Nrl

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" »

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" »

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" »

The Revesby Workers’ Club in Sydney’s far south-west used to do a lot for charities, pensioners and kids. It doesn’t anymore though, according to an article in the club’s latest quarterly magazine.

“The poker machine tax is crippling us”, the club’s secretary says in the article. “We can’t afford to help the community anymore. We’re a club and our first duty is to our members – we have to provide amenities for them. It’s a shame we can’t do both.”

Poker machine tax? Does that have anything to do with what NRL commentator Phil Gould was ranting about when the footy was on last Friday? Does it have something to do with that “footy tax” Eddie McGuire has been yapping about? Or whatever those WHO VOTED FOR A LICENCE TO PUNT? coasters at the club are all about? It sure sounds like it. But nope.

Continue reading "Pissing away the future with pokies, then and now" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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!" »

Like a lot of parents I have spent my fair share of cold and wintry days on the side of a football field.

I’m also a Victorian, so the shape of the football is a bit different, but the rite of passage – staffing the barbeque, cutting the oranges and sharing the thrills and spills – is a common experience for families across the country.

Game to game, season to season, drinking tea out of a thermos and hearing the coach’s gospel recited over the dinner table, the parents and the kids form a bond.

Continue reading "Rugby league’s hospital pass on pokie reforms" »

The State of Origin happened last night, and it’s fair to say The Punch Team sank a schooner or two as the Blues nearly won, but didn’t. Did you watch. Do you care?

What else is on your mind? You know how this works. Share it here. And be nice to those of us who are New South Welshies. Or don’t…

What a victory for AFL in Sydney, hey? Over 33,000 flood the SCG to see the Swans play Hawthorn, while next door at the Sydney Football Stadium, a crowd of, ahem, 10,000 witnessed the NRL snooze fest between the Roosters and the Knights. A colourful SCG against a stadium in funereal military blue.

That story is all over the papers. That story is easy. Lazy too.

It’s also burying the lead.

Continue reading "The Swans are getting slaughtered on television" »

Righto, so when you sift the weekend’s sport through the fine strainer, there were pretty much only two big stories.

In the AFL, the Cats beat the Pies in a see-sawing battle played in teeth-chattering, Antarctic conditions on Friday night at the MCG. Teeth-chattering for the Geelong fans anyway. More like gum-chattering for the Collingwood fans.

In the NRL, there were upsets galore. The bottom team beat the second top team, while the second bottom team beat the third team. Why does this never happen in the AFL? Why is league more unpredictable? And will anyone ever beat superhorse Black Caviar? Ah, conundrums, conundrums…

Continue reading "Stuff all this other crap, let’s talk about the footy" »

Mining magnate Nathan Tinkler has a very BIG presence in Newcastle. He also has a very BIG bank balance. And as of last night, he has the green light for his $100m takeover of the Newcastle Knights NRL team. That’s BIG money.

Tinkler’s people had to secure the approval of 75 per cent of Knights members last night. They achieved this comfortably, with 97 per cent of the 2,500 who turned out voting in favour of the Tinkler takeover. That’s a BIG endorsement.

The future of Knights CEO Steve Burraston, who originally opposed the bid, is now unclear. As the picture below the fold shows, he too is a very BIG figure in the Hunter region.

Continue reading "The BIG thing that happened in Newcastle last night" »

Injuries won’t be stopped in football. Can’t. What can be stopped is the endless supply of car-crash type atrocities rammed down our throats for days on end.

It can be stopped right now. Can you remember a weekend so horrific?

The gory scene of Geelong’s Joel Selwood, body limp, arm stiff and blood trickling out of the side of his mouth, was a Pink Floyd song away from being a Scorsese movie.

Continue reading "Gruesome footy footage is hardly family friendly" »

Phew. We made it through summer. The AFL and NRL seasons are upon us again. Last year, we got all religious with our 10 commandments of footy tipping. This year, we’re sexing things up a little.

What, you think we’re kidding? You think we don’t actually believe that football season is better than sex? Read on… and feel free to tell us why we’re wrong, or to add your reasons to the list.

Also, at the risk of breaking our own rule of going easy on the Caps Lock button, DON’T FORGET PUNCH TIPPING. The AFL code is 892748. Join up here. The NRL code is 173047. Join up here. On to the list then…

Continue reading "12 reasons football season is better than sex" »

On school visits, Benji Marshall has a fun and disarming way of introducing himself. He says “my name is Benjamin Quentin Marshall” as the kids look on with bemusement. Marshall will no doubt introduce himself with similar formality, minus the cheeky grin, when he fronts court on assault charges on April 20. But regardless of what happens that day, I’d still invite him to my kids’ school.

