Sport

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" »

For the good of the game, Sydney must win the A-League Grand Final

Now, I’m just putting this out there. I’m just going to run it up the flagpole. The A-League, and football in Australia, needs Sydney FC to defeat Melbourne Victory next week.

This season’s decider is the one the game had to have. They’re the best two teams on the field, the biggest two teams of the field and have a rivalry that inspires feelings of joy, anguish, revulsion and, when applicable, a hefty dollop of schadenfreude.

Continue reading "The A-League needs Sydney FC to win the Grand Final" »

Big Bad Bazza - Barry Hall - has gone through the wringer and emerged as a new man, ironing out all those kinks. Who would have thought that Bazza could reverse his fortunes after one too many brainsnaps at the Sydney Swans?

Bazza - we were waiting for you to trip up again as a ferocious Bulldog. We were waiting for another almighty brainsnap.But it didn’t happen. Instead, Bazza treated us to high-flying marking and a string of match-winning goals. Bazza’s seven-goal haul in the NAB Cup grand final on Saturday night was legendary, elevating him to cult status.

Bulldogs’ fans – celebrate hard. It’s been 40 years since you charged your glasses to toast the Doggies as night premiers.

Continue reading "Someone let the Dogs out" »

Join The Punch’s tipping comp and tip against other Punchers! Sign up here and enter the league code 439453.

With the NRL and AFL seasons almost upon us, The Punch has fortuitously stumbled across an ancient parchment. Feasteth thine eyes upon it, and you too shall dwell in the promised land of tipping milk and honey… or some such.

1. Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy (well the Muslim Sabbath day of Friday, anyway)

Friday is the day upon which thy tips must be submitted. At the setting of the sun, thy tips shall be deemed inadmissible.

Continue reading "The 10 commandments of footy tipping" »

Who needs Posh ‘n’ Becks? Australian cricket vice-captain Michael Clarke and his model girlfriend Lara Bingle have confirmed themselves as the nation’s celebrity circus couple.

Clarke is known for being unhappy with the ongoing publicity that surrounds their relationship but its effect has reached a nadir with him quitting the team camp on the eve of a one-day match against New Zealand because his girlfriend was upset.

This is no Hollywood couple’s restaurant flare-up. Clarke’s sudden and stunning decision to return to Sydney to be with Bingle raises questions on his future role in the team and ability to focus on his cricket. Clarke has been a consistently excellent performer and is the favourite to succeed Ricky Ponting as captain.

Continue reading "With Pup and Lara who needs Posh and Becks?" »

The Kiwis are sputting chups this morning about John Howard being put forward for the spot of Deputy President of the International Cricket Council, with the likelihood he’ll take over the top job in 2012.

The New Zealand Herald this morning lamented: “Cricket: ‘Fan’ with no cricket experience gets top job.” The paper wondered what “Australian heavying” went on behind closed doors to secure Howard over NZC Chairman Sir John Anderson.

On AM this morning the former Prime Minister, now 70, mounted an understated defense of his credentials for the role.

“I don’t know that I have a lack of background in the game,” he said. “I don’t come to the game as having been a champion player or a previous administrator, but there aren’t too many champion players and I think most people know what I’ve been doing with my spare time up until now.”

Continue reading "Is this man qualified to run world cricket?" »

Thanks to Channel Nine’s captivating coverage of the Vancouver Olympics Games you might have missed the news this week that pole dancers are bidding to have their ‘sport’ included as a test event at the 2012 London Olympics. 

KT Coates, director of UK pole exercise school, Vertical Dance, is leading the campaign.  ‘After a great deal of feedback from the pole-dance community, many of us have decided that it’s about time pole fitness is recognised as a competitive sport, and what better way for recognition than to be part of the 2012 Olympics held in London,’ she said.

So far a petition to get pole dancing to London has attracted some 4000 signatures.  The Vertical Dance website notes that ‘by signing our petition you are showing the powers that be, that we seriously believe in the Vertical Bar.’

