" »

Despite the quality of Michael Clarke’s record since taking over the Test captaincy, he’d been much-maligned until his Sydney triple ton. But Clarke’s record-breaking knock has finally silenced the knockers.

The performance was all the more memorable because it happened it was on home soil. Amplified media attention, free-to-air TV coverage, and the ability to attend events live means sport played domestically is afforded extra credence.

Bernard Tomic now finds himself in a similar boat to the former Mr Lara Bingle.

Continue reading "A Tomic bomb ticking all the right boxes" »

Imagine if a dumb trend like planking collided with something much more dangerous than a balcony railing, like say religious fanaticism, and an entire nation caught the bug.

Welcome to contemporary America, where the fad of “Tebowing” is both sweeping and dividing the nation. Tee-what? Tebowing, named after hyper-religious Denver Broncos quarterback, Tim Tebow, is the act of taking a knee in prayer, usually while you’re actually doing something else. Like playing footy.

Tebow has been doing it for months in Broncos games, although he won’t be doing it any more this season, or not onfield anyway, after his team was thumped by the New England Patriots on the weekend. Apparently God prefers a patriot to a believer.

Continue reading "A football field is no place for nutty religious fanaticism" »

Road cycling has been growing in popularity for the past few decades. This week’s Tour Down Under in South Australia is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of people to roadside vantage points throughout the state to watch some of the best riders on the globe contest the opening event of the 2012 World Tour.

Yet for the first few decades of competitive cycling, the track was the Mecca for large crowds of cycling fans. Beginning in Europe, but spreading quickly to the United States, Australia and elsewhere, the close action on the steeply banked velodromes captured the imagination of the public.

Throughout the first three decades of last century, cycling tracks were built in major cities. In the US, track cycling became one of the most popular sports in the nation. As in Europe, sporting stars and celebrities of the era were regular faces in the stands.

Continue reading "Cycling through history to the Tour Down Under" »

As India lurch from hopelessness to complete incompetence, one man sure to escape the axe, not to mention any serious scrutiny, is Sachin Tendulkar.

To Indians, the Little Master is beyond reproach. He is bigger than Bollywood and greater than Gandhi. Click on the special “Sachin Zone” on the Times of India website today, and among the usual fatuous stories arguing Tendulkar is better than Bradman, you’ll find a story about the value of the insurance policy on his house.

For all the magnifying glass scrutiny on his private life, there’s a major hole in Tendulkar’s batting record which no Indian ever seems to notice. In short, he is not a match winner. Not when playing against Australia, anyway.

Continue reading "The Tendulkar trap" »

Norman Tebbit - a key confidante of Margaret Thatcher entirely ignored in the recent film The Iron Lady - is commonly remembered for two prescriptive statements. The first was that, instead of complaining or rioting, the unemployed should get on their bikes and look for work.

The second article of Tebbitism is that immigrants should take a ‘cricket test’ of national loyalty and identity.  If you’re living in one country but decline to support it against your nation of origin in an international sporting contest, Tebbit implied, you have failed that test.

Australia had its own less strict but more formal version of a cricket test in the sample question about Don Bradman in the original Australian citizenship test under the Howard government.

Continue reading "Is it unAustralian to barrack for the other team?" »

The news that a municipal council in Melbourne has banned local cricketers from playing the popular, fast-paced Twenty20 in more than 40 parks raises questions about the increasingly litigious and risk-averse culture in which we live today.

According to reports, the Boroondara Council introduced the ban to minimize the risk of injury and property damage. Apparently one ball had shattered a car window.

It is also a reminder of one of the most well known judgments in the English common law.

Continue reading "Nanny state calling stumps for no good reason" »

Say hello to our latest sporting hero. He’s had quite the journey to get to this point.

“Michael Clarke now walks with giants”, The Daily Telegraph editorialised yesterday. That was before he became only the third Australian ever to score a triple century on Australian soil. It’s a feat that pales only in comparison with Sir Donald Bradman’s 452 not out against Queensland at the SCG.

But Clarke is no Mr 99.94, lionised by all in perpetuity. He belongs in a different category of Australian hero altogether. Clarke is one of those superstars who we, the fickle Australian general public, only seem to really care for when they’re winning.

Continue reading "Clarkey smacks tall poppy syndrome for 329, not out" »

In legendary English cricketer, Freddie Trueman’s biography, You Nearly Had Me that Time, Alan Wharton notes: “It’s a well-known fact that when I’m on 99, I’m the best judge of a run in all the bloody world.” The same could be said for Ricky Ponting’s long awaited century.

I suspect I was not alone with my heart in my mouth yesterday when Ponting set off for a chancy run that gave him his ton. He would have been out by a metre if the ball had hit the stumps, but as the fates would have it, he made his ground. In doing so, Ponting not only answered his critics but settled a few yips.

But beyond the broad smile, triumphant wave of a bat and a very dirty shirt from his desperate slide, this was a ton with more than a little meaning. It showed Ponting made good his declaration that he believes he has still got what it takes to be a world class cricketer. That much is settled. So what else? Plenty.

Continue reading "Ponting went the distance - did his time, took his chances" »

It is one of the most anticipated events in Australian cycling. For decades, cyclists, coaches and supporters have dreamt of having a national team at the Tour de France and the other great European races. Now, 98 years after Don Kirkham and Snowy Munro became the first Aussies – and the first non-Europeans – to ride in the Tour de France, an Australian team will join the professional peleton.

The first appearance of the Green Edge team this weekend at the Bay Criterium series in Victoria had been eagerly awaited for months. Although the Bay Crits are a warm-up series for the Australian Road Championships this week at Mt Buninyong, and the first of the World Tour races, the Santos Tour Down Under the following week in Adelaide, they have attracted the cream of the nation’s cyclists for two decades.

As the first races for the summer season, it is fitting that the Green Edge riders are participating in the keenly contested circuit races at Geelong, Port Arlington and Williamstown.

Continue reading "A new true blue crew of Aussie cycling champs" »

Just when womens boxing thought it was making progress, it has been dealt a brutal double left jab right cross combo right where it hurts the most – between the legs.

Next year female boxing will make its Olympic debut at the London Games, but celebrations and preparations have been soured by a push by the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) to have the competitors wear skirts in the ring.

I kind of thought if there was one sport you didn’t want to piss off then it’d be boxing and the girls aren’t happy.

Continue reading "Boxing skirts the boundaries of credibility with sexist rule" »

They’re already spruiking fans’ tours to the 2013 Ashes on the telly, in between ads for priceless mock memorabilia and the odd spot of cricket.