Marshall, who launched the 2011 NRL season last week, was allegedly racially taunted in the most vulgar possible way on Saturday night. This, after he’d MC’d a charity function for the Children’s Cancer Institute which raised $244,000, then stayed out in town for a few drinks, and a fateful 3am burger, which all made sense as he had a room booked in town.

Obviously, The Punch wasn’t there. But let me say this: in five years at Australia’s biggest sporting magazine Alpha, I met numerous topline footballers in all codes. And Benji Marshall was right at the top of the list of the players who struck me as intelligent, wholesome, and thoroughly unlikely to turn feral without the severest provocation.

Continue reading "Benji Marshall. Hero. Gentleman. Good guy" »

Flames, biffo, Bon Jovi, a sneaky Benji Marshall flick pass, more flames, more biffo, more Bon Jovi, more spectacular tries, then to top it all off, Todd Carney puffing out his chest in what may be an expression of his feelings about the drink driving laws.

Oof! Bam! Thwok! Rugby league is back, and the NRL has cleverly ushered in the new season with an ad which is preaching to the converted, reaching out to the inner bogan in all sports fans.

The 2009 official AFL ad, where AFL players mimicked the skills found in such sporting arenas as a bullring, the Hong Kong races and the Paris Dakar rally, was undoubtedly both clever and brilliantly executed. But in retrospect, it was nudging that wanky ball of string territory. Not so this year’s NRL ad.

Continue reading "NRL preaching to converted, not living on a prayer" »

Bought a new washing machine the other day. It works better than the old one, is quieter, and uses less energy. But one thing is the same. That spin cycle at the end of the wash still takes as long as it always did. Some things just can’t be rushed.

The same cannot be said for the spin cycle of modern sporting scandals. Wayward players and their handlers, wily to the imminent public outcry after a night-on-the-piss gone wrong or equivalent misdemeanour, move at lightning speed to ward off the damage.

This weekend’s Todd Carney drink-driving incident was a classic case. Early Saturday morning, the man who was proudly starting to wear the tag “former bad boy” was arrested for drink-driving.

Continue reading "Spin cycle relegates true remorse to the bench" »

The trouble with schadenfreude – apart from that fact that it is a hard word to spell, and using it pegs you as a bit of a showpony - is that it has a nasty habit of coming back to bite you on the bum.

It’s actually a pretty nifty term, a German word for which there is no English equivalent, meaning to take pleasure in the misfortune of others.

The AFL is currently suffering the unpleasant after-effects of years of gleeful schadenfreude, particularly towards those once-unmatchable boofheads within the National Rugby League.

Continue reading "Cocky AFL gets its come-uppance" »

Melbourne has a particular view of itself. You know what I mean – pretty, arty girls in cheese-cloth skirts running around after giant balls of string. All those laneway bars populated by smart people wearing Ted Bakers. Big sporting events and, of course, a footy code that’s so much more sophisticated than the one the “mungos” play north of the border.

Well, Melbourne’s image is a tad tarnished this morning folks. Just like that big ball of wool, it’s been unravelling for a while. The conga-line of AFL scandals is nothing new to league fans – we’ve been enduring them for years – but you do wonder how it’s going to be taken by the horn-rims-and-Converse crowd in St Kilda.

The extraordinary thing is that the most damage has been done with a man wearing a tight perm.

Continue reading "So who’s the screwed up code now, eh?" »

As worthy as Preston Campbell’s efforts are in celebrating the NRL’s indigenous players, tonight’s much-hyped NRL All Star game will be a farce. Nothing surer.

While it’s inevitable that thousands of rugby league starved devotees jonesing for their first footy fix of the year will climb on board the Preston Campbell Express and tune in but what will it all mean apart from a few more dollars in the coffers of the NRL? Not very much.

Sure Preston Campbell and the others responsible for the concept have done great things to raise awareness of our Indigenous players and those players have in turn become potential role models for the Indigenous community and indeed all young Australians.

Continue reading "All Star game is fine until someone ends up seeing stars" »

In a little under two weeks, at 2am on December 3, FIFA will announce the nations that will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and hopefully all of Frank Lowy’s work will come to fruition.

But I know not everyone feels the same way. It seems Australia is split on the possibility of the world’s biggest sporting event making its way Down Under.

The majority are behind it and would love to have another international showcase, but there are two other camps – those crossing their fingers that Australia doesn’t win, and those simply shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Meh.”

Continue reading "Do we actually want the World Cup?" »

Everyone trying to draw conclusions about social media, alcohol, the NRL, young men or society from the demise of Joel Moneghan’s League career should give up.