Continue reading "Faster, higher, raunchier?" »

Two weeks ago, I gave 10 reasons why I thought the Winter Olympics were “Higher. Faster. Cooler.”  Now they’re almost over, I thought I’d reflect briefly on what, if anything, we all learned. So. In no particular order, here are 10 things.

1. Climate change is real
Thought I’d throw this one up the top because I don’t get enough right wing spam hate mail. Here’s the thing, though. Vancouver had its warmest January on record and has probably just recorded its warmest February too. Daffodils are out a month early. OK, so it’s the warmest city ever chosen to host a winter games. And yes, other parts of the northern hemisphere have had unusually snowy winters. But really, an average daily max temp of 10 or 11 where it’s usually four or five is one hell of a massive anomaly.

2. London is going to suck
As the stuff-ups subsided and the clouds cleared, beautiful Vancouver gave us a magnificent Olympic backdrop. Twee as it sounds, the Olympics need to take the world’s couch potatoes on something resembling a trip. How on earth will London manage this, wedged as it is between Beijing/Vancouver and Sochi/Rio? No snowy peaks or Copacabana Beach in the south east of England. Just boring, bloody red buses and Beefeaters. God help us all if Oasis or the re-re-re-formed Spice Girls perform at the opening ceremony.

Continue reading "10 things we’ve learned from the Winter Olympics" »

The football club I’ve supported since childhood looks set to be relegated two seasons on the trot – and I’m absolutely delighted.

I couldn’t be happier, simply because the alternative for Portsmouth was much, much worse. Let me explain for anyone not following this utter debacle.

Pompey are roughly $135 million in debt after a few years of living the dream and now face a winding up petition from the UK taxman in the High Court. A hearing due to be held this coming Monday would probably have sealed the club’s fate. Portsmouth Football Club, established 1898, would no longer exist.

Continue reading "Existence has no meaning without a football team" »

I can’t remember who said it, but when Sally McLellan won silver in the 100m hurdles at the Bejiing Olympics, someone described her joyful reaction as what sports stars sound like when they haven’t had any media training.

There was none of that tedium about taking it one hurdle at a time, about sticking to the strategy, no irritating thank-yous for her sponsors (if indeed she had any), no psychobabble about self-belief and running the mental race. Rather we saw pure, unadorned joy, with the odd expletive thrown in for extra colour.

“Oh my God, is this real? You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” McLellan said. “Did you see me? Did you see how pumped I was? I was more pumped than I’ve ever been in my life. Shit, I could see a girl passing me but kept running my own race. Amazing. I can’t believe it.”

Continue reading "Gone with the spin: Tiger and the insincerity industry" »

As the spotlight rests on Tiger Woods following his admissions he was a sex cheat, we ask ourselves ... can Tiger change?

Can Tiger change his addictive behaviours which threatened to derail his life? History is our greatest measuring stick when we look at a person’s character and whether they are capable of change.

I believe in the old saying that a leopard can’t change its spots. But can Tiger change his behaviour which has dictated his wayward life in recent years?

Continue reading "Tiger says he’s a cheater, can a leopard change its spots?" »

At about 3 o’clock tomorrow morning AEDT Tiger Woods will face a room full of “friends and colleagues” in Florida, and the world’s TV networks, to take the first step in rehabilitating his image after three months of tawdry sex scandals.

According to the golfer’s official website: “Tiger plans to discuss his past and his future, and he plans to apologize for his behavior.”

“While Tiger feels that what happened is fundamentally a matter between him and his wife, he also recognizes that he has hurt and let down a lot of other people who were close to him. He also let down his fans. He wants to begin the process of making amends, and that’s what he’s going to discuss.”

Continue reading "What should Tiger say?" »

I’ve never really gotten the Winter Olympics Games. Sure, it’s fun every four years to turn on the telly, turn up the air-con and pretend I know what a triple axel is for a couple of hours. But aside from figure skating and the occasional Bradbury-ism, I’ve always seen the colder Games as a bit of background noise, a comma in the sporting events cycle between Sydney and Athens, Beijing and London.

This year, for the first time in my life, I have Winter Olympics fever –  and I suspect it’s because I am far from the salt and sand of the country I’ll be rooting for.