Not interested. Wouldn’t go to see The Ashes if I could. But the next tour to India? Now that’s something worth saving up for, and not just because India is a far more enticing travel destination than dreary, drizzly old England.

Fact is, Australia vs India is cricket’s great new rivalry. The Ashes, great tradition though it is, is second, with South Africa vs Australia third and daylight fourth. Disagree? Here are 10 reasons why India is the new England.

Continue reading "India is the new England" »

When you tune in to a Test Match and see the New Zealand skipper cop a Kookaburra in the testicles in super slow-motion from seven angles, you realise the technology of televised cricket has gone nuts.

In 1977 Daddles the Duck skulked across our screens for the first time, accompanying the brooding batsman on his long walk back to the pavilion. Willow under his wing, tear dripping from his eye, the animated quack was one of the first computer graphics to complement the on-field action, and was part of Kerry Packer’s push to package cricket for TV.

Three decades on, a glut of high-tech gadgetry and a smorgasbord of stats provide the DNA of every delivery. Atari-like graphics have been superseded by a sophisticated suite of digital devices which make NASA look like a bunch of kids farting about with a junior science kit.

Continue reading "Slo-mo testicle hits show cricket has gone nuts" »

Cricket’s Big Bash domestic T20 league kicked off on the weekend, and if you’ll excuse the pun, the thing was a smashing success.

TV ratings were huge, with over 900,000 tuning in to the match between Shane Warne’s Melbourne Stars and Dave Warner’s Sydney Thunder. That’s the fourth highest-rating show ever on Australian Pay TV.

OK, so the bums-on-seats weren’t as numerous as some predicted, but with people still working and using the precious evening hours to go Christmas shopping, that was to be expected. Just wait till January.

Continue reading "A Big Bash on field, an even bigger bashing off it" »

What happened
Cleanskin Australian cyclist Cadel Evans had finished runner-up in both the 2007 and ’08 versions of the Tour de France. After a disappointing 26th in 2010, his hopes of ever winning the thing looked cooked. But the 34-year-old Victorian, who was born in the NT, finally tasted champagne and glory on the Champs Elysees on July 24, 2011.

Australians have been tuning in to SBS’s Tour coverage in increasing numbers in recent years, if only to watch glimpses of the French countryside flashing by while drooling over Gabriel Gaté’s delectable dishes.

This year we watched not just as interested onlookers but as fans. As mad barrackers for a gritty little Aussie giving it his all, in an event which is truly one of the grand fromages of world sport. It was a ratings bonanza for the “Soccer, Boobs and Soccer” network, with over five million watching in total and a whopping metro share audience of 32.6 per cent on the final stage.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #5 Pedal Cadel, Pedal!" »

There are 20 minutes remaining. Score’s locked at 16-all. The young family is in the lounge room, a rare event in itself, nervously watching their Wests Tigers.

As a scrum is formed, Ray Warren proclaims with a hint of surprise the Tigers are $2.15 to win on TAB Sportsbet. Dad, slumped in his armchair, jolts, bolt upright. He commands his eight-year-old boy to bring him the phone. The little boy marvels as he watches Dad punch in the numbers with vigour.

Dad replaces his customary “hello” for a mysterious set of numbers, before announcing down the line - no, demanding - he will have a hundred dollars on the Wests Tigers, and doing it with a sense of pride. The conversation ends, the phone dispensed with.

Continue reading "Hey Xenophon, don’t shoot the gambling messengers" »

That raging red top, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, has promoted and demoted with ruthlessness in the last two days. Cricket selectors, after Australia’s unacceptable defeat on the raging green top in Hobart, must do likewise.

Really, no one gives a stuff about the reshuffled deckchairs on the rapidly-sinking Titanic that is this Federal Government. But cricket selection matters. Unlike Federal Labor, there is actually some fresh talent out there.

So here goes. Here’s what should happen after Hobart. It’s ruthless, it’s uncomplicated, and unlike Gillard’s re-shuffle, it might actually make a difference.

Continue reading "Raging greentop more deadly than the Raging Redtop" »

What happened
On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, you wouldn’t have thought an American would be booed by their own crowd at a major sporting event in New York City. Yet Serena Williams achieved exactly this.

In normal circumstances, the story of the day would have been Sam Stosur’s straight sets US Open victory, which made her the first Ausralian woman in to win a Grand Slam event since Evonne Goolagong Cawley won Wimbledon way back in 1981.

But Williams changed the whole tone of the event with a foul outburst at the umpire. Among other filth she said “You’re out of control” and “You’re a hater, and you’re just unattractive inside.” We just wish the umpire had returned serve with that old schoolyard taunt “I know you are but what am I?”

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #14 Serena spats, Sam slams" »

Princess Mary is currently holidaying in Tassie, but she’s not the only home-grown royalty in town.

From a humble upbringing in country Mowbray, Ricky Thomas Ponting has ascended to arguably the loftiest post in the wide brown land; Australian Cricket Captain. While he’s come under fire of late from the media, selectors and fans on the mainland, the support back home has been unwavering.

The headline from Launceston rag The Examiner before his debut test read: “He’s Ricky Ponting, he’s ours… and he’s made it! Tassie’s batting star will play in his first Test”. And the Taswegian media have been waxing lyrical about Punter ever since.

Continue reading "Punter, stop hedging your bets. Retire now" »

What happened
Australia’s favourite middle-aged spin bowler proposed to England’s favourite middle-aged model and actor, at a restaurant at the famous St Andrews golf course in Scotland in November. Thus was born the name “Shurley”

OK, so there were bigger, more important issues this year. But in terms of issues that set tongues wagging, both on this website and across Australia, this was a biggie.

The engagement came after just 10 months of dating, and confirmed that Shane Warne is today just about the most famous Australian in any field of public life. Women’s mags completely crapped themselves at the news, while hair replacement therapists and slimming pill suppliers booked expensive holidays in anticipation of years of revenue to come.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #16 Shurley they can’t be serious" »

There’s a fine line between the “next big thing” and a national legend. There’s an even finer line between the “next big thing” and a nobody.

This nation has an obsession with manufacturing superstars, with believing that ordinary Australians are capable of the extraordinary. The physiological limits of the individual - how fast they can run, how high they can sing - are irrelevant.

Of far greater importance is “the story”, the tried-and-true narrative of how the perennial underdog has become the nation’s top dog, albeit for a fleeting moment. The media has a ball in delivering these inspirational tales. And why wouldn’t they; the public never fails to swallows the hype.

Continue reading "All hail the next big thing. Wait, an even bigger thing!" »

Kiwi captain Ross Taylor gave Australian selectors a choice piece of advice over the weekend, urging them to continue to select stuttering opener Phil Hughes.

