Sport

This morning I joined millions of other Australians in accelerating, braking, swearing and spilling coffee on myself all the way down the freeway.

As nice as it would have been, there was no gigantic novelty cheque, no bikini-clad girls or Moet as I rounded the straight and sped past the chequered boom gate into the parking lot.

Hell, there wasn’t even a parking spot. This was an everyday chore, undertaken with great haste but no significant amount of skill.  Mark Webber’s overnight victory in the Monaco Grand Prix should be treated with the same level of fanfare, because motor racing is not a sport. Never has been, never will be.

Continue reading "A great win by Webber, but it sure as hell wasn’t sport" »

At about 8pm each Sunday night, having digested my fill of weekend sport, I sit down and pen a Monday sports column for The Punch.

This weekend was different. This weekend I was on the NSW south coast with the wife and kids and another family. We were much too busy playing beach cricket and spotting bandicoots to catch any TV sport. We did, however, watch an exciting TV contest which had hype, tight scores and girls in even tighter dresses. There were even commentators.

Eurovision was great fun for the whole family, and if the Twitter trends were any guide, Australia watched in huge numbers. Partly we tuned in to laugh at the once great continent of Europe, whose musicians are tragically stuck in a 1980s time warp of synth pop and big hair. Seriously, when you see these guys lagging years behind in culture, it’s no wonder they can’t get their finances together.

Continue reading "Eurovision, the only game worth watching this weekend" »

We are taught early in life that we should not question authority. We must listen to our parents, our teachers and our uniformed sporting officials or face the awful consequences.

A little later on, we learn about a thing called the legal system. We learn that it has courts and that if you’re not happy with a court’s ruling, you can go to a higher court, and maybe even a higher one after that.

Not long afterwards, most of us end up owning a T-shirt emblazoned with the anarchy symbol, or the suave silhouette of Che Guevara. We then spend the rest of our lives jaywalking, texting while driving, putting tax returns in late and downloading whatever we can get our grubby little hands on.

Continue reading "Sometimes, you’ve just got to stick it to the bloody ref" »

In the classic Hollywood sports flick script, a ragtag bunch of losers and misfits take on the arrogant team of pretty boys and spoilt brats. The bad kids then proceed to teach us all a lesson about sport, life and the triumph of the human spirit or some such baloney.

Act One of this script will be played out tonight. The arrogant pretty boys are Queensland, who have clearly superior players, yet whinge and exploit loopholes like only the privileged can.

NSW are the basket cases, with a team full of drunks, ex-jailbirds, thugs, head cases, and players hopelessly out of form. And the player in the best form of his career, Tigers skipper Robbie Farah, is unwanted and unloved by his own fans.

Continue reading "If sports movies have taught us anything, NSW will win" »

They don’t play the AFL grand final in Sydney for the very good reason that the code’s sporting soul is located in Melbourne.

Wimbledon happens at Wimbledon, the Super Bowl takes place in various football-mad US cities, and the only reason they shifted the famous Dakar rally from the north African desert (to South America of all places) was that bandits kept terrorising competitors.

No one’s been terrorising anyone in Sydney or Brisbane lately, give or take a few feral bikies. So remind me again, why have we dumped one of the year’s showcase rugby league games on Melbourne for a seventh time?

Continue reading "Origin in Melbourne is like meat pie in your latté" »

Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper have allegedly made a fair few errors in their life. But perhaps their most costly mistake was choosing the wrong profession.

Politics is an unforgiving game. Your each and every move is scrutinised by the public, making it imperative for those in power to behave appropriately at all times. A single slip-up, with or without context, can erupt into a full-scale Parliamentary inquiry.

Years ago I allegedly spotted the alleged Federal Treasurer Peter Costello allegedly jay-walking across an alleged road. At the time I considered sending off my candid photograph to the papers, just for a laugh. But I stopped myself in my tracks; could a photo as harmless as that be dangerous to the politician’s long-term reputation?

Continue reading "Even slippery politicians deserve a sporting chance" »

The Queensland Maroons and their supporters in Melbourne for the State of Origin clash at Etihad Stadium are unlikely to seek the solace of a prayer room in the stadium to ensure success. The Blues and their supporters are facing a seventh consecutive series loss so the prayer room may be their only hope.

A prayer room, for all denominations, has recently been introduced at Etihad Stadium. The Australian Football League (AFL) wants all of its major football venues to house a place of worship.