The Winter Olympics just makes more sense when viewed from the northeast United States. Or, I suspect, from a snowy Zurich or a frosty Seskatchewan. It’s easier to get into the spirit of the dream, if you will, in a cold northern February than at the tail-end of a sweaty southern summer.

Continue reading "Too damn hot to get all fired up about cold sport" »

Who’s going to say it first? Surely in the prickly conversations going on through the ranks of Australian sport and diplomacy, many people are suggesting it: that we shouldn’t be going to the Commonwealth Games.

It is one thing to take your own life in your hands by getting on a toboggan and going down an ice chute but it is quite another for governments and sporting authorities to send athletes to a place where people are threatening to kill them.

Following today’s threat of a terrorist attack on the Games in New Delhi from an al-Qaeda offshoot the stakes have been raised to vertigo-inducing levels. Fox Sports reports today:

Continue reading "Game on? The Delhi question" »

Like most sports fans I shudder to think how many hours I have spent glued to the television or sitting in the outer and screaming my lungs out at the spectacle of the hour.

It would easily average at least four hours a week, which is a pretty normal level of consumption. It’s also pretty normal that these viewings have often taken place in an emotionally-charged environment, as if to illustrate the old maxim (attributed to Liverpool manager Bill Shankly regarding soccer) that sport isn’t matter of life or death, it’s much more important than that.

But the Winter Olympics has given us a pretty bleak reminder that in the overall scheme of things, sport doesn’t really matter that much at all. And with the Olympic Movement framed as it is around the principles of excellence – faster, higher, stronger – it seems ghoulishly appropriate that the Vancouver Games have set a new mark for tastelessness.

Continue reading "Going downhill fast: sport abandons taste and sense" »

The Winter Olympics start this weekend and I’m ridiculously excited. I love the Winter Olympics much more than that over-hyped impostor, the Summer Games. Here’s why.

The Winter Olympics are sexier

Well, they are. No Greco-Roman wrestlers or weightlifters in this lot. Winter Olympians have body shapes which can almost universally be described as “lithe”. What’s more, everyone wears clingy outfits. It’s a visual feast. Doubly so if you have a lycra fetish.

Continue reading "Higher. Faster. Cooler." »

When the Indigenous All Stars run on to Skilled Park tomorrow night it won’t be just another game of football.

The game has been sold out for months and has been a dream of Indigenous league players and Indigenous people for decades.

For the indigenous players it’s about more than just rugby league – it’s a chance to represent and pay tribute to their communities and people. The game is a celebration of indigenous culture and has great symbolism, but equally important will be the profound effect it has on Indigenous youth.

Continue reading "Indigenous All Stars - more than just a footy match" »

Australia has already had two wins at the Vancouver Winter Olympics and the main events have not yet started.

Firstly the International Olympic Committee has agreed that the very large Boxing Kangaroo flag can be hung from a balcony at the Olympic village.

Ian Chesterman the chef de mission with the Australian team is delighted and said it is something that has become synonymous with Australians competing around the world.

Continue reading "Postcard from Vancouver" »

They’re calling it Star Wars on the Water. The winged keel on Australia II looks about as innovative as furry dice on a Commodore against the designs of the two most technologically-advanced yachts ever built, expected to finally start racing tonight (Australian time) in the 33rd America’s Cup.

(Update: Racing was postponed again on Wednesday due to heavy seas. Next possible start is February 12.)

The open ended design rules for the match between defender Alinghi of Switzerland and challenger BMW Oracle of the USA have produced two stunning-looking craft which look more like they should be attacking a Death Star than bobbing about on the water.

A selection of pictures which hopefully capture the huge size and outrageous design of the boats follows, along with some trivia about the event. And perhaps most fun of all, the only thing bigger in yacht racing than the boats themselves is the egos at stake.

Continue reading "Forecast: Windy, with a fair chance of excellent TV (pics)" »

Call the RSPCA. Alert PETA. Get the anti-whaling boats to steam north from Antarctica and stop this mindless slaughter.

Cricket is on its last legs. And to think, this shocking butchery of our national sport is no longer even taking place in the name of science.