It was an admirable bit of cheek, but Taylor can hardly talk. His side’s entire batting lineup, himself included, knows more about who’s bonking who on Days of our Lives than they do about the action in the middle of a cricket ground. Just one of the Kiwi top six passed 50 in the Brisbane Test.

As tempting as it must have been for Clarke to counter with a quip to the effect that he hopes New Zealand pick the entire New Zealand team again, Taylor actually had a point. Hughes is snicko’s best friend. He is a one man fielding drill for the entire Kiwi cordon. And he has dished up a doozy of a dilemma for his friend and skipper Michael Clarke.

Continue reading "Clarke’s biggest challenge since ditching Bingle" »

Xenophobia. Pauline Hanson asked for a “please explain” over a decade ago. Here is its latest example: Australia’s indifference to the Brisbane Roar’s absurd mark of 36 consecutive matches in the A-League without defeat.

Oh yes, the excuses have come thick and fast. The record includes 13 draws, the A-League is weak, penalties were needed to win the Grand Final.

It’s as if the Roar - a team which is as majestic as it is consistent - should be embarrassed they now own such a precious jewel in our sporting history.

Continue reading "Why isn’t there more of a Roar about this super streak?" »

Look at the world’s great historic cricket grounds. Look at Lord’s with its UFO of a media centre staring down the graceful pavilion on the opposite side of the field. Look at the SCG, where the Victorian era Members and Ladies Stands cower beneath huge imposing concrete edifices.

Arenas like these are metaphors for the modern cricketing era, in which the ancient game of Test cricket desperately vies for attention with the bold, brash child of Twenty20.

When T20 first hit the cricket landscape, the big issue was scheduling. Just how to squeeze in all those extra matches? The issue is no longer about programming but people. What kind of batsmen will form the spine of future Test batting line-ups? Which bowlers have a strong enough spine to withstand three forms of the game?

Continue reading "Test Cricket 2.0 begins now" »

Winemakers will tell you that the key to getting a really good harvest of prime grapes is to trick the vines into thinking they’re dying. Give them just enough water, but only just enough, and the vines will divert every last precious drop of moisture into the fruit and produce a bumper crop.

Overnight, the Test careers of several leading Australian players were in danger of withering, as runs and wickets had dried up. But like the vines, the likes of Mitchell Johnson, Brad Haddin, Mike Hussey and Ricky Ponting extracted just enough to help their team deliver the sweetest of victories.

Last night’s thrilling two wicket win over South Africa was rightly hailed as a victory for the future of Australian cricket, as 18 year old tyro Patrick Cummins backed up his six wicket second innings haul with a nerveless knock which included his hitting the winning runs.

Continue reading "Australia’s triumph is Michael Clarke’s triumph" »

I will never forget a line that Peter Roebuck wrote in a cricket match report. It was wildly over-the-top and heavy-handed, and it symbolised what made his writing so very unique and special, but also, why he turned others off.

The line set the scene for a match report on a typically grey day of Ashes play in England in 2001 and went as follows: “Neither chill winds nor dark clouds that came like Heathcliff’s scowl over proceedings could quite drain the opening day of its tension or occasion.”

Most writers would have been content to write “grey” or “drizzly”. Not Roebuck. For him, only a reference to the chief character of Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights would suffice.

Continue reading "Chapter and flowery verse, Roebuck was like no other" »

Tiger Woods is one contradictory cat. There’s a human being inside that shell, a living, breathing, joke-cracking, thoughtful guy with all kinds of normal human feelings.

But there’s also a mercenary. A man who this week privately played golf with anonymous Chinese millionaires for huge sums of money. A golfing enthusiast who will rave about Australia’s world class golf courses, and how he wishes America had more courses like ours, then greedily pocket three million for the privilege of playing here.

But if you think Tiger is ruthless in the way he subjugates all dignity in his endless quest to accumulate money, that’s nothing on the way he suppresses his own emotions. At his Tuesday media call at The Lakes Golf Club, which The Punch attended, he didn’t once acknowledge the effect his marital break-up and sex scandal had on his golf game.

Continue reading "Washed-up champs who don’t know when to quit" »

In 1992, a 20 year old from Florida made surfing history. Kelly Slater qualified for the quarter finals of the Alternativa Surf International in Rio to claim the World Title.

The American media had high hopes, looking to him to be the next Tom Curren and when asked about reaching the same kind of highs as his surfing idol’s career, Slater, slightly camera shy and still unassuming about his future replied, “I don’t know, I’m not really thinking about that right now, I’m just thinking about having won the World Title, and hopefully winning another one someday”.

Nineteen years and 10 World Titles later… Kid Kelly is now King Kelly.

Continue reading "This 39-year-old man is the world’s greatest sportsman" »

The first rule of calling a black arsehole a black arsehole is that only another black arsehole can call a black arsehole a black arsehole.

The second rule of calling a black arsehole a black arsehole is that if a white arsehole calls a black arsehole a black arsehole, that white arsehole should be kicked very hard in exactly that location.

In short, Steve Williams, the glorified bouncer who carries other people’s sporting equipment for a living, should be bounced from the golf course for good for his comments about his former boss Tiger Woods in Shanghai last week.

Continue reading "This white arsehole should be blasted out of his bunker" »

Once upon a time, it would have been a huge story for the Melbourne Cup to go to an overseas trainer. Today, after French horse Dunaden nosed out English horse Red Cadeaux in a thrilling finish, exactly the opposite is true.

How ironic - in a week when an Australian icon in Qantas has bulldozed a path towards an ostensibly less Australian future - that another Australia icon, the Melbourne Cup, is now as distant from its origins as Qantas is from a dinky-di outback air service.

Dunaden prevailed in the narrowest of narrow finishes and as ever, provided a great story. The horse’s jockey, Christophe Lemaire, flew out just yesterday after local jock Craig Williams had an appeal against a suspension dismissed. In a further irony, his arrival was delayed by the Qantas shutdown.

Continue reading "Our Cup runneth overseas" »

It’s on again. The Melbourne Cup. The race that stops the nation. Or at least, the race that stops the nation working.

This year’s Cup is like no other. Well might we say “stop the boats” as refugees seek asylum on our shores, but maybe we’d do better to stop the planes. This year, more foreign raiders than ever before are trying to steal our riches and destroy our way of life. It’s just not horse racing.

So who’s going to win? The Punch proudly presents Australia’s most devastatingly honest and accurate form guide to help you decide for yourself.