The AFL intention comes after the Richmond Club’s mid fielder Bachar Houli a devout Muslim said the requirement for Muslims to pray five times a day was stopping many from attending AFL games. I know many Rugby League fans of the Muslim faith and they don’t seem deterred from attending games due to the absence of a prayer room.

Continue reading "Sport has room for prayer, but not in prayer rooms" »

The professional career of one of Australia’s greatest cyclists, Robbie McEwen, will come to an end this Sunday afternoon in down town Los Angeles. For the 39 year old Queenslander, stage 8 of the Tour of California will be his last professional race.

When McEwen climbs off his bike after a major race for the last time, he brings to an end the palmeres of one our most illustrious riders.

While McEwen’s race marks the end of an era, another one is starting half way across the world in Italy. There his team-mates on the Orica Green Edge team are competing in the Giro d’Italia, the first Australian team to ever contest one of the three Grand Tours.

Continue reading "A sporting legend who was always ahead of the peleton" »

You’ve got to hand it to Michael Clarke. His reinvention is complete. He is now Michael Clarke 4.0. He wins, the haters lose.

Let’s go back to 2004. The first version of Michael Clarke is the young, likeable kid with blond tips and ugly reflective sunnies who makes a Test century for Australia on debut in India, then later snares 6-9 in the same series. Six for Nine! Not even Warney ever boasted figures like that.

And if you think the young Pup can do mean things with a cricket ball, you should see him bowl the ladies over. They love him! Australia loves him! Everybody loves him! And then they hate him.

Continue reading "Michael Clarke 4.0. The transformation is complete" »

I am still in a state of shock. Delicious, indescribable shock. For the first time in my life, my beloved Manchester City FC are champions of England.

In the early hours of yesterday morning, the tiny window live streaming Foxtel on my iMac transported me 15,000km to Eastlands in Manchester to watch City’s biggest game since 1968, when we last clinched the league championship.

In the space of 95 agonising minutes the title was lost, won, lost again, lost almost irretrievably and then finally, somehow, incredibly won in the dying seconds with the very last kick of the season.

Continue reading "The greatest ending to a football season ever?" »

One of the hottest debates at the Madrid tennis Masters tournament is over the colour, texture and feel of the clay beneath players’ feet.

Rafael Nadal has had a bit of a blue with the blue clay, saying it’s “overly slippery”. Novak Djokovic has vowed to never play on the clay again. Sky News reports Djokovic said of organisers: “‘They can do what they like, I won’t be here next year if this clay stays.”

Serena Williams has labeled them “weenies”. But seriously. When was the last time you swam in an orange swimming pool? Played pool on a purple table? Served a volleyball on a blue beach?

It’s Tuesday. What’s on your mind?

As I write this column, the final round of the English Premier League is underway. By the time you read this, a champion will have been crowned, while three teams at the wrong end of the ladder will be staring at a season, or more likely several seasons, in a lesser league.

English soccer doesn’t really float my boat. Although it’s clearly one of the world’s two best leagues, it’s always seemed odd that we fiercely parochial Australians should develop an emotional attachment to football teams hailing from one or another dreary UK towns or suburb.

But you’ve got to love English soccer’s relegation system. After all, we live in a cut-throat society. If we don’t like a government, we dump it at the polls. If workers are incompetent, we sack them (assuming industrial relations laws permit it). There’s a good argument that hapless sporting teams deserve the same treatment.

Continue reading "Relegation would be a revelation for Aussie sport" »

According to the Minister for Sport, Kate Lundy’s office, the estimated government funding of sport for 2011/2012 is estimated to be $348.1million. 

Those funds are dispersed through various avenues including grass roots to elite level, anti doping deterrence and education programs for athletes.

Meanwhile according to the Cancer Council of New South Wales, the overall government funding of cancer research in 2011 was $159 million nationally with a further $56million from the Cancer Institute in New South Wales.

Continue reading "Sport helped me fight cancer" »

The Olympics are in a few months. They’d throw me out.

Right now, I would fail an Olympic-style drug test so hard it would make your teeth rattle. None of this A sample/B sample business, both specimens would probably just glow in the dark.

Why? Because I’m in the throes of a come-down from a workout that makes Pumping Iron look like Anne of Green Gables, and to survive it I took an array of stimulants which would give most people a coronary just looking at the bottle.

Continue reading "Can professional sport ever really be “natural”?" »

Two major events loom large on the rugby league horizon. On May 23, the first Origin match of 2012 will be played in Melbourne. But before that, and just as keenly anticipated, comes the NSW team selection.