Before the summer, we suspected the opposition were crap. By mid December, we knew it. Discussion over. Yet here we are in mid February still prodding and poking at the carcasses of West Indian and Pakistani cricket.

Continue reading "Put this summer of cricket out of its misery" »

Why does football/soccer bring out the hate?

Every time I read a story or a blog about football/soccer on the net, the reader comments always devolve into the bitch fight: it’s the world game, it’s the future or it’s a Euro game for ladyboys that will never overtake our domestic codes.

I write about the A-League on the Punch every week and every time my post goes up there’s always a response guaranteed to include the lines: “Who cares? Soccer’s a boring game for poofs, people who have slightly darker skin than me and posh expats who should go back where it rains a lot and the beer is slightly warmer. How long have you soccer zealots been saying it was going to take over? The A-League is rubbish and will never be more popular than AFL/NRL.”

Continue reading "Oh soccer, why do they hate you so?" »

They call it the Pineapple Express. It’s an unwelcome warm weather system which drags moist, warm air from the ocean near Hawaii, all the way north to the Pacific coast of Oregon, Washington State and southern British Columbia.

And wouldn’t you know it, right now there’s a massive Pineapple Express lashing Vancouver, host city of the 2010 Winter Olympics which start on Feb 13.
Usually, Pineapple Expresses last a few days. But this one has been around for five weeks, and shows no signs of abating.

Continue reading "All aboard the Pineapple Express to Vancouver" »

New A-League team The Melbourne Heart, who kick off in the 2010/11 season, have unveiled a shocking logo to match their unbelievably stupid team name.

At least they’re consistent.

The logo, which looks like an unironed pair of undies emblazoned with rugby posts, was designed by the “international brand design consultancy” Elmwood, who apparently have offices in loads of big important cities as well as Leeds, UK.

Continue reading "Australia’s worst sports logo: how low can they go?" »

It’s the moment Great Britain has been waiting for – one of its own tennis players on the verge of winning a grand slam.

The talented Scot has all the right attributes to win a grand slam. But Murray has one giant problem. Roger Federer ... the world’s No. 1.

There’s a simple reason why Federer will win the Australian Open on Sunday.

Continue reading "Sorry Andy, but beating this guy will be a stretch" »

Following Andy Murray’s pretty convincing win in last night’s Australian Open semi-final The Punch now argues Australia must support the young Scot in the final. For one it has been 74 years since the last British male won a grand slam, and secondly Australia kind of killed their last champion.

If you are ever tempted to complain about the state of Australian tennis just remember this: the British are really, really bad. They even have to say British because as individual UK nations it would look even more pathetic.

While Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977 for all the British ladies in the place, the last male Briton to win a grand slam was Fred Perry back in 1936. In 1936 the Nazis were running Germany and refrigeration was looked upon with the same awe as the iPad is today. Perhaps only bettered by Cronulla’s inability to ever win the premiership it’s one of the longest standing failures in sport.

Continue reading "Punch declares: Australia must support the skinny Scot" »

I’m going to confess straight up to having little to zero interest in the underwear choices of Venus Williams.

Yet in recent days her flesh coloured shorts have become a story in sport in themselves and sent twitter abuzz with is she or isn’t she wearing underpants debates.

Perhaps this isn’t so shocking, Maria Sharapova’s green “frocklet” (I kid you not- apparently there is indeed such a thing), got its own press conference launch and then we saw precious column space designated to the diamond earring and necklace choices of Serena Williams, (which she liked “because it had lots of S’s in the design”, and we can all respect that).

Continue reading "Treating women’s sport like a trivial fashion contest" »

Can’t bowl, can barely bat - but could he run world cricket? Former Prime Minister John Howard may be feeling a twinge of nostalgia for his time in office today after waking to a spectacular bucketing in the morning papers.

Cricket writer Peter Roebuck said nominating Howard for president of the International Cricket Council was “as pitiful as it is disrespectful”, the logic being that the ex-PM is really just an enthusiastic follower of cricket than a leader who can think creatively about the future of the game. “Plain and simple,” writes Roebuck, “he is not qualified for the job.”