Continue reading "Australia’s bitchiest Melbourne Cup form guide" »

On the first Tuesday of November, around three-ish, every fair-dinkum Australian gathers round for “The Race That Stops the Nation”. They show it in pubs, clubs, old-folks homes and school class-rooms. TABs fill up with people who couldn’t tell you the difference between a trifecta and a trilby, having their one bet for the year.

Suddenly you find yourself surrounded by racing experts who know all about form, breeding, lead-ups and how the raiders can’t handle the hard Aussie tracks.

In workplaces right around the country, people chuck in for $2 sweeps and agonise about drawing the 200-1 outsider with a name they can’t pronounce. And right around the country, in every state bar Victoria, work shuts down at 12.

Continue reading "Make Melbourne Cup Day a national public holiday" »

In a post-race horseback interview on Derby Day, a leading jockey spoke about the National Jockeys Trust quest to secure funds for injured jockeys and their families. The Punch asked top rider Stephen Baster to tell us more.

Every jockey wants to win a Melbourne Cup. But the thrill of making it across that line first is something only a select few will ever experience. I’ve been lucky enough to start in six Melbourne Cups with my best finish being third on Mahler for Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien in 2007. Unfortunately I don’t have a ride this year. For the majority of Australia’s 840 professional jockeys, the Melbourne Cup – and the kind of prize money that comes with it – is the exception, not the rule.

We don’t do this job just for the money. If we did, the thousands of other races that take place each year wouldn’t attract much of a field. And we certainly don’t do this job for the security or the health benefits. It’s a tough industry and full of dangers.

Continue reading "Every single day, we jockeys take the punt of a lifetime" »

There are countless stories about millionaires and their pampered thoroughbreds at this time of year. This is not one of them.

This is a story about a 74 year old bush harness racing trainer, an 84 year old owner and the slow, hopeless horse they wouldn’t send to the knackery, despite the fact it had raced 85 times without winning.

Continue reading "The slow hopeless horse who took 86 starts to bloom" »

Something’s in the air and it’s not just a truckload of pollen. National stockpiles of Zyrtec, Tuscan Tan and ostrich feathers are all being hammered relentlessly.

The Spring Racing Carnival is upon us. Originally a celebration of the finest in equine flesh, the event has diversified into an exposition of both equine and female flesh.

Like musk sticks or anchovies, etymology either does it for you or it doesn’t. I would be happy to see the recipe for musk sticks go up in flames, but I do dig a bit of etymology.

Continue reading "Best of the breast as the Spring Carnal kicks off" »

One element of the Rugby World Cup came through loud and clear. This was a Pacific event.

Three Pacific island nations competed to rapturous receptions. When the Tongan team arrived in New Zealand they were greeted by 10,000 members of the Tongan community who lined the streets from Auckland airport.

From Papua New Guinea to Samoa to Niue there were Pacific players representing teams from Wales to Australia to the All Blacks themselves.

Continue reading "Let’s include our neighbour in the fun and games" »

So let’s get this straight. New Zealand teams can perform a ritualised tribal war dance before sporting contests, complete with throat-slitting gesture. But if the opposition has the temerity to encroach upon them, that’s unacceptable.

Worse than unacceptable. It’s a protocol breach apparently deserving of a $15,000 fine, which is the amount rugby’s governing body the IRB plans on slugging the French.

Prior to Sunday’s Rugby World Cup final, the All Blacks assumed their usual formation for their customary bout of tongue-wagging, eyeball popping and general silliness, culminating in the delightfully family-friendly act of throat-slitting.

Continue reading "Aah speet on your haka, you feelthy Kiwi peegs" »

In Manchester the world turned on its axis as City staged a palace coup in the Theatre of Dreams, smashing rivals United 6-1 away from home to take a five point lead in the race for the English Premier League and stake their claim as the new kings of English football.

If you know anything about football, and even if you don’t know anything about football, you’ll know that Manchester United are the biggest soccer club on the planet. Yes, Spain’s Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have hundreds of thousands of members and passionate Latin American support, but since the Premier League’s inception in 1992, no team has won more devotees around the world than the Red Devils.

United’s reputation has been built on sustained footballing excellence, millions of pounds of match day revenue, and the simple human desire of fans around the world to back a winner. Or shameless glory-hunting as it is otherwise known.

Continue reading "Man, what a power shift as the world unites behind City" »

Beleaguered and hopelessly out-of-form Wallabies fly half Quade Cooper is currently suffering a barrage of hate of the sort usually reserved for criminals and lying politicians.

He doesn’t deserve it. He deserves a healthy dose of public scepticism after two truly terrible World Cup performances, but he doesn’t deserve the sort of bile being poured out across the internet today.

Before the Cup, Cooper was widely hailed as Australia’s great hope. Rod Macqueen, who coached the 1999 Wallabies to World Cup glory, said he was the one player with the “X-factor to make the difference”. Fairfax scribe Spiro Zavos called him “the Picasso of the pass”.

Continue reading "Quade Cooper buried in a scrum of hate" »

Was a week that started with endless huffing and puffing over the carbon tax ever going to end in anything other than a black out?

The Wallabies didn’t lose their Rugby World Cup semi final against New Zealand last night because Quade Cooper kicked the very first ball of the match over the sideline, and was largely ineffectual thereafter. Though as omens go, that first kick was a doozy.

Neither, as some are suggesting, did they lose because of biased refereeing, or because the result was somehow influenced by telecast sponsor Tom Waterhouse - the son of a bookmaker implicated in Australia’s greatest racing scandal.

Continue reading "All Black Sabbath" »

Australians will have more to worry about than the jubilant crowing of four million kiwis if Quade Cooper et al fail to pull their finger out tomorrow night.

For the earth will move not just in Christchurch but throughout the land of the long white cloud if the All Blacks can overcome their choking form and progress to the final. Not for the country cousins a bit of scarf waving and a few Steinies to celebrate: Nope, the entire nation has promised they will literally root for the boys should victory come to pass.

Never mind Costello’s one for mum, one for dad and one for the country, the Kiwis are poised to deliver one for the All Blacks, with 96 per cent of the country saying they plan on having sex if New Zealand wins the Rugby World Cup.

Continue reading "Kiwis rooting for victory, and hopefully afterwards too" »

The Herald-Sun Tour is Australia’s oldest cycling stage race. As a child, I recall watching the Tour riders travel through the small country town of Rosedale in Gippsland where I grew-up. Sometimes there would be an intermediate sprint in the town. On other occasions we would watch the riders racing up the ridge adjoining our property.

The Tour marked the revival of competitive cycling after the Second World War.

For the first half of last century, track racing and one-day endurance events dominated the cycling calendar. Track racing was extremely popular, as thousands of people flocked to the wooden velodromes to witness closely fought races.