There’s no great lessons for the rest of us - it’s no great illustration of a general societal ill. It’s just gross.

We’ve gotten so used to trying to explain what went wrong when a footballer does something ridiculous, dangerous or just plain illegal.

Continue reading "Lessons from the Monaghan story: There are none" »

Even the most ardent rugby league supporters couldn’t help but admit that some of their idols have an image problem. Whether it’s their talent, their huge paychecks, or their even bigger egos that often lead to galling indiscretions, the public relations side of the sport is like a recurring nightmare.

The testosterone-fuelled violence on-field is one thing, but it’s the all-too-often alcohol-sodden events once the game is over that has given rise to such a reputation.

Not being a fan, I nonetheless found myself watching a match recently and was surprised at how many players’ names were familiar. But then I realised why I knew them - from their court appearances around Sydney over the past few years.

Continue reading "Stewart’s acquittal also a big win for football" »

Another week in the A-League, another drubbing for the attendance figures. I tuned in to the Gold Coast-Mariners game on Monday and thought Fox Sports had actually started adding canned crowds to their coverage.

I’m not here to beat up the A-League – I have to make a living out of and there’s enough people doing it already – but the Gold Coast attendance of 2037 is appalling. This club is a known basketcase and has never had much of a crowd but it was the same across the league. Why don’t football fans turn up?

Let’s get the obvious reason out the way: its finals time for the two big codes, and they’re sucking up every possible sports fan, second of airtime and dollar that exists.

Continue reading "Why is nobody going to watch the A-League?" »

Found: the real Julia Gillard, in a column she has written today for the Herald Sun about why she loves the Western Bulldogs.

You can sense the PM’s emotional investment in it. “The Herald Sun has asked me why I love the Dogs, but that is a near-impossible task within the word limit I’ve been set,” she writes. “Our club’s enduring heritage as sons of the ‘scray is unmistakable - the colours, the song, the mascot and the initials FFC on the jumper at the nape of the neck remind us of our club’s proud past as Footscray.” Alongside there’s the Victorian Premier, John Brumby, talking about why he loves Collingwood (insert your witty choking comment here).

There are only two weeks of September remaining before we reach the sporting tundra of October. Last year on The Punch Luke Mcilveen wrote about the devastation this barren month can bring. I recommend reading the whole piece as a spur to enjoying the climactic weeks of sporting action ahead before we all wake up on a Monday and realise the next thing on the domestic calendar is the racing, which isn’t so much about sport as it is about tie colours and the latest trends in hats.

Continue reading "Follow the PM and pen a tribute to your team" »

Last weekend I watched one of the best games of rugby league ever played.

At the end of the Tigers v Roosters match I just sat frozen in my chair starring at the field with my mouth open like some kind of busted sideshow clown. It wasn’t so much anger or sadness that the Tigers had lost - it was shock at what had just transpired.

Like most games of this magnitude, this one had its fair share of controversial (that’s code for completely crap) refereeing decisions that cost the Tigers the game, but ultimately I was glad to be present. But this isn’t really about the Tigers loss, or even the Roosters, it’s actually about the Canberra Raiders.

Continue reading "Canberra could be drinking Raiders Lime like it’s ‘89" »

Is anyone really that shocked at a rugby league player having a big night on the turps?

The arrest in Brisbane this morning of Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston is, as Darren Lockyer said of his mate, a real pity for him and he’ll be cursing himself for (allegedly) pushing the boundaries with the cops.

But it’s neither corrupt like a salary cap rort nor a flagrant moral infraction like taking performance-enhancers. It’s a low-level bit of stupidity and right-minded people will assess it with a shrug.

Continue reading "Johnathan Thurston and the rise of the so-what scandal" »

Great news! This article is 73 per cent more coherent than anything ever written on this website, and all because I’m wearing a small, elastic thingy on my wrist.

Granted, it’s not one of the $60 Power Balance powerbands that sports stars like Andrew Bogut and Nick Riewoldt and Benji Marshall are all suddenly wearing. It’s actually just a purple rubber band from the asparagus I chopped this morning while pre-preparing tonight’s stir fry.

But that’s doesn’t matter. Point is, I’m wearing the purple band and it feels absolutely terrific. Amazing things are happening, as my body’s natural energy field whirls me into a phantasmic flurry of super-performance.

Continue reading "Little rubber band gives my journalism extra balance" »

In a major NRL bombshell, departing Melbourne Storm player Greg Inglis has hinted that he might actually play rugby league in 2011.

The star centre was snared last week by the Brisbane Broncos on media and sponsorship deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But this website can exclusively reveal he is also set to take up a surprise playing role to the tune of $300,000 a year.