Isn’t he? Given the laundry list of problems with internal bickering in cricket’s international governing body, maybe a pragmatic politician like Howard is just what the ICC needs.

Continue reading "Can this man save cricket?" »

It was strangely refreshing to hear about Brazilian Marcos Daniel apparently getting into a squabble with a female spectator after his first round loss.

Not because getting in fights with fans is particularly advisable or admirable, but it did at least give us a tennis player we could look at say “that Marcos is one bad cat”. As an average player Marcos Daniel may have done his career a favour as he is now one of the few bad guys on the circuit.

Grand Slam tennis is currently suffering under the burden of there being too many nice guys and gals on the circuit - or at the least players who have perfected the art of looking like nice guys and gals.

Continue reading "The tennis is just boring without bad guys" »

Would Australia’s sporting mainstream benefit from the introduction of a Rooney Rule?

In 2003, America’s NFL introduced the Rooney Rule to provide legitimate opportunities for minority candidates. The rule, named after Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise and a strong advocate for the rule’s introduction, requires all NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate for any vacant head coaching or front office position.

Concurrently the Fritz Pollard Alliance was established to identify candidates, submit names for vacancies and to prepare prospective applicants for the interview process.

Continue reading "A simple rule that could transform sport in Australia" »

Besides the recurrence of violence among Balkan fans on the first day of the Australian Tennis Open this year being self-evidently stupid and embarrassing, it is perhaps above all really pathetic.

A really pathetic expression of half-baked nationalism from suburban mamma’s boys at the tennis.

Yes the tennis. Not a bad-ass crowd sport like European soccer matches where iron bars and pocket knives are common accoutrements among fans.

Continue reading "Ethnic violence at the tennis, it’s just so pathetic" »

There is a very serious problem with the Australian open. Her name is Maria Sharapova. And it’s not her weird grunting that’s the issue.

Take a long. Hard. Look at her.

With three grand slams already under her 22-year-old designer belt, including the US Open, Wimbledon and the Australian Open, plus a long list of other titles, the Russian certainly qualifies for being at this year’s tournament, let’s hope the injuries stay at bay. But talent isn’t the problem.

Continue reading "The one reason we should all hate Maria Sharapova" »

It’s not hard to get a fight in Fred Brophy’s boxing tent – the last travelling tent left in Australia, or the world. It just gets hard when you get your fight. I wanted a fight.

I saw Brophy first at the Birdsville Races in 2008 but I knew about the tent – the round or two for a pound or two – to borrow a line from the other great boxing tent man Jimmy Sharman.

I talked about wanting a fight in the tent before heading up to Mt Isa for the rodeo, from the comfort of inner city Melbourne. No one believed me.  I’m a girl and I’ve never even done a boxing class.

Continue reading "How I started Ladies’ Day at Fred Brophy’s boxing tent" »

Things are happening on Newcastle that shouldn’t be. The Jets, last year’s wooden-spooners who finished with an eye-watering 18 points, are burning a trail through the top end of the league.

The Jets are one of the most limited teams in the competition when it comes to resources. The club is stretched to its limit financially, and they have consistently failed to keep hold of their best players.

In the first twelve rounds of the season, they won just three games. Their team was made up of A-League stalwarts, untested youngsters and in charge was Branko Culina, the man who rubs more people the wrong way than one of things your mum has to get rid of fluff on clothes.

Continue reading "A-League: Reasons for roundballers to love Branko" »

If you wanted to write a short skit to satirise the insidious fan-hating culture of cricket ground managers, what would the plot be?

How about, say, Santa Claus being ejected after skylarking with a bloke dressed in a cancer-awareness tutu? That’s surely sufficiently exaggerated to make the comical point.

Bzzt. Try harder. That’s precisely what happened at the Sydney Cricket Ground on the first day of the New Year Test.

Continue reading "Killing cricket" »

Twenty20 is like a box-office smash hit – overloaded with action, drama and emotion.

And like any blockbuster, crowds are flocking to cricket grounds to soak up the electric atmosphere of Twenty20.
There’s a saying in business that you find out what people want and you give it to them – in bigger doses.