It’s a game unto itself. A week from now, Bob Fulton, Bob McCarthy and Geoff Gerard will sit down and no doubt do the dumb thing they always do, which is picking guys they believe to be “Origin style players”.

Talk about an urban myth. I have watched every Origin match since 1980 through goggles tinted deep blue, and here’s what I’ve seen. Queensland players who star in the NRL also excel at Origin. There really is no magic success formula beyond that.

Continue reading "NSW selectors must ditch the playbook and pick on instinct" »

Got out of the office twice this week, in the name of something faintly resembling real journalism.

On the first trip, I saw wasted, starving people in strange coloured clothing perform a strange, dangerous dance before an adoring audience. On the second trip, I saw exactly the same thing.

My trips were to Fashion Week and the TAB.

Continue reading "Friday dilemma: Fashion Week vs jumps racing" »

It’s that time of every four years again. REVEALED: The official Olympic opening ceremony uniforms.

What do you think? Stylish? Awful? One question on our mind is why they chose white bottoms, don’t they know how easily they stain?

Here’s what our ceremony uniforms looked like in Sydney in 2000, in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. Bit of a mixed bag.

What else is on your mind this morning?

“I don’t want to alarm you”. That’s what people say whenever they’re about to unload some panic attack-inducing horror on you. It follows, then, that what I’m about to tell you is very alarming indeed. There is something strange and terrifyingly confusing happening in our world.

Two weeks ago, 104-year-old British woman Peggy McAlpine hurled herself off a Cypriot cliff in a bid to reclaim the record she lost to then 101-year-old Mary Hardison some five years ago. She is, once again, the world’s oldest paraglider.

Meanwhile, Chinese grandmother Sun Fengqin, 60, has become became famous for regularly attending pole-dancing classes.

Continue reading "OK, old people, enough of this physical prowess caper" »

It’s an intriguing subject. How your football team fares doesn’t change who you are or what you have. But it overrides whatever else is happening in your life.

That type of emotion has fallen on a whole city, Manchester, in anticipation of one massive game of football in the English Premier League.

Manchester City and Manchester United face off at 5am Sydney time tomorrow morning. To the winner, so much more than a regular feel-good moment. So much more than getting one over your nearest rivals. This time, every part of the world will be watching; 650 million people, give or take a few. Sky Sports in the UK are expecting their biggest audience for a premier league fixture.

Continue reading "Showdown of the century!" »

At the Beijing Olympics, Australian women took home eight of our 14 gold medals. At the Vancouver Winter Games, women won both our golds. Our last tennis Grand Slam champion was a woman, our last golfing World Number One was a woman, our last cricket world champs were women, our last world surfing champ was a woman and our best horses at the moment are all female too.

That last point might seem a trivial addition, but Black Caviar has reminded us all lately that you don’t need dangly wedding tackle to be a sporting superstar. Gai Waterhouse’s mare More Joyous and Mark Kavanagh’s filly Atlantic Jewel both also won emphatically on the weekend, just in case anyone missed the point,

Without question, these three lady steeds are easily the best horses currently racing in Australia. And it’s an interesting coincidence that Black Caviar will lead the equine Aussie charge in England this northern summer, just as our females will do likewise at the London Olympics.

Continue reading "The female of the species is more sporting than the male" »

Oh, I can dive. I can soar like an eagle through the air then somersault like an acrobat. In my head, it’s Cirque du Shepherd. That this manoeuvre appears to the naked eye to be more like a drunkard belly flopping and having muscle spasms is just a matter of perception.

I know people reserve an extra special nugget of sneering hatred for soccer* players who dive. It’s unsportsmanlike, it’s cowardly and cheaty, it’s practically unorrrstrayan. Hence the rage at the game-winning penalty awarded to the Roar’s Besart Berisha on Sunday night. And yet, I must confess I dive occasionally. 

Yegads, I can smell your disgust from here. My shoulders are tensed against the pounding waves of hostility, and my neck hairs are prickling. So now I will try to somewhat redeem myself.

Continue reading "Confessions of a soccer diva" »

The laziest thing you can do in journalism is to use Wikipedia as your principal source. Sometimes, you’ve just got to break rules. Just look at the Wiki entry for Besart Berisha, who scored the winning goal for Brisbane Roar in yesterday’s A-League grand final.

