http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/luke-foley/ Luke Foley is a Labor member of the NSW Legislative Counil. He was the winner of the Channel Nine Sidchrome Supertest team competition in the summer of 1983/84. He is also a journeyman suburban park cricketer. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/red-green-and-pauline-how-hanson-was-held-back/ Yesterday, Pauline Hanson’s umpteenth attempt to climb out of the political grave ended in failure. But only just. If NSW Labor had not extended Legislative Council preferences to the Greens Party, Hanson would be sitting on red leather for all of the next eight years, availing herself of parliamentary privilege to once again inject her poison into the Australian body politic. The fact is, Labor preferences elected a Greens Party candidate over the top of Pauline Hanson. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/red-green-and-pauline-how-hanson-was-held-back/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/red-green-and-pauline-how-hanson-was-held-back/#item5610 Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:55:23 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/we-must-have-the-courage-to-change/ On Saturday NSW Labor suffered the heaviest defeat in our 120-year history. Losing an election after 16 years in office is part of the natural cycle of politics. Receiving our lowest vote since 1904, and winning our lowest number of seats since 1898, is anything but cyclical. The voters expressed their fury at the way Labor has run this state for at least the last four years. One in three voters who expressly identify themselves as Labor did not vote Labor on Saturday. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/we-must-have-the-courage-to-change/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/we-must-have-the-courage-to-change/#item5486 Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:00:50 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/no-more-excuses-sack-the-selectors-and-punt-ponting/ Defeat at the hands of a weak English side is the wake up call that the Australian cricket hierarchy has needed. The Australian cricket supremacy has passed. That supremacy dated from 1995, when Mark Taylor’s team defeated the then world champion West Indians in the Caribbean. 95 Test matches were won, and only 24 lost, over the following twelve years. The cricket world became accustomed to the inexorable dominance of Australia’s national side. Now Australia has suffered series defeats to India, South Africa and England in the last twelve months. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/no-more-excuses-sack-the-selectors-and-punt-ponting/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/no-more-excuses-sack-the-selectors-and-punt-ponting/#item1013 Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:00:44 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/allan-border-still-the-greatest-australian-batsman/ No Australian cricketer has scored more runs for his country than Ricky Ponting. The Tasmanian has overhauled Allan Border’s Australian run scoring record in 22 fewer Tests, with an average six runs to the good, and boasts eleven more centuries to his name. Yet Allan Border remains the finest Australian batsman of the last quarter century. Granted, Ponting is Border’s superior in the one day format. But it is the pure form of the game that provides the ultimate test of the abilities of cricketers. A great cricketer’s greatness is established in the Test arena. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/allan-border-still-the-greatest-australian-batsman/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/allan-border-still-the-greatest-australian-batsman/#item812 Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:45:27 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australian-cricket-doomed-if-we-dont-back-the-young/ Lawrie Sawle is the most unrecognised contributor to the Australian cricket supremacy of the last two decades. A West Australian school teacher and administrator, Sawle became Australian cricket’s chairman of selectors in late 1984. Earlier that year the Sydney Cricket Ground Test played host to the retirements of the three giants of the national team, Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh. Soon Australia was being beaten by everyone. The captain resigned in tears. A majority of the first Test team chosen by Sawle’s selection panel had already signed secret agreements to rat on Australian cricket and tour apartheid South Africa. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australian-cricket-doomed-if-we-dont-back-the-young/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australian-cricket-doomed-if-we-dont-back-the-young/#item701 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:50:03 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Englands-toffy-cricket-elite-keeps-the-fans-at-bay/ Tonight, a young man from New South Wales will step on to a cricket field in old South Wales. Phillip Hughes, age twenty, son of a banana farmer, will open the batting for his country in international sport’s most enduring contest, Ashes cricket. He’s dreamt of this moment for much of his young life. One can write with some confidence that he hasn’t dreamt of playing his first Ashes Test at Sophia Gardens, rather at Lords or Headingley or Old Trafford. The opening match of the 2009 series will be the first Ashes Test played on neutral soil. That is, it will take place neither in England nor Australia, but in a foreign country, Wales. The first Welshman to captain England at Test cricket, Tony Lewis, wrote of Sophia Gardens, ‘a day watching there when the prevailing wind blows is like a week at sea’. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Englands-toffy-cricket-elite-keeps-the-fans-at-bay/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Englands-toffy-cricket-elite-keeps-the-fans-at-bay/#item564 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:30:00 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australias-real-crisis-of-spin-is-on-the-cricket-pitch/ Leggies. Googlymen. Chinamen. Mystery spinners. Australia chooses spin bowlers to take wickets, not merely to tie up an end. Until now, that is. Andrew Hilditch, the chairman of Australia’s selection panel, recently enlightened us on his view of the role of spin bowling in Australia’s forthcoming Ashes campaign. “The word attacking is a bit overrated really”, he declared. “...it’s about asserting pressure and performing the role the captain wants…Nathan (Hauritz, the only specialist spinner chosen) did that very well in the times he’s played, because we wanted to tie up an end, assert pressure from that end, keep pressure on batsmen and relieve the fast bowlers.” feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australias-real-crisis-of-spin-is-on-the-cricket-pitch/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australias-real-crisis-of-spin-is-on-the-cricket-pitch/#item454 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:35:00 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-only-one-ian-botham-selectors-still-living-in-past/ Here is a question for your cricket club’s next trivia night. Name England’s Test all rounders between Botham and Flintoff - that is, over the fifteen year period from the 1986/87 Ashes, the scene of both Ian Botham’s last century and his final five wicket haul in an innings, to 2001/02, when Flintoff made the spot his own. Chris Lewis may spring to mind, if only on account of last month’s conviction and thirteen year prison sentence for cocaine smuggling. Lewis’ most memorable cricketing performance involved shaving his scalp, taking the field bare headed and coming down with sunstroke on England’s 1994 tour of the West Indies -  destined to be known evermore, courtesy of The Sun, as “the prat without a hat”. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-only-one-ian-botham-selectors-still-living-in-past/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-only-one-ian-botham-selectors-still-living-in-past/#item255 Sun, 07 Jun 2009 02:23:27 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tons-of-tedium-on-pitches-watered-with-bowlers-tears/ Cricket’s foremost nineteenth century moralist the Reverend James Pycroft published his famous treatise The Cricket Field in 1851. He recalled a shocking chapter in the game’s history – the presence of bookmakers at cricket matches: “They had all sorts of tricks to make their betting safe. ‘One artifice,’ said Mr. Ward, ‘was to keep a player out of the way by a false report that his wife was dead.’” feedback@thepunch.com.au (Luke Foley) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tons-of-tedium-on-pitches-watered-with-bowlers-tears/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tons-of-tedium-on-pitches-watered-with-bowlers-tears/#item131 Sun, 31 May 2009 01:20:10 +0000 Luke Foley | Author bios | The Punch