Continue reading "Why Twenty20 will knock traditional cricket for six" »

I don’t get out much. I work from home and, generally, I sleep at home too. I seem to have lived the life of a butterfly in reverse, a few decade of delicate and delicious socialising, followed by a quite decade in my cocoon.

I’m not the only person who doesn’t get out much, mind, there’s quite a few, and in the northern hemisphere they often gather around the Guardian campfire and comment on the cricket as it happens on the OBO (over-by-over report).

Truth be told, the Guardian’s OBO isn’t just about what’s happening out on the pitch, it is like a potted philosophy of everything, with a particular preference for wit and that peculiar form of gloom that seems to descend over English cricket supporters even if they are six hundred runs ahead with two days to bowl the opposition out.

Continue reading "Real-time cricket writer who keeps the spirit of the game" »

MELBOURNE’S Boxing Day Test has a profound effect on Aussie cricketers’ form. Some batsmen thrive on the festive atmosphere and give opposing bowlers a serve on the MCG wicket.

Other batsmen – and bowlers – crumble under pressure. Some Aussies had glorious batting innings and magic spells with the ball.

It was a memorable Test, particularly as the Melbourne crowd celebrated their Test hero – Shane Watson, who redeemed himself at the crease in Australia’s 170-run win.

Continue reading "Pakistan may have lost the heart for the Sydney Test" »

England is reportedly seriously considering pulling out of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in India in October because of fears its team will be targeted by Pakistani militants.

If it does pull the pin, it will be the first time England has not competed in the Games’ 80-year history - it’s potentially a very significant move. Presumably if the Brits pull out they won’t be the only ones - the whole Games could be in jeopardy.

Sport and geo-politics have always been inextricably linked, and sometimes this has resulted in great peril for the athletes. Images of the 1972 Munich Olympics, when Israeli athletes were taken hostage and then murdered by extremists with links to Fatah, are seared into our memories.

Continue reading "If we stop playing sport have the terrorists won?" »

HOW many Test innings have we seen fail as Aussie batsmen reach the nervous nineties?

Too many, I’d say.

Boxing Day is often a cricketer’s field of dreams - the biggest day on the Test calendar.

Continue reading "The nervous 90s are all in our heads" »

I’ve got it. I know what Tiger Woods should do with the rest of his life, and it doesn’t involve hitting more white balls or telling more black lies.

As things currently stand, everyone is expecting a grand, cleansing gesture. A god conversion, perhaps. Or at the very least, a weepy tell-all on the Oprah couch.

Well, I’ve got a much better plan. It might not save Tiger’s marriage, but it will save his reputation over time. And boy oh boy, will it make a huge difference in the world. Who knows? It might even allow him to keep playing golf.

Continue reading "What Tiger Woods should do with the rest of his life" »

Test Cricket, it’s over between us. I’m sorry to do the Gen Z thing and break the news to you online, but you’re not coming round to my place in Sydney till January and I just can’t wait till then.

At the risk of going all George Costanza, it’s not you, it’s me, OK? You’re still the same quirky, fascinating form of the game you’ve always been. But I’ve moved on.

I’m a different person with different priorities these days, TC. The kids, the job. The desire to indulge in a little physical activity myself occasionally instead of just watching you for five days. It all leaves so little time for you.

Continue reading "A parting letter to my former love, test cricket" »

“Shine like a big, big star!” This quote may sound like an odd introduction to an article about Australia’s bid for the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022, but it is also the basis for one of the inspirational highlights of the bid team’s work in Cape Town two weeks ago.

All bidding nations were invited to Cape Town by FIFA to participate in a media expo to present our claims.  The media expo was the first of only three formal presentations for bidders to the FIFA Executive, the international football community and international football media.  While it was the ‘set piece’ event for bidding nations during the week, Football Federation Australia (FFA) also planned other activities to ensure we were noticed in a very busy period for world football.