Continue reading "Australian cycling has a rich and exciting history" »

Prepare for a week of verbal warfare. Here on the civilised side of the ditch, expect perfectly hilarious sheep jokes, gibes about silly accents and clever references to the dole queue at the Bondi Junction branch of Centrelink.

Over in the land of the long white ugg boot, expect endless tedious quips about Quade Cooper, Quade Cooper and Quade Cooper. With a few Quade Cooper jokes thrown in for good measure.

Cooper is the Wallabies fly half who grew up in New Zealand but left when he was a schoolboy because his mother wanted him to play for a team that didn’t choke every World Cup. The Kiwi version of the story is that he left in order to raise the IQ of both countries.

Continue reading "We’ll smesh ewes Kiwis like fush and chups, eh brus" »

I hate football. There, I said it. Curse me. Stone me. lock me in a tiny room with At Home with Julia on loop. I deserve it all.

It makes me a bit of an outcast, but no matter how hard I try, I just can’t bring myself to care about a group of guys in short shorts lumbering after a piece of cow hide. 

This is despite being born and bred in Melbourne, where AFL is the prevailing religion and all the players are Gods.

Continue reading "My name is Emily Portelli and I HATE football" »

An NRL superstar is a hero to the town of Whakatane, on the coast of New Zealand’s North Island. His name is Benji Marshall.

Marshall grew up there. Part of his family still lives there. He went to the local school until he was offered a scholarship to play for a rugby league team on the Gold Coast when he was 16.

“He’s a legend mate,” says the events manager for the Whakatane district council, Mike Van Der Boom. Marshall and his team didn’t make it through to this evening’s Grand Final. But with the New Zealand Warriors through to only their second rugby league grand final ever and the country hosting a Rugby World Cup where the All Blacks are strong contenders for the title, football fever is in the air in Whakatane.

Continue reading "Kiwis flapping their wings, and they might just take off" »

A lot of people are upset that there is only one NSW side in tomorrow’s grand final, but in fact this is a great thing for the state. It means that for one day of the year all of us in NSW can put aside our petty rivalries and unite behind a single team.

Obviously I am referring to the Auckland Warriors. However recent research reveals that a small handful of Sydneysiders will also be going for Manly.

Previously this statistic had never come to light because it was not known that Manly was actually a part of Sydney. However local government divisional records from 1826 reveal that technically Manly is a “suburb’’ and not, as commonly thought, a wormhole to another planet where the dominant species is a Nissan Pathfinder.

Continue reading "Grand Final Exclusive: Some people in NSW might back Manly" »

I was never really an AFL fan.  Until last year’s final I was not able to confirm with confidence if, when a ball struck the outer post, it counted as a point or not.  Yet I was surprised that the Grand Final tie did not produce as much buzz or excitement around town as I would have expected. 

The city should have been brimming with football fever during the week’s interlude between matches, but instead I found most talk of ‘footy’ sneered at as almost an embarrassing interruption to the weekend.  Though I might not have been much of a fan, I always had time for the role AFL played in the city’s spirit. 

Thus, almost in defence of the game’s apparent decline in popularity, I feel obliged to pay homage to this most definitive affirmation of Melbourne’s identity.

Continue reading "There’s nothing more Melbourne than AFL" »

Meat Loaf is one loose unit. That’s why anything could happen when the headline act for the pre-game entertainment at tomorrow’s AFL Grand Final between Collingwood and Geelong lets rip with a medley of his biggest hits. Five songs in twelve minutes will be some feat for a singer whose tracks are often “epic” in running time.

Fingers crossed the whole show is a catastrophe because, let’s face it, the only reason anybody watches the grand final “entertainment” is to see one spectacular disaster. Good, bad or ugly, the “Bat Out of Hell” will be flat-out trying to upstage the biggest horror show involving song, dance and choreography ever seen at a major sporting event.

The worst in history is Angry Anderson and the Batmobile. I remembered this atrocity after coming across a great article by leading sports blogger The Mad Chatter.

Continue reading "When Mr Loaf meats AFL anything could happen" »

There aren’t many television shows worth watching but I would urge everybody to go out and buy the five season DVD box set of the American drama Friday Night Lights. This critically acclaimed and largely unwatched program is ostensibly about the tribulations of a high school gridiron team in the fictitious Texan town of Dillon.

It is in reality a show about life itself, and the good and bad judgments which people make while growing up and as adults, and the ramifications those decisions have on their lives and the lives of others.

The star of the show is the intense but big-hearted Eric Taylor, the coach of the Dillon Panthers, whose determination to win is tempered by his compassion for the young men under his charge.

Continue reading "Friday Night Lights, Fevola and the No Di*kheads rule" »

To become a member of the Geelong Football Club you need a name, a birth date and an address.

In March 2007 my wife Rachel was in the family way. Thanks to an ultrasound, a planned caesar, and a stable household, for yet-to-be born Harvey I already had the three pieces of information. So with Rachel twenty weeks pregnant, Harvey became a member of the Geelong Football Club: in utero.

He is, to this day, officially the youngest ever member of the Cats.

Continue reading "Chasing the meaning of football and life" »

It is hard to believe the NRL, a code which galvanises communities in two of the largest states in Australia, could be staring at financial collapse because of the Gillard Government’s gambling reforms.

It is hard to believe that the AFL, the national game which enjoys the status of a religion in four states and one territory, is also facing ruin because of the mandatory pre-commitment proposal to make gamblers think about how much they are prepared to wager on poker machines before placing a bet.

It is hard to believe because it is simply unbelievable. It is hard to believe because it is rubbish.

Continue reading "The depressing truth about football’s gambling addiction" »

“They are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope and happiness out of the air around them.”

No one is quite sure whether JK Rowling’s description of dementors was inspired by Collingwood fans but it would be safe to assume that at some point in her life, the Harry Potter author had the misfortune to spend time with the Magpie faithful - so chillingly accurate is her account of how their mere presence affect ordinary folk.

It would be wrong to characterise all Collingwood supporters as ill-bred, gutter dwelling oxygen thieves more likely to break into your car than make a meaningful contribution to society, but one can understand why that perception exists.

Continue reading "‘Pies have the game plan, Hawks have a dental plan" »

When Australia’s universal good guy Pat Rafter makes Lleyton Hewitt look well-mannered, you know the Australian sporting universe has been turned on its head.

Everything went wrong for Australian sport this weekend. Everything. The NZ Warriors knocked Wests Tigers out of the NRL finals, Ireland beat the Wallabies in the Rugby World Cup, Sri Lanka dominated the cricket, and the Davis Cup turned ugly on court and off.