It reads, and I quote: “Besart Berisha is an Albanian footballer, and an Australian renowned diver, who plays as a striker for Brisbane Roar in the Australian A-League and internationally for the Albania national football team.”

They sure got the diving bit right. Yesterday, Berisha put Olympic gold medallist Matthew Mitcham (he of the 10m platform Beijing gold medal) to shame. The audacity of Berisha’s dive in the penalty box was matched only by the incompetence of the ref, who somehow mistook thin air as a malicious opponent in much the same way as a dog barks at its own shadow.

Continue reading "...and that’s why Australians will never love soccer" »

On May 28 last year, Gold Coast Suns rugby league recruit Karmichael Hunt kicked his first AFL goal. We put a story up the Sunday morning after that fateful Saturday night, so we thought we’d better extend Israel Folau the same courtesy this morning.

Folau’s goal won’t go down as one of the great goals in AFL history, but it may be remembered as one of the most significant. If this former NRL high flyer can convert his skills to AFL, his new club will take Giant steps towards mainstream acceptance in Sydney.

Wily Giants coach Kevin Sheedy did something extremely interesting this week. To borrow a political phrase, he dog whistled. After the Giants’ loss to the West Coast Eagles, he said that Folau could have kicked three goals if his team-mates had actually passed him the ball. He made this statement to the media, but in effect, he was saying it for the benefit of his own players.

Continue reading "The shot heard around the AFL world" »

Some battle. If this is “code war”, then it’s being fought with fairy floss and honeycorn and a giant G-Man foam creature which looks about as menacing as a smurf.

Sunday afternoon at Blacktown Olympic Sportspark, and the AFL’s latest attempt at national domination doesn’t feel like a shot across rugby league’s bow. There is no scent of Zeitgeist, of regime change, of revolution. You wouldn’t even know there’s a game on until you see a small trickle of orange-clad supporters filing into the small stadium set among bushland 39km from Sydney’s CBD.

The 10,000 capacity ground is the Greater Western Sydney Giants’ training base, and a temporary match day venue until the renovated 25,000 capacity Sydney Showground Main Arena (Skoda Stadium) opens in May. The tiny ground is far from full. That’s not to slap Andrew Demetriou or the incredibly hard-working Kevin Sheedy and his GWS team across the face. It’s just how it is.

Continue reading "This town might just be big enough for the two of us" »

I go to the footy for three reasons. Firstly, I hope to be witness to the perfect moment, that rare blend of the poetic and balletic, when the players channel the ball with an energy and directness which can only be borne of fury’s marriage with grace.

At Brisbane’s affectionately-named Gabba, on this particular night, Carlton managed several of these fizzing instances, mostly at the behest of one Christopher Judd, whilst the Lions’ players fell in their wake like flapping fish churned up by a fast-spinning propeller.

Secondly, I want to be lulled back to my youth, when I too tumbled across the sodden turf in search of that ever-elusive kick to position, handball to advantage, mark to goal.

Continue reading "Footy people are the best kind of people" »

Most sports fans I know couldn’t give a stuff if Tiger Woods had sex with half the cocktail waitresses in America. We’ll still be cheering for him when he tees off as favourite in the Masters in Augusta, Georgia this week.

As Wimbledon is to tennis, so is the Masters to golf. It’s the one event every player wants to win, and the event which every fan wants their favourite player to win. And sex scandal or no sex scandal, Tiger Woods is still most people’s favourite player.

Tiger has won the Masters four times, the last time in 2005. He doesn’t need any more ceremonial winner’s green jackets. Nor does he, as sport’s first billionaire, need the $1.5 winner’s prizemoney, even if he’s worth a little less these days after his acrimonious split with ex-wife Elin Nordegren.

Continue reading "Why sports fans can’t help rooting for Tiger Woods" »

Ben Cousins must be the only drug addict in Australia who can get arrested by the police with an alleged 4g of ice hidden in his bum and be cheered as a hero by rubber-necking punters.

And while Cousins continues to enjoy legend status, one of the most disliked people in Perth right now would be the Channel Seven reporter who dared to question the former footballer after his arrest, prompting Cousins to explode with rage, screaming  “you don’t f…ing care about me” and looking for all the world like he was about to belt the camera.