“Obviously my main priority will be the off-field stuff, especially my appearances on The Footy Show,” Inglis said. “Though whether I assume the role of the tryhard funny boofhead or the straight boofhead is still to be decided.

Continue reading "NRL shock: Greg Inglis may actually take the field in 2011" »

Poor old Alvin Quah got eliminated from Masterchef last night after mucking up a cake he said you’d need a PhD to know how to cook.

I’m not sure at the bottom of which cornflake box you’d find such a qualification, but as much as I liked Alvin, and was sorry to see him go, I have to say, don’t be such a baby. What Alvin (after all this time seeing him every night I feel I can call him Alvin) said was:

Short of them making the contestants cook under water next year, I really don’t know what they’re going to do. It’s mad - they put us through the ringer. Can you imagine anything more difficult than what we went through in this series? I can’t.

Continue reading "Election-Free Zone: Is Masterchef too hard?" »

Anyone with a few cells of sporting spirit in their body feel them tingling with rage at how Melbourne Storm officials conducted themselves in breaching the salary cap by an obscene $3.17 million.

When the Storm was steamrolling teams week after week in the NRL, it wasn’t just because they had good players, or were well coached. It was because they were being run by a small group of cheats with no respect for the simple principle of fair play.

This group of five managers identified at the centre of the rort indulged the worst of the morally bankrupt philosophy of winning at any cost that is increasingly a feature of professional sports, not just NRL.

Continue reading "Sporting bosses who betray fans and fair play" »

Just as Prime Minister Julia Gillard swiftly changed the state of the Labor Government, Hawthorn superstar Lance “Buddy” Franklin is having a similar effect, kicking freakish goals to stabilise the Hawks.

Just weeks ago, the Hawks almost wrote themselves off. In May, I wrote on The Punch that Hawthorn’s season appeared to be over, after losing five consecutive games and suffering with a long injury list.

It appeared bleak for the Hawks, who had slipped dramatically from reigning premiers in 2008 to virtual easybeats. After winning the last seven games on the trot, Hawthorn has revived its match-winning powers and are sitting pretty in the top eight.

Continue reading "Who has the power to swing a game?" »

Some people dismiss political correctness too easily.

Political correctness, when we are protesting a person being demeaned publicly, is simply about insisting that people pay due respect to others. At one level, it is about insisting on civility. At a deeper level, it is about upholding fundamental values about what it means to be human and to have dignity.

I know that many Australians, and especially in my experience of sports clubs, many Australian men, think that racist comments aren’t racist – they’re just funny.

Continue reading "Racist remarks betray a lack of simple respect" »

Timana Tahu should be incredibly proud of himself and his family incredibly proud of him.

Not many people are prepared to put their money where there mouth is on issues of discrimination, and the impact of a player of Tahu’s stature taking the stand he has might mean something in the NRL actually changes.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if a player such as Tahu took a similar stand when instead of calling someone a “black c***”, like Andrew Johns did, a senior figure in the League calls someone a “dumb slut”?

Continue reading "Bravo for dealing with racism, now for sexism" »

In a startling and unprovoked piece of scapegoating, rugby league suit Geoff Carr telephoned Qld Origin star Greg Inglis this weekend to apologise “on behalf of the game” for the Andrew Johns racial slur

But the game itself has lashed back at Mr Carr for implicating it in the latest Johns brothers misdemeanour.

“Nope. Nuh-uh. No way known should anyone have apologised on my behalf,” the 13-a-side code told this website this week.

Continue reading "Rugby league responds: I’m not racist" »

Cross-code recruiting of footballers seems to be the new fad in Australian sport.

If sought-after players can run, leap, mark a ball, evade opponents and draw big crowds, they are hot property on the footy code market.If these players show a wiff of interest in switching codes to earn the big bucks, they could be snapped up by emerging teams.

With the Aussie sporting landscape changing, thanks to new AFL teams Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney (GWS) plus rugby union team Melbourne Rebels, it seems anything goes.

Continue reading "Injuries likely to hurt cross-code recruits" »

I am torn.  There are clearly two sides, and they just can’t seem to get on with each other.

Sometimes I think the fighting must stop, other times I am prepared to back my favourite.

Then there is the issue of the constant expansion! I just don’t understand why it is going ahead in West, Bank(stown).

Continue reading "How do I feel about Israel?" »

So rugby league star Israel Folau has been lured to play a code he’s never played for a team that doesn’t exist yet who’ll play out of a stadium that hasn’t been built yet. Cue all the so-called experts, most of whom follow either rugby league or AFL, but not both codes, to argue why Folau’s switch to team Greater Western Sydney will or won’t work.