Sheesh, even the early Melbourne Cup favourite is now a Kiwi horse. But let’s talk about the two that really hurt – the Wallabies and Davis Cup.

Continue reading "Woeful Wallabies not on their Pat Malone" »

The Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan said that the medium is the message. I’m not really sure what it means but it seems a suitably pretentious way to start a column about the condition of pretentiousness; that is, the state of being up one’s self, a show pony, a poseur.

The particular class of poseurs I would like to discuss today belong to a group called the Friends of the ABC. I used to live among their number while a resident of the People’s Republic of Leichhardt, in Sydney’s groovy and organic inner west. It’s a terrific part of Australia, marred only by the presence of an old Volvo on every street bearing bumper stickers saying “No Aircraft Noise”, “The Goddess is Dancing” and “Hands off our ABC.”  So that people didn’t think less of me, at neighbourhood barbecues I would tell folks that I worked in a laboratory rubbing cheap cosmetics into the eyes of bunny rabbits, rather than admitting to editing The Daily Telegraph.

You can understand why people don’t like aircraft noise and support dancing goddesses but I am buggered if I can see why people will develop an impassioned lifelong commitment to an organisation which like any organisation does some things extremely well and some things really badly.

Continue reading "Bourgeois wankerdom and Friends of the ABC" »

The impending footballing weekend is all about “bromance”, that modern term which refers to the state of male bonding when mateship goes all misty-eyed and meaningful.

In the real world, men shake hands firmly, then brusquely ask “how’s it goin’ champ?”. Sport is different. When sportsmen step over that white line, they enter a beautiful parallel universe. They pat each other on the arse and tell each other “I love you like a brother”. And they mean it.

Male team sport was made for man love. Not the Brokeback Mountain kind of love, (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but a special form of mutual admiration.

Continue reading "A finals bromance" »

Talented, graceful Gold Coaster Sam Stosur has won her maiden grand slam title against probably the most ill-tempered so-called sportsperson ever to play any game.

Stosur beat Williams 6-2 6-3 in an incredible display of power tennis, launching blistering forehand after forehand, as Serena Williams resorted to umpire abuse in a vain attempt to disrupt her opponent.

Incredibly, on America’s day of national mourning, the Williams antics backfired and the New York crowd turned against one of its own. The Big Apple knows a bad apple when it sees one.

Continue reading "Slammin’ Sam shows Serena how to act like a lady" »

There are dilemmas within dilemmas within dilemmas when it comes to watching sport on telly.

The big one, which The Punch’s token sport yob Ant is always bugging us about, concerns who controls the telly in his single TV household. Basically, when Friday night crime comes on the ABC at 8.30, Ant’s wife gets control of the remote and that’s that.

But aside from all the usual dilemmas surrounding TV and sport, this weekend has thrown up a doozy. Quite simply, which sport to watch?

Continue reading "Friday Dilemma: which sport to watch this weekend?" »

Today’s NRL State of the Game report revealed a particularly impressive set of figures, which NRL CEO David Gallop didn’t hesitate to fire straight across the bow of the AFL.

In particular, Gallop drew attention to the number of close matches in the NRL this year. As Gallop and the despairing AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou would know only too well, the AFL has had more blowouts than Summernats this year. And a lopsided competition is a predictable competition is a dull competition.

While the NRL still lags well behind the AFL in terms of attendance, one of its key advantages is its dominance in subscription TV, where it boasts 74 of the top 100 programs so far in 2011.

Continue reading "The gap narrows between the two big codes" »

As the finals near and we sort the footballing wheat from the chaff, let us pause to salute those players who are neither exquisitely talented nor thrilling to watch.

The ones who are Commodores, not footballing Ferraris. The players who have to buy their own drinks in nightclubs, and probably even queue to get in.

That is not to denigrate their contribution. Not by a long stretch. Average players are the infantry who make the generals look good. They are the quiet guy in the office toiling away uncomplainingly while the suits are out to lunch.

Continue reading "A salute to humble, honest footballing toilers" »

So Melbourne and Manly have each been fined $50k for their little bout of fisticuffs on Friday night. Good. Maybe that’ll teach them both a little humility.

Fact is, the huge all-in at Brookvale Oval on Friday night had very little to do with the faint elbow nudge from the Storm’s Ryan Hinchcliffe which sparked it, and everything to do with the ill-feeling which has been simmering at both clubs for ages.

Both clubs consider themselves hard done by at the hands of the NRL – the Storm because of the salary cap scandal and the Eagles because of the Brett Stewart affair. With NRL CEO David Gallop on hand on Friday night, those pent-up frustrations were just too much to contain.

Continue reading "The first rule of fighting clubs is: cough up $50k" »

Having a punt on the gallopers is a great Australian pastime. But even on a losing streak, all most of us have at stake is money.

The men, and increasingly women, who keep the industry going by saddling up at racetracks across the country day-in and day-out are gambling with much more.

Today is National Jockeys Celebration Day, the one day on the national racing calendar that is all about those people who risk their lives on the track.

Continue reading "You punt with a fiver, jockeys gamble with their lives" »

Collingwood has copped a truckload of bumps - mostly off the field - in its quest to win back-to-back premierships.

A year of troublemakers, distractions and criticisms has added fuel to the Pies’ fire. The players will tell you they’re hungry to win consecutive AFL flags under Mick Malthouse’s leadership.

The Pies’ efforts are working to great effect, and the players realise they are in top nick for another crack at the flag.

Continue reading "It’s impossible to picture Malthouse in a backseat role" »

They call it Heartbreak Hill. The City to Surf’s telling point. A 1.4km stretch of sheer running pain with spectacular views over Sydney harbour which you’re far too buggered to appreciate.

Yet on race day, you could be forgiven for thinking it was named “RSVP Hill” with the amount of advertising material for said dating website. The site, owned by Fairfax Media, assaulted the masses who tackled the hill with cheesy running puns like “hot” and “heartbroken” stapled to telegraph poles.

Indeed, it seems that among the empty plastic cups, the whole race was littered with some message or another.

Continue reading "My date with 80 thousand sweaty, love-starved joggers" »

It is simultaneously the most gripping and the most frustrating sporting competition in the world.

The standard of play really is amazing (and yes, we should stop comparing it to the A League), and manages to captivate millions of fans across the world every season, even though they all pretty well know what the result will be.

I’m talking, of course, about the English Premier League. If you’re not an aficionado, then fear not. Two weeks into the season, here is a simple team guide to get you up to date.