Just to be clear, Ben Cousins is not Lady Diana. This is not a story of one man’s battle for privacy against an intrusive media which will stop at nothing to get the story and hounds him at every turn. Indeed given the clubby nature of sport in smaller cities, I’d be surprised if the true story about Cousins wasn’t known for many years but was hushed up under the old mate’s act, especially when West Coast were winning flags

Continue reading "Cheering Ben Cousins into the abyss" »

Overnight, we had two significant reminders that we are now in that special time of year called football season.

Firstly, Ben Cousins was busted with a stash of meth. Meanwhile in the NRL, a journalist asked a player some tough questions, which the player answered honestly, and the exchange was labelled “an ambush”!

Actually, it’s kind of comforting. Life is so fast-paced these days with all these newfangled iThingos and tweetiewebs, it’s soul-nourishing to discover once again the telltale signs of the annual sporting wheel clanking around. Like these things…

Continue reading "Eight telltale signs that football season is here…" »

The AFL season kicked off in Sydney this weekend, with the Swans/Giants showdown at the old Olympic Stadium. Not that you’d have known in Sydney’s inner south, where I live.

At my two local pubs, both of which are firmly in NRL Dragons territory, every single TV monitor was tuned to the live NRL match between the Dragons and Sea Eagles. I would sooner have ordered a Pimms and Lemonade than ask the bar staff to change the channel.

The AFL won’t despair over this. Their main target market isn’t the over-30s who’ll likely never pay any attention to the scrappy, unmanly sport from the southern states.

Continue reading "Clever AFL targets young hearts and young minds" »

So here’s the deal. I need an AFL team. I’m a fan of the game but I don’t have a team and I’m open to your suggestions. Well, all except Collingwood.

I’m primarily an NRL fan. But growing up in Canberra I came to love watching Peter Landy and Lou Richards call the games on Seven on Saturday arvos. “It’s a wobbly old punt kick… put down your glasses!” All the same, no team ever reached out and grabbed me by the throat.

I have been teamless too long. I get that AFL is the national game (even if yesterday’s captains call outside Sydney Town Hall attracted more bemused onlookers than fans clamouring for autographs) and I want in on the action.

Continue reading "Sports nut seeks AFL team. All suggestions considered" »

If the new ARL Commission wants to do something positive about the involvement of women in rugby league, then they can get rid of the Cheerleaders.

The NRL can dress the players in pink, dedicate a round, hold lunches, media conferences, use supportive, inclusive language about women in league, but there’s an obvious hypocrisy when they still allow an outdated, irrelevant and demeaning use of women in the sport to take place at every game in every round.

They prove the game might have grown, but is yet to grow up. It’s baffling that when women can play such big roles in this sport as players, administrators, referees, physios, fans and commentators, why we still have these cheerleaders who do little more than objectify women into bouncing eye-candy.

Continue reading "I’ll lead the cheers when the NRL abolishes cheerleaders" »

People with no interest in sport don’t understand why sports fans use words like “hero” to describe their favourite sporting figures. They find such terms over-the-top, and best saved for those who make the wider world a better place.

Jim Stynes, the transplanted Irishman and AFL legend, did exactly that. He made the world a better place. Saving his perennially struggling Melbourne Demons made him worthy enough of the hero tag. The Demons, after all, were a much-loved institution facing ruin, and Stynes as chairman mapped out a survival pathway. But it was off field that he made his biggest impact.

Stynes’s Reach Foundation, which delivered programs to tens of thousands of young people annually, was the mark of a man who understood that support is more important than competitiveness for many young people. That a sense of acceptance is often more valuable than the pursuit of excellence. How wonderful that a man who was so excellent himself in so many facets of life should realise this.

Continue reading "Vale Jim Stynes. A towering figure and a great, great man" »

Is it a demonstration of what’s great about the Aussie spirit to keep doing something even after you find out for sure 20 people younger than you are better at it, and your Olympic hopes are dashed?

Ian Thorpe’s disappointing weekend in the pool, and what he said once he got out of the pool, has got me stumped. They guy is a great champion, and not just that, he seems like an incredibly decent person too.

He should be remembered not just for his incredible feats in competitive swimming, but for the way he behaved while he was under the white-hot glare of Australian expectations for all those years. You can’t fake good character for that long when you’re that young.

Continue reading "Thorpie, please don’t squander your legacy" »

When you buy your ticket to the big game, you get certain privileges which don’t apply in the outside world. You get to leave your pie wrapper and beer cup at your feet. You get to yell insults at the match officials. And you get the right to boo to your heart’s content.

This right is not enshrined in the Australian constitution, nor even on the fine print of your ticket. But it should be, because booing at sport is as natural as cheering, even if it’s your own beloved team.