Face it, guys. Neither you nor I can say whether Folau’s exceptional leaping skills will work in a pack mark situation. Israel tips the scales at 103 kilos, the same as Barry Hall and Jonathan Brown, but we’re kidding if we think we know whether he’ll cut it as a power forward.

As to whether Folau will be able to master that ungainly AFL skill known as handballing, well, not even Nostradamus would dare take a stab at that one. But there is one guy who’s got a fair idea of what lies ahead for Folau. His name’s Mike Pyke, and he’s the Sydney Swans ruckman who used to play rugby union for Canada.

Continue reading "Israel gets his AFL passport, but will he be a natural?" »

At 6.30am most weekends this winter, a small but dedicated bunch of bleary-eyed fencing contractors, video shop owners, plumbers, lawn mowers, pensioners and mums and dads will gather at Mary McKillop Oval, in sleepy Kincumber on the Central Coast to get on with a long, unpaid labour of love.

They’ll make sure that the two mini ovals and one mod oval are set out perfectly according to the rugby league rules.  They’ll make sure that all of the sponsors’ signage throughout the day is visible. 

They’ll make sure that the rosters for the canteen, the BBQ and the clothing stall are covered.  During the day they’ll ensure that all the strict rules of the Rugby League Code are adhered to. 

Continue reading "Salary caps crush the hopes of sports’ hardest-dying fans" »

We are in the middle of a complex and highly charged barbeque-stopper involving the NRL salary cap and a good old-fashion cheating scandal.

They are, however, two completely separate issues, related by proximity but not causation. The salary cap issues can perhaps be understood in a simple four-step logic:

1.  First, you have to decide where you stand on the principle of having a team equalisation system. If you don’t want a system, then you get teams that are so much better that they are in a different class to the other teams in the competition. 

Continue reading "The salary cap fits and we should continue to wear it" »

Melbourne Storm’s salary cap scandal will go down as the best thing that has ever happened to the club.

Yes I know it has been stripped of two premierships ( I’ll get onto how ridiculous that is later) and I know the club has been fined, disgraced and denied the chance to win a premiership this year.

But the fact is this scandal will be the making of the Melbourne Storm in the AFL’s heartland.

Continue reading "Nothing like persecution to fire up the fans" »

Greed. It’s a deadly sin. In Melbourne Storm’s case, it’s proven to be deadly.

The need to be the best has finally caught up with the Storm, a club which is suffering badly in the aftermath of some terrible decisions. Storm was stripped of its 2007 and 2009 premierships and its prize money plus all 2010 premiership points for breaching NRL salary cap rules.

The intensity of competition has meant people have resorted to cheating to get the winning edge. The excuse we hear is … “everyone’s doing it”.

Continue reading "The deadly sin that killed a crackerjack team" »

In our shock, it is so easy to think of yesterday as a black and terrible day for Australian sport.

In that we discovered one of our sporting teams cheated and deceived it was – but in time, yesterday will be remembered as the day Rugby League regained its soul. 

It will be remembered as the day that David Gallop and the Board of the NRL decided they would rather fold their tent than tolerate cheating in their ranks. It’s the day when a major Australian sport said that the values on which it was founded was more important than the corporate support and the enterprises that fund it.

Continue reading "Melbourne Storm crisis will save rugby league’s soul" »

Everyone’s blaming the suits and an assortment of guys with big fancy calculators for the revelations of the Melbourne Storm’s $1.7 million salary cap breaches, which has seen them stripped of two NRL premierships, three minor premierships and a bunch of prize money which they must repay.

And yes, clearly the chief bad guys here are the engineers of the intricate system of book-fudging which has deceived NRL auditors for the best part of five years. But this isn’t a problem like the Murray River, where the problem of the muddy, salty brine downstream can be pinned entirely on the greedy, negligent vandals upstream.

There are others who might consider themselves lucky not to be implicated, and there are broader issues at play which allowed these sneaks to think they could get away with their cheating shenanigans. Here’s a selection:

The players: David Gallop effectively exonerated the Storm players of any wrongdoing at yesterday’s presser.

Continue reading "There’s more to this Storm front than meets the eye" »

Rugby league champion team the Melbourne Storm is in disgrace.

Sports fans around Australia - regardless of what team or code they follow - will be aghast at the scale of corruption that seems to have taken hold of certain individuals in the club. Some $1.7 million was “misappropriated” in smaller amounts over five years.

The justice exacted by NRL management has been swift and terrible: the Storm has been stripped of two premierships, all of its points so far this season, and will accrue no further points this year.