The inspiration came from a visit to a township school outside Cape Town by Federal Minister for Sport Kate Ellis, FFA Chairman Frank Lowy, CEO Ben Buckley, Head Coach Pim Verbeek, and the eight Aussie kids who had won a competition to be Bid emissaries for the week.

Continue reading "World Cup bid: Shine like a big, big star" »

Do you call it “football”? Then you’re an unAustralian zealot sucked in by the game for diving, cheating nancy boy Eurotrash. Or do you call it “soccer”? If so, you’re a small-minded, parochial redneck desperately clinging onto the last vestiges of isolationism.

This week, a punter rang me up to put me straight. He’d bought a copy of Australian Football Weekly and wanted to tell me we’d got the name wrong.
“Football in Australia is AFL,” he said. “You should be called Soccer Weekly or something.”

He’d bought the magazine by mistake. Never mind that the issue was eight months old, had a picture of Kevin Muscat and Travis Dodd on the cover and our masthead has a bloody great football in it. The punter picked it up, somehow thinking he’d found a new AFL publication, only to be left disappointed by the “soccer” content within.

Continue reading "A game by any other name - is it football or soccer?" »

American diva Toni Braxton probably doesn’t follow the cricket.

And she almost certainly wasn’t thinking about the umpire decision review system when she sang “It’s not right, but it’s ok”. You’ve got to hand it to her though - she hit the nail on the head.

It isn’t right. Not 100 per cent.

Continue reading "Toni Braxton is right about cricket’s video referee" »

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 BEST: The Sydney Olympics, 2000

Whether you’re from Australia or Equatorial Guinea or anywhere in between, the Sydney Olympics are 16 glorious days that literally save the Olympic movement, which is severely on the nose after the Cashlanta ‘96 games.

One standout moment? Has to be Cathy Freeman’s 400m, when symbolism, athleticisim, jingoism and about 100 Bruce MacAvaneyisms converge, as a beautiful Australian runner displays incredible poise and grace to win. Who comes second Who cares?

Continue reading "Golden heroes, golden zeroes" »

At the Walkley Awards last Thursday night one of the biggest cheers of the evening was reserved for Tracy Grimshaw, who won the gong for broadcast interviewing.

As the A Current Affair host made her way to the stage, the big screen behind the presenters played an excerpt from one of the interviews Grimshaw was being honoured for - her excruciating chat with former NRL star Matthew Johns.

There 10 times larger than life was a visibly distraught Johns, flanked by his wife Trish, responding to explosive claims about group sex in the NRL contained in a 4 Corners report - another Walkley winner. Half the media executives in the country were in the room watching Grimshaw accept the well-deserved award.

About the same time, according to yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, Seven and Ten were engaged in a bidding war to see who can sign Johns to spearhead their NRL coverage. These network bosses sure do have short memories.

Continue reading "Johns bidding war: our TV networks are run by goldfish" »

Before I get into this I must say a quick thanks to the many people - including complete strangers - who have sent messages of sympathy and support after Ireland got knocked out of the World Cup by what is surely the worst cheating incident in the history of sport.

If there’s one thing we Irish are really good at, it’s being outraged at injustice. Thanks to our over-friendly English neighbours we’ve had more than 800 years of practice.

And now we get to do it on Facebook.

Continue reading "Luck of the Irish? Tell it to that cheat Thierry Henry" »

Flush with cash, the AFL is heaping shovel-loads into its new western Sydney venture, conveniently ignoring its more important community role in encouraging young people, and especially girls, to get more active.

In its most direct attack yet on Rugby League, the AFL has cracked open the war chest, backing it with legendary player and coach Kevin Sheedy and even sabre-rattling suggestions of high profile poaching of top local NRL players like Jarryd Hayne.

But it is worth considering two less reported issues from only days before the latest flurry of AFL promotion: the NSW Government’s latest investment in preventative health and new research that highlighted a shocking plunge in activity rates among young girls as they approach their teenage years.

Continue reading "AFL should lift its game with girls to win hearts in Sydney" »

The Greco-Roman wrestling is not widely remembered as one of the high points of the Sydney Olympics.