At the Super Rugby this weekend, a significant contingent of the 14,000 strong Sydney crowd booed the NSW Waratahs against the Western Force. They booed at halftime, then again at fulltime when their team’s slender lead had evaporated and they lost a match everyone expected them to win.

Continue reading "Booing is every sports fan’s right. In fact it’s our duty" »

You remember Steven Bradbury. He’s the short track speed skater who won gold when all his opponents fell over at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics 10 years and a few weeks ago. Well, this week Bradbury himself tripped up.

At a function to launch the West Coast Eagles AFL season, the former peroxide blond talked about his career as a skater, saying “The only person who would have spent more time on the ice than me was Ben Cousins”.

He has since apologised. Personally, I think it was a great gag. As a guideline, the first rule of satirical humour should always be this: is the target of the humour deserving of mocking? In the case of the kids with cancer so cruelly lampooned by The Chaser, the answer was clearly no. But Ben Cousins? Hmmm.

Continue reading "Friday dilemma: thin ice or fair crack at a dope?" »

There’s a pre-season football stink going on down Melbourne way which is a little hard to decode for those of us who live elsewhere. But here’s the guts of it.

Eddie McGuire is under fire for interviewing Melbourne Demons player Liam Jurrah on his new Fox show Eddie McGuire Tonight (EMT). Criticism has come thick and fast from, among others, Fairfax’s Caroline Wilson, The Australian’s Patrick Smith and the Melbourne Demons club itself.

Jurrah, who hails from a remote NT community, will face court in May on charges relating to a recent incident where he flew to Alice Springs and intervened in a family dispute. Alice Springs police allege an axe and machete were involved in the incident.

Continue reading "Eddie McGuire makes a fair point on indigenous players" »

The London Olympic Games later this year has focused minds on the place of competition, excellence and winning in sport.

Historically, the Games have allowed various countries to showcase their best athletes and the medal count represents a league table used by nations and their citizens to evaluate success and failure.

Recent events suggest that this might no longer be the case. Research funded by the European based Equity in Sport foundation concludes that not all countries and athletes have an equal chance of success.

Continue reading "Competition between schools deserves a sporting chance" »

This weekend, as the world remembered events in the north eastern Japanese town of Fukushima, Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe would have done well to reflect on his past deeds in the south western Japanese city of Fukuoka.

It was at the 1997 Fukuoka Pan Pacific Championships that 14 year old Ian Thorpe first announced himself to the world, winning silver in the 400m freestyle in an Olympics-strength field.

Four years later, with three Sydney Olympics golds under his belt, Thorpe won an unprecedented six gold medals at the Fukuoka World Championships. Those performances made him an imported icon of Beckhamesque stature in Japan.

Continue reading "It’s time for Thorpey to get over his black line fever" »

Channel Nine blusterer-in-chief Phil Gould is fond of saying “God I love Sunday football at Leichhardt Oval”. No doubt he does. It must be easy to love the cramped inner Sydney ground when you’re in the air-conditioned media box.

Out there on the hill, things are less glamorous. The romance of Sunday football on the hill is like an old flame you long to hook up with, only to find she’s aged terribly and you have nothing in common.

This was going to be a piece in praise of the humble, suburban football ground with all its foibles. But the foibles got to me yesterday. The traffic snarls. The relentless sun, which made rednecks of even the Balmain basket weavers. The fact you couldn’t see half the field. And then there were the pie and beer queues.

Continue reading "Suburban football grounds are relics of the bad old days" »

Is the UFC brutal or brilliant? Or both? Finn Bradshaw attended his first UFC event on Saturday. This is his account of the experience.

FIRST up, I have to admit I’m not the most knowledgeable fighting fan, whatever the discipline. But when you get the offer of front row seats to the UFC, well, it’s worth a trip from Melbourne to Sydney. Here’s a running diary of the cultural experience that occurred at Allphones Arena on Saturday.

10.30am: Traffic was a nightmare from the airport, so I’m running late. This event is beamed live into the USA, so it starts at the ridiculously early time of 9.30am but it appears I’m about the last person to arrive. The only people not in their seats are the Ed Hardy-clad fans crammed into the smoking cages outside the stadium. Clearly the early bouts haven’t got the fans’ full attention.