Continue reading "It’s predictable as English weather, but I love the EPL" »

“Why don’t scientists and people who contribute something to the community get the same amount of admiration as sportspeople?”

Mia Freedman asked herself that question last week as she tried to understand the hatred unleashed upon her when she suggested others might be as worthy of the term “hero” as Tour de France winner Cadel Evans.

The answer is strange - it’s precisely because they are heroes, that they aren’t hailed as heroes.

Continue reading "You can’t barrack for scientists" »

Look who’s making runs again. His name’s Ricky Ponting, and you might remember him from such failed captaincy campaigns as the 2005 Ashes, the 2009 Ashes and the 2010/11 Ashes.

OK, so the guy wasn’t all bad news as skipper. There was, after all, that 2006/07 Ashes whitewash, and those unbeaten 2007 and 2003 World Cup campaigns.

But captaincy undoubtedly took its toll on Ponting. First came the spats and hissy fits, as his mental state clearly disintegrated. Then he lost the ability to hit the ball. As the ship skippered by Captain Ricky sank, his batting average went with it. Australian cricket couldn’t afford either of those things.

Continue reading "This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship…" »

I’m tired, cold and smell like a tin of cat food. This is my first taste of life as a deep-sea fishermen. Twenty-four hours on a fishing trawler outside Sydney Heads with Paul Bagnato, a fourth generation skipper.

The Bagnato family have run six trawlers out of Sydney since the 1960s, delivering Sydney’s freshest seafood to the Fish Markets every day of the week.

“We are on standby 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” he says. “It’s a tough life out here.”

Continue reading "Trawling for photos down the East Coast" »

So Todd Carney will still be a Sydney Rooster, despite about 183 indiscretions this year. In other unsurprising news, Bondi Beach has waves and airheads.

Carney is the troubled playmaker who last year won the NRL’s highest honour, the Dally M Medal. He won that award, and steered the Roosters from the wooden spoon to the grand final in his first year at the club, after a year out of the NRL due to numerous alcohol-related indiscretions.

Carney spent 2009 playing park footy at the Atherton Roosters in north Queensland. He lived and worked in a pub, which might sound crazy, but in truth it had the effect of rubbing a puppy’s nose in its own poo. For the first time, he saw drunks through sober eyes, and he said it was a genuine shock.

Continue reading "Roosters lash their star idiot with a feather – again" »

Remember Tiger’s wife brandishing a 9-iron as she chased him down the street like a madwoman? Well, he’s just been clobbered again, only this time the aggressor was his former caddie Steve Williams, whose weapon of choice was words.

A lot of people don’t care for golf, and fair enough. They’re just not interested in grown men in silly clothes with an unnatural obsession with balls and holes. Read into that line what you will.

But what happened on the golf course this weekend was so much more than mere golf. This was cold revenge. This was Robin teaching Batman about crime fighting and going home with Batwoman to boot. Here’s what went down…

Continue reading "Tiger gets bitch-slapped on the 18th hole" »

Back in 1989, I was a brash seven-year-old who drove my parents insane by always going a million miles per hour. I would never do anything slowly. Should my parents look away for a second, I would be gone in a flash.

It was with this in mind that, on my 8th birthday, I got a present they thought symbolised my approach to life.  The book: a pictorial review of the 1988 Formula 1 season. What was Formula 1? I had no idea. All I knew is that the book was full of great pictures of the fastest cars on the planet and that got little eight-year-old me pretty excited.

That season was a watershed year in car racing.  On one hand it was the most lop-sided competition in sports history (two cars won everything and no one else had a chance). Yet, it was also one of the closest sporting events in history as the two drivers in the cockpits of these cars were the fastest drivers on the planet. The drivers: Alain Prost from France, and Ayrton Senna from Brazil.

Continue reading "That mad Brazilian bastard sure could drive" »

Well, Sydney pipped Melbourne by a nose this weekend for gripping sporting action. Check this amazing - and I mean amazing - pick up by Gold Coast Titans winger David Mead last night in his side’s surprise win over the Sharks.

Wait, what I saying? No win over the Sharks is a surprise.

Melbourne struck back with the humdinger at Etihad last night, where Essendon squeaked home by a point. Adam Goodes, who is both literally and figuratively the Swans’ poster boy (he’s on bus shelters all over Sydney) shaved the wrong side of the big stick after the siren. What a game. What a weekend.

Continue reading "Oh yeahhhh! Oh nooooo!" »

Tempting as it is to bang on about the perennially inept Melbourne Demons, the real story is at the pointy end of the AFL ladder.

Jim Stynes, the admirable Melbourne Demons president, did a good job of being stoic but not stubborn at an emergency press conference today, hot on the heels of his team’s record 186 point weekend thrashing, and the subsequent sacking of coach Dean Bailey.

Amazingly, the woeful Demons are still just a game-and-a-half out of the eight. That says less about them than it does about Collingwood and Geelong. And it leads to one conclusion. The grand final should be played tomorrow.

Continue reading "Stop the AFL season, I want to get off" »

There has been some debate over the last few days regarding how excited we should be that Cadel Evans won a bike race.

First things first… can’t we just enjoy the moment and soak up the celebrations before these arguments kick off?

His celebratory champagne had barely stopped fizzing before our collective joy was being rained upon.

Continue reading "Let sport have its moment in the sun" »

Yesterday, on TODAY, Mia Freedman showed antipathy towards the Tour de France and its Australian winner, Cadel Evans.

She said she didn’t care, and put forward the idea that maybe he wasn’t a hero to everyone. Ms Freedman followed the interview up with a blog post on her site, Mamamia, explaining she’d been thumped with heavy criticism and cruelty online as a result.

Mia reiterated her stance that she, personally and publicly, doesn’t think sporting achievements make for heroes, and that for her, a hero is someone who toils at their own expense to better the lives of others.

Continue reading "I’m a proud Aussie and I don’t give a stuff about sport" »

Reckless P-platers have often thrown bottles at Cadel Evans when he’s training along the Great Ocean Road near his home town of Barwon Heads, Victoria. Maybe they’ll think twice now, just in case that anonymous lycra-clad figure on the road is a Tour de France winner.

Evans’ Tour de France triumph represents a massive day in Australian sport. Bigger than the America’s Cup victory in 1983. Bigger than anything Pat Cash, Greg Norman or Lleyton Hewitt ever did. Bigger than any of Ian Thorpe’s swims and bigger, yes, than Cathy Freeman’s 400m run in Sydney.

This was not just a victory in the world’s largest annual sporting event, but a victory for everything that we value in Australian sport.