Continue reading "Australian sport’s black day" »

Anyone who thinks multiculturalism is a flawed concept should take a close look at the Australian winter sporting landscape.

When the days shorten - the summer code has just wrapped up with Sydney FC winning the A-League - sports fans speak different languages, congregate in different churches and worship different gods. Even the ball has a different name. Some call it Sherrin. Others, Steeden. To others still, it is Gilbert.

Such sectarianism would mean all out war in most countries. But here, fans co-exist peacefully. We are separate, yet united, by a common religion called football.

Continue reading "Which is the greatest code?" »

Here we go. Another footy season, another pointless attempt to instruct trust-fund millionaires and insecure South Australians on the superior qualities of league over union and AFL.

I spent Saturday afternoon on the hill at Henson Park, a hell of a footy ground in the back streets of Sydney’s Marrickville and home to the mighty Newtown Jets. It’s a pure league experience – four bucks for parking, six bucks for admission (kids free) and cans of KB Lager. While the standard isn’t exactly first-class, there are aspects of Henson Park that you just don’t get at the big stadiums.

My favourite part of league is not the collisions or deft plays in attack, but watching a team pull together in adversity. It’s the theatre of watching 13 blokes lift themselves off the deck and put in for each other, regardless of the scoreboard. You see this sometimes in AFL, but almost never in Australian rugby union, where the backs and forwards don’t even train together, which is why the Wallabies will never beat the All Blacks with any regularity.

Continue reading "Rugby league: The ultimate in do-or-die sporting spirit" »

Forget plumbing the depths of “Lara Bingle and The Lost Ring”, (which sounds like a new Tomb Raider movie) – for me the biggest news story concerns some other birds and a beachside Sydney suburb which may, or may not cough up said ring. I read that the Sydney Roosters NRL team is considering changing its name.

Like many a long-suffering time supporter, I’ve been strapped into that tri-coloured, clichéd emotional rollercoaster. We’ve seen it all – the halcyon days of the 70’s with back to back premierships including the exalted 38-blot plastering of Graeme Langlands’ white boots led Dragons, legends (in no particular order) such as Beetson, Coote, Harris, Brass, Hastings, Walters, Mayes, The Count, Peard, Fairfax, Schubert, right through to the Freddie Fittler and Fitzy inspired grand final victory in 2002.

Continue reading "Sydney Roosters, the new name is plucked" »

The debate on the World Cup bid has been conducted thus far like some grandmother who’s freaking out after being told 32 soccer teams are arriving on Friday and we’ve nowhere to play, don’t know where to put them up and haven’t done enough grocery shopping. I’m half expecting the next front page on the issue to read: “Australia’s Bathroom Not Clean Enough to Host World Cup, What Will The Guests Think.”

Would it be too much to ask that people step back, take a breath and relax about this thing?

The politics of this seems to be overshadowing the facts for all three codes concerned. The facts being that we’re almost certainly not going to get the 2018 tournament and that if the codes sit down calmly they’d realise there’s plenty time to work out a solution for 2022.

Continue reading "Can everyone just relax about the World Cup bid" »

The biggest problem for the AFL in getting a successful presence in Western Sydney won’t be the choice of Kevin Sheedy as coach, it won’t be the home ground or sponsorship and isn’t even the popularity of rugby league as such.

No, the largest hurdle for the AFL in setting up shop in Western Sydney is this: Australian Football is still predominantly a white Anglo/Celtic sport with a culture that doesn’t look anything like Western Sydney.

Right now the AFL doesn’t even reflect the ethnic make-up of its own Melbourne heartland, so how does it expect to sell itself to kids and their parents in the most ethnically diverse part of Australia?

Continue reading "A game white people like: the AFL’s West Sydney problem" »

APRIL is the cruelest month, old T.S Eliot used to say, but where does that leave October?

No league, no AFL, nothing really to live for. Hell, not even club rugby on the ABC on a Saturday. There’s something called the A-League, but as far as I can make out it’s largely populated by volatile blokes with blonde highlights, either too old or mentally unstable to cut it in Europe.

As the weather warms up and the sport winds down, you begin to rediscover weekends. This is by no means a good thing. Your better half declares Friday and Saturday nights the time for “catching up with people,” time you would happily have spent watching NRL games back-to-back in the winter months.

Continue reading "October, it’s Hell on earth for sports lovers" »

JARRYD Hayne brought two left boots to the Grand Final. Has there ever been a more tragic footy omen?

The kid from Minto, whose whole life had been preparing for this night, chucked his gear in his kitbag, got on the bus and only realised when it was too late that his signature red boots were both the same.

Parra officials ran around looking for spares. The Eels were gone before the band struck up the national anthem.