10.45am: Making our way through the crowd, some stereotypes are upheld, others demolished. The dress code is what I’d expected: lots of hoodies, tight T-shirts covered in scrawled writing and A LOT of UFC merch. But more women than I expected. Still probably only 10 per cent of the audience, but enough to make it not a total sausage fest.

Continue reading "UFC delivers an uppercut to boring old boxing" »

On Saturday night, Robert Lui will take the field for the North Queensland Cowboys, even though his previous NRL club, the Wests Tigers, tore his contract up.

Late last season, Lui was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He’ll appear in court on March 21.

Like any person with a matter before the courts, Lui is entitled to a presumption of innocence. But that doesn’t mean the sporting code which registers him should be powerless to intervene in his affairs.

Continue reading "Our football codes need an off-field code of conduct" »

The FFA has just terminated the A-League license of struggling Gold Coast United. This comes after a massive war of words between Franky Lowy and Gold Coast owner Clive Palmer, the latest instalment of which came today when Palmer tweeted: We intend to fight this ludicrous decision by incompetent FFA in the courts. Frank Lowy is an institution who now belongs in an institution.

As the battle rages on, here’s a nice wider perspective on the battle of the billionaires from first time Puncher and soccer nut Stewart Prins.

A-League football had one of its more mysterious moments on the weekend when colourful franchise owner Clive Palmer sent his Gold Coast United (GCU) team out onto the field with the message “Freedom of Speech” plastered across the front of their playing strip.

Neither Mr Palmer nor his Gold Coast United CEO Clive Messink offered an explanation for the late change to the playing strip, or for the advertising billboards quoting the same slogan.

Continue reading "While the billionaires battle, the code becomes poorer" »

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Morning everybody. Two days before the NRL season kick off and that means only one thing. It’s footy tippin’ time.

For those of you who follow AFL, we’ll have a comp for you guys too in a week or so. But for now, join the NRL comp or suffer a terrible, unspeakable fate. Like being forced to read another one of my pieces in support of anthropogenic global warming.

The NRL tipping comp code is 848154. Or just click on this link and click the brown create/join button and go from there. We’ll talk prizes later. How about a column on the subject of your choice (subject to editing)? In other news, what’s the other news? You tell us.

It was on. You could feel it. Tendulkar was in the mood. It was The Little Master’s last match at the SCG, a ground he loves in a city he loves, and you could just sense a big score. Maybe even that elusive hundredth hundred.

The night was warm enough for T-shirts, cool enough for comfort. Australia had runs on the board, but nothing that looked beyond India’s reach. The sun was setting and the scene was set. And then it happened.

Sachin Tendulkar was run out. There was the suggestion that Brett Lee impeded him. Twitter went into meltdown in India, even though it’s fair to say the Indian tweeters didn’t exactly have the best view of proceedings. Replays showed Brett Lee had done nothing wrong. The world’s biggest and most authoritative cricket website, the India-based espncricinfo.com, concurred.

Continue reading "Good riddance India, and don’t forget to slam the door" »

The McIntyre System is no more. Abandoned in 1999 by the AFL, and mystifyingly adopted by the old ARL the same year, the completely inexplicable system has at last been ditched on the same useless rugby league scrapheap as John Hopoate and the Western Reds.

Oh wait, they’re now talking about another Perth team again, aren’t they? Anyway, McIntyre is gone. This is good. No disrespect to the venerable mathematician, the late Ken McIntyre, but his system had all the user-friendliness of a sudoku crossed with a cryptic crossword written in Mandarin.

Today’s decision was handed down by the new ARL Commission, which was clearly keen to broker some sort of peace with NRL club chief executives who are in the process of forming their own lobby group. The commission was no doubt also trying to tell fans it is listening to them. Mission accomplished.

Continue reading "Game listens to fans, replaces stupid finals system" »

It’s time to give Nick D’Arcy a break. The story going around today is that D’Arcy has been cleared by the Australian Olympic Committee to compete for selection at the London Games.

It’s a story I chose to run as part of our morning sport package on Sky News, but not discuss in our panel chat this morning on Sportsline. It’s an old topic and it’s time to move on.

It’s been almost four years to the day that D’Arcy’s Olympic dream was shattered and his life turned upside down. Up until that point in the bar late on that dreaded night, D’Arcy was on the cusp of realising his dream. All those training sessions, early mornings, long programs, strict diets, missed parties, big sacrifices and endless laps up and down the pool were about to be worth it.