Continue reading "Thank you Cadel, you’ve done us all proud" »

We’re told that there are few things more enjoyable than a day at the races. Associated with the kind of devil-may-care japery that allows one to don a fine hat and drink bubbly before midday, racedays support that fine Australian tradition of shirking work in order to yell loudly at something somewhat sporty.

We frock up, we have a tipple and we take a punt. No one wears thongs.

On the surface, it all appears quite lovely and so terribly, terribly civilised.

Continue reading "Frock up and have a tipple at our very own killing fields" »

Australians have dreamt of winning the Tour de France for a century. Of all the world’s great individual sporting contests, it has until now remained outside our grasp. Edwin Flack claimed gold on the track at the first modern Olympics; our swimmers regularly beat the best in the pool; and our track cyclists often have dominated the velodrome. But until now cycling’s greatest challenge has escaped us.

Ever since Don Kirkham and Snowy Munro contested the twelfth running of the ‘Grand Boucle’ in 1914, Australians have returned to France in search of victory. Kirkham, a 27-year-old dairy farmer from Carrum in Victoria, had won the Goulburn – Sydney classic in 1910 and 1911 before venturing to Europe three years later.

Munro, also from Melbourne, rode a world record time to win the Warrnambool to Melbourne road race in 1909. Riding over the rough, unmade roads of France, the pair of Australians impressed the locals with their endurance. They eventually finished 17th and 20th respectively before returning to Australia to escape the ravages of the First World War

Continue reading "Tour of dreams: the cycle of longing" »

They’re calling it treason. Because it is.

Legendary Australian cricketer and beer drinker David Boon, who reportedly sank 52 cans en route to England in 1989, is now a whisky drinker. That’s like the Marlboro Man switching to Alpine Lights.

News of Boon’s starring role in a Canadian Club whisky ad broke yesterday amid much hullabaloo and flannelette shirt-rending, which is pretty much exactly the reaction Canadian Club would have been hoping for.

Continue reading "A hard earned thirst needs a big cold whisky" »

Nothing better symbolises the hypocrisy that surrounds sports betting in this country than this painting, which depicts the scenes in the Collingwood rooms after last year’s grand final.

You can’t see it at this resolution, but if you view the original painting up close, a betting slip is clearly visible in the hand of Tyson Goldsack, who is the bloke about fourth from the left standing against the wall with another player’s arm around his shoulder.

The slip contains the words “Mrs” and “80-1” and “first goal” – a reference to the successful bet Goldsack’s Mum placed on her son kicking the first goal. Nothing was untoward about that bet. But all the same, it’s a nice irony given the events of the past week.

Continue reading "It’s time to torpedo the punt" »

This is the second instalment of Penbo’s series of columns for the Herald-Sun on what Australia really thinks of Victoria.

In his first year as prime minister the rugby league-loving St George Dragons fan John Howard was the unlikely winner of the 1996 parliamentary press gallery AFL footy tipping competition.

The rules required the winner to put a sizeable amount of cash on the parliamentary bar. Before a boozy throng of journos, Howard gave a terrific off-the-cuff speech which belied his league pedigree and offered some thoughtful and charitable insights into the place of Aussie Rules in our national identity.

Even though Howard doesn’t care for the game – he refused to barrack for the Swans in that year’s grand final because he didn’t want to seem a bandwagon-jumper – the PM said Aussie Rules was the only football code in Australia which transcended class and ethnicity.

Continue reading "The sport that transcends race, class…and humility" »

Australia’s national rugby team, the Wallabies, have just just hopped into the side of a very large truck.

The truck was driven by a bunch of Samoans masquerading as professional footballers, and has caused easily the biggest upset in world rugby in a decade.

This sad situation for Australian rugby, just eight weeks out from the World Cup, is made all the more amusing by the above-pictured story on Fox Sports this arvo, in which Wallaby player Nick Phipps was celebrated for his meteoric rise from third grade

Continue reading "Spot the ironic rugby headline!" »

I stood at a tin urinal alongside Mal Meninga once.

I know it’s true because at some stage later that evening, post-urinal, amidst the hazy celebrations following a Queensland Origin win in Brisbane circa 1982, and having toasted the victory at several of the city’s nightclubs, I got a tattoo that extended up my inner calf and over the knee joint. It reads: “I stood at a tin urinal alongside Mal Meninga.’‘

Now what happens at the urinal stays at the urinal. I can only say that it was a thrill to be so near a champion footballer who, just hours before, had been tearing up Lang Park on behalf of the state. And suddenly there he was in the nightclub water closet, a bullock balanced on its hind hooves, staring into a cluster of deodoriser balls.

Continue reading "NSW: Bloated, smug delusions of grandeur" »

Being a proper Renaissance man, I recently swore off exercise. Every year, my brain - being the smug bastard that it is - tells my body to get healthy, which usually complies. This year’s embarrassingly brief dalliance with fitness, however, saw my body rebel, invoking Charles Darwin himself. 

It all began with a recent viewing of The Fugitive. Harrison Ford just keeps running and running and running in that movie. What if, I thought, a one-armed man killed my wife and I couldn’t prove it and was sent to jail, only to escape thanks to a CGI train crash? Tommy Lee Jones would need only follow the trail of vomit and tears for five minutes before he found me wheezing in the foetal position, begging for leniency.

And so, I’ve spent the past month running and tearing various muscles in an effort to become healthier. It occurred to me last week, however, that it’s all a bunch of nonsense. As I spluttered my way up one of Taringa’s many tortuous hills, I realised exercise and healthy living was the height of human stupidity.

Continue reading "Laziness is a right our ancestors fought for" »

After coaching the Queensland State of Origin team to a record sixth State of Origin win last week, Mal Meninga wrote a controversial Courier Mail column in which he essentially said “nyaah-nyaah-nee-nyaah-nyaah.”

He is also reported to have said “they said it first, Miss” and “I never” and “I know you are but what am I?”

Before taking up the Origin coaching role in 2006, Mr Meninga was previously known as the man with the shortest serious political career in history – yes, even shorter than Julia Gillard’s.

Continue reading "Maroon to the bone and desperate for a moan" »

Welcome to July – a month when ridiculous numbers of Australians forgo rude quantities of sleep to watch a bunch of spandexed bulgers ride bikes in a big circle round a snotty nation on the other side of the planet.

Bitter? Moi? I’d answer “mais oui” but that would be playing right into the hands of le enemy.

France’s annual Tour de Tighty Pants brings mixed emotions for those of us who pedal pushies about the place on a daily basis. And by mixed emotions, I mean a seething combination of bitter and twistedness.

Continue reading "Je n’adore pas le Tour de Bifurcating Buttocks" »