Continue reading "It had its moments, but the NRL final was a snore" »

When Fuifui Moimoi was penalised for stripping the ball from holding on to Billy Slater in last night’s NRL grand final, it brought a sudden halt to a late surge by the Eels with four minutes to play.

Moments earlier Moimoi had scored in the corner, carrying two Storm players over the line with him on his hulking frame after barging through the defence in a 22m run. It marked the apogee of the Eels’ resurgence against a Melbourne side that was in control for most of the game.

Before the penalty, the Eels needed a converted try tie the game and force extra time. The way they were playing it looked possible. But with ball now in hand, the Storm kicked downfield and calmly positioned themselves for the field goal. Greg Inglis delivered. Job done for the Storm; fairytale over for the Eels.

Continue reading "When does a bad refereeing decision really count?" »

The Eels fought back bravely in the second half, but Melbourne Storm were ultimately too good in a blockbusting NRL Grand Final at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium. There’s a match report here and you can see how our coverage unfolded in the live blog over the jump.

Continue reading "As it happened: the NRL Grand Final" »

Parra can win this. All the predictions of Melbourne’s class overwhelming the baby Eels will count for nought when the smoke from the fireworks clears and the ref looks across to the timekeeper.

Grand Finals are the ultimate leveller and are often won by players you’ve never heard of, who get out in the middle and realise decades of training, injury and going home early comes down to this.

Here’s what I reckon the Eels need to do to take the silverware back to Church Street on Sunday night.

Continue reading "Eight things the Eels should do, to win by 8" »

As the AFL basks in the afterglow of another sensational season, capped by a grand final that will stand forever as a contest for the ages, its arch-rivals at the NRL are dealing with a different set of circumstances which every sporting administrator, marketing analyst and media commentator failed to forecast.

And it’s this - league’s not dead after all. Not even close. League’s going gangbusters. Somehow, the year which was hailed as the death-knell for league has somehow turned into one of its best on record. Even the NRL didn’t see it coming.

The resurgence has been led out of its western Sydney powerbase, crowned with a qualifying final last Friday between heartland clubs the Parramatta Eels and the Canterbury Bulldogs, which in terms of crowd attendance, TV ratings, and the intensity and passion with which it was played, was every bit as good as Saturday’s Cats-Saints blockbuster.

Continue reading "The extraordinary NRL final that should rattle the AFL" »

Kung-Fu master, movie star and all-round whoop ass machine Bruce Lee found it hard to walk down the street in Hong Kong without being challenged to a fight by some bloke who’d watched too many of his films.

Lee would receive letters daily from other Kung Fu academies putting forward their best students for a chance to fight the master. Unsurprisingly Lee was not amused: “I find this sort of thing really annoying, I’m not going to fight with anybody.”

The bashing of AFL superstar Lance “Buddy” Franklin in a Perth nightclub (at least on the facts available) is further evidence of a less sophisticated Australian version of this ego driven phenomena.

Continue reading "You wanna fight? Why footballers get targeted" »

SEPTEMBER comes with certain guarantees – birdsong in the early dawn, the smell of jasmine on the warm breeze and the sight of Brendan Fevola wielding a giant dildo.

You’re snapped with one enormous sex toy and suddenly it’s news, eh? Damn vultures. The publican at Naughton’s in Carlton reckons the whole thing was a stitch-up anyway, that the offending phallus belonged to a fan who handed it to Fev just so he could take a photo on his phone and leak it straight to the tabloids.

People can be cruel. And on behalf of tabloids everywhere, I’d like to thank them for their excellent news sense.

Continue reading "The real awards for sporting achievement in 2009" »

This Saturday the pride of the League, South Sydney, will play their last game for 2009.

No finals for the men in Cardinal Red & Myrtle Green.

Again.

Continue reading "The eternal hope and despair of a Souths supporter" »

At 3pm on Sunday, Hazem El Masri will run onto the world’s worst footy ground to play his final home game. Sydney’s ANZ Stadium (Or Glebe Morgue, as we call it) is an embarrassing venue for such an occasion, but we’ll defer that argument for the sake of keeping the mood upbeat.

For the blue-and-white army in the distant stands, Hazem’s farewell will be something akin to the retirement of a beloved community leader.

Now in the month of Ramadan, Hazem will take no food or water between dawn and dark on game day.

Continue reading "Man of God whose greatest deeds are done off the pitch" »

Against my better judgment I turned on the rugby union on Saturday night to see the Wallabies vs the All Blacks, traditionally the biggest game on the Australian rah rah calendar.