Continue reading "Mr D’Arcy’s pride should come ahead of our prejudice" »

So here’s the news, if you can call it that. Ricky Ponting will no longer play One Day cricket, which we all knew, given he was dropped from the team yesterday. As Ponting himself effectively said this morning, the selectorial door is not a revolving one at his age.

Ponting will, however, continue to play Test cricket. So the Ponting landscape today is pretty much the same as it is yesterday, which made the 70 media at today’s presser, myself included, wonder why we had bothered to leave the office.

Notwithstanding the mild inconvenience of attending a cricketing equivalent of a Seinfeldian show about nothing, it’s worth reflecting on Ponting’s decision. And while we’re at it, let’s celebrate the 375 One Dayers Ponting racked up for Australia.

Continue reading "Ponting channels Seinfeld with a show about nothing" »

Sometimes, you’d swear a higher power was trying to tell us all something. Not that the universe would trouble itself over anything as trivial as Australian politics, but all the same.

On the weekend, former Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting was brought back as a fill-in for the injured Michael Clarke. Ponting proceeded to do his customary lousy job, and was duly punted for good. Could the message be any clearer? Do we really need to spell this thing out?

The Ponting return was a screaming reminder for Kevin Rudd to stay the hell clear of a leadership challenge. Second stints don’t work. As the American novelist Thomas Wolfe once nearly wrote: “You Can’t Go Home to the Lodge Again”.

Continue reading "What Rudd can learn from Ricky Ponting" »

Back in 2004, all eyes were on an Australian female hurdler as our Olympians readied themselves for Athens. Our strongest ever Olympic team would eventually win 17 gold medals, yet the pre-Games hype was all about Jana Pittman, who would go on to win nothing.

So here we are eight years on and again, the focus is on a female hurdler. Only this time it’s different. This time the hurdler is naturally charming, not attention-seeking. This time she’s fit and firing, not half broken down. This time you sense she’s doing it for all of us, not just herself.

Sally Pearson was 22 when she won silver in the 100m hurdles at Beijing. The race was thrilling. But it was THAT post-race interview with Seven’s Pat Welsh which really burned her name and face into our minds.

Continue reading "This Sally’s no lay down, she’s a lay down misère" »

When England robbed us of the Ashes last summer, the sense of malaise that fell across the country was palpable. People were cranky. The skies were grey. The rain fell. Cricket was a fundamental source of anxiety. Mental health was served by not thinking about it.

A year later, with a panel of selectors prepared to let some new blood flow and a captain full of surprises, success has followed at a startling rate. In Pattinson and Cummings we have a future bowling attack to make you drool. The possibilities that Warner brings to the game are almost unimaginable. The sun has started shining and summers are back on the agenda.

The extent to which cricket nourishes the soul is not unique to Australia. On entry into Dakar airport one is met with a wall size photograph of the Bangladeshi cricket team that simply says: “We love cricket”.

Continue reading "Jamaicans Bolting away from traditional bat and ball" »

In racing, the term “pie eater” is an old-fashioned, gently derogatory term for hard-bitten punters. Pies are all they can afford after their weekly pay cheque has yet again put Sunday roast on the bookies’ dinner tables.

Well, the pie eaters of Australia have suddenly developed a taste for Black Caviar. That’s Black Caviar, the mighty mare who this week made it 18 wins from 18 starts in her most devastating racetrack outing yet.

Black Caviar attracted 20,000 infatuated racegoers to Caulfield on Saturday, the majority decked out in her salmon-and-black racing colours. Twenty thousand, to a race meeting which would usually attract a quarter that many. With the gates sensibly thrown open for free, they flocked to see the champion, who paraded around as if she knew she was just that.

Continue reading "Pie-eating racegoers develop a taste for Black Caviar" »

The yips. It’s an old golf term which refers to golfers who lose the ability to putt. They stand over the ball and they tremble. They quake. They can barely hold the damn club, let alone propel the ball into a hole that suddenly appears the size of a thimble.

The term has since migrated across to other sports. Beijing gold medallist Steve Hooker today admitted that he has the pole vault yips. He just can’t place that pole in the right spot anymore, and his London campaign is in severe jeopardy.

If it’s any consolation Steve, you’re not the only person struggling to get your mojo back. Several other prominent Australians across all walks of life have totally lost the ability to do the thing they were once pretty good at. Here are five more prominent cases of the Yips. The Punch heartily invites more suggestions from you.

Continue reading "Six prominent Aussies with a case of the dreaded “yips”" »

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" »