It was probably at about the time of the fourth penalty for lying on the ball, or wrong side of the ruck or possibly, being rugby, driving the wrong make of luxury 4WD, that the remote finger got awfully itchy.

Soon I was simultaneously keeping up with the cricket, the silly science fiction movie on Channel 10 and Gordon Bray’s running commentary on how that wasn’t really a penalty under law 543, sub section b of the improperly binding to a maul code.

Continue reading "League wins the running battle of the rugby codes" »

WHY is it that we in the media think professional sports people are obliged to speak to us?

We pay our money at the gate, watch them perform masterful feats on the footy field or cricket pitch, then go home elated or mad as hell, depending on the result. Athletes could be forgiven for thinking the transaction ends there, but clearly it doesn’t.

This week we saw the public flaying of Dragons player Darius Boyd, whose 42-second press conference showed that he’s not likely to sit for his bar examinations any time soon.

Continue reading "Speaking up for a sportsman of few words" »

It’s been described as footy’s worst interview. Dragons fullback Darius Boyd managed just 28 words in response to eight questions during a press conference to promote this Friday night’s clash against his old club the Brisbane Broncos. It’s saying something that his notoriously monosyllabic coach Wayne Bennett felt the need to chip him about it.

But since when, particularly footy players, given good interview? Most of them impart about the same amount of information as Boyd managed it just takes longer to get through all the clichés. He needs some intensive media training so that next time his reponses are more like the sort of stuff we expect from the great minds of our sporting elites.

With a little more training, next time it might go something more like this:

Continue reading "Giving 110 per cent to make footy the winner on the day" »

If anyone else had said it they would have been laughed off the stage – but if you’re Australian football’s philosopher king, you can get away with a bit of bombastic overstatement.

So it was that Kevin Sheedy, coach of the Essendon Football Club for a record 635 games over 27 consecutive years, declared that the AFL’s proposed creation of a new western Sydney team by 2012 was the sporting equivalent of the construction of the Sydney Opera House.

“When you look at the Sydney Opera House people said it would never happen,” Sheedy said. “What we’re about to do out here may come to be regarded in the same way as the Sydney Opera House now is.”

Continue reading "Who needs Joern Utzon when you’ve got the AFL" »

What the hell are the Australian Rugby Union and Lote Tuqiri’s management trying to hide over the winger’s sacking from the Wallabies?

In another strange turn of events today lawyers for both the ARU and Lote have asked that documents relating to the case be suppressed from the media.

Lawyers acting for the ARU have said it would be “undesirable for any publicity until objective arguments were made by both sides”.

Continue reading "What are the ARU and Lote’s lawyers trying to hide?" »

AFL players kick with both feet – that’s a fact, not a metaphor – so it’s difficult to believe that a full-scale poaching war will follow the Karmichael Hunt defection.

In a typical game of league, only two or three players put boot to ball and the rest couldn’t hit a barn door with a Sherrin. This is clearly a problem for the AFL.

There are other problems, like the fact that league players are built for speed and power, not endurance.

Continue reading "An NRL team that would run rings around the Cats" »

All the SoO II action with The Punch team and a few friends we’ve bribed with beer, live right here. Kick off is at 8pm.

Follow our coverage on Twitter here

Continue reading "State of Origin II" »

JUST because she bragged about having sex with a lot of rugby players doesn’t mean, under it all, she wasn’t traumatised.

Sure, it kicks on the story a bit by playing to a view which doubtless many believe - that the woman enjoyed the whole sordid incident.

Nine tracked down someone in New Zealand to have a go at the woman who told her heart-wrenching story to Four Corners. It ran on the 6pm news last night and this morning was the lead story on Australia’s biggest news website, ninemsn.

Continue reading "Make up your mind, Nine: Is she a victim or a tart?" »

UPDATE 1PM: Matthew Johns has been stood down by the Nine Network.

This time last week we were saddling up for NRL sex scandal #847. Commentators were jogging to their designated positions on the pitch, limbering up to churn out the usual for/against Rugby League diatribes, this time about League favourite Matthew Johns, who was about to be outed as a fan of group sex by the ABC.

Then Sarah Ferguson’s incredible report went to air on Four Corners on Monday night and for 36 hours most people were speechless. It was so much worse than anyone could have imagined after Johns’ inadequate explanation on last Thursday’s Footy Show.

I don’t know if it was the vivid way the two young women featured articulated the damage done, the glib comments to Four Corners from the players involved, or the sickening sight of Fatty Vautin slapping Johns on the shoulder after his preemptive strike, but the usual barrage of analysis paused.

Last night Tracy Grimshaw broke the awkward silence.

Continue reading "The bravery of Grimshaw and Wilson over Matthew Johns" »