It gets squeezed out by a few other things, like Cathy Freeman winning gold in the 400m, Jane Saville breaking down upon her disqualification just metres from the finish line in the walking, the women’s water polo team robbing the Yanks on the siren, the swimmers winning pretty much everything, their sweetest victory against the cocky American men’s relay team.

Golden moments all. But it was at the Greco Roman wrestling – that gladiatorial contest where blokes called Vitek and Krysto try to give each other wedgies - where I witnessed an Olympic moment so golden it almost made me weep tears of joy at being lucky enough to have been born in this absurd and excellent little country of ours.

Continue reading "Faster, higher, awesomer at absolutely bloody everything" »

The Independent Sport Panel has just reported to Sports Minister Kate Ellis after a year-long look at our national pastime. Aside from some recommendations about restructuring and administration, it had two key questions that go straight to the heart of our sporting spirit - what’s the definition of success and which sports are important?

Panel chair David Crawford said we might need to kiss goodbye our ambitions to a top five Olympic ranking. “The Panel strongly believes the public needs to be educated to think differently about what constitutes Olympic success,” the report overview says.

He also listed the sports the Panel defined as carrying the “national ethos.” They were Swimming, tennis, cricket, cycling, the football codes, netball, golf, hockey, basketball, surfing and surf lifesaving. “If more money is to be injected into the system then we must give serious consideration to where that money is spent.”

Continue reading "Every Olympian gets a medal?" »

Hello from the Masters, where the action is as hot as the weather. No, scratch that. Nothing is hotter than eight hours of blazing Melbourne sun.

I’ve just spoken with a 28 year old Australian golfer called Tim Wood. Poor old T Wood isn’t quite as famous as T Woods. In fact, he’s just missed the cut, which for you golf illiterates, means he finished in the bottom half of the field and has been eliminated.

Before Tim left the course in a car which was most definitely not a limousine, I caught up with him in order to paint a contrast of life on the right and wrong side of golf’s tracks.

Continue reading "T Woods versus T Wood: a golfing contrast" »

Matt Windley of the Herald Sun followed Tiger Woods around Kingston Heath today. You can see how it unfolded over the jump.

Continue reading "Tiger tracker - Day two" »

Editors’ note: Noel Blundell is a sports psychologist who works with elite athletes, including some of the world’s best golfers.

He was totally absorbed for two hours. Tiger walked into the grass bunker near the club house at the Australian Golf Club in Sydney and randomly tossed five golf balls into the grass. They wandered into a range of lies varying from the impossible to very challenging. He chose to play every ball from where it lay. No short cuts. There were no adoring crowds and he had shot 79 in the first round. Was this kid overrated?

Fortunately for myself and two colleagues Ken Berndt and Ian Triggs, we had chosen to take a break from working with one of our players Peter Senior who played the first 2 rounds with Tiger. It was chill time for us, sitting near the bunker with a couple of coffees reflecting on the day.

The ensuing couple of hours provided clear insights into the mental template of arguably the greatest golfer to grace the planet.

Continue reading "Eye on a young Tiger gave an insight into his mind" »

The Aussie Dolphins are in the doldrums. No doubt about it.

The Aussies are no longer the powerhouse that ruled the pool in 2001 at Fukuoka’s world championships.

The Dolphins peaked at Fukuoka. Ian Thorpe was on fire, breaking three world records in individual freestyle events. Grant Hackett smashed Kieren Perkins’ seemingly elusive world record in the 1500m freestyle. It was gold, gold, gold – a total of 13 gold medals to Australia.

Continue reading "Getting the Dolphins out of the doldrums" »

A few grouches have been rolling their eyes this week at the hysteria around Tiger Woods playing at the Australian Masters. I must admit to being a bit taken aback by the extremity of the hype but then you watch him go around this morning, sinking three birdies on the back nine to lead the field in the clubhouse and you remember.

The guy’s a freak.

Granted, he’s a freak with not much personality, but then for all their colourful trousers golfers are an unexciting species. The closest thing golf has produced to a John McEnroe or Diego Maradona is John Daly who likes to do a lot of eating, drinking and even (gasp!) smoking. Maradona, by contrast, was busted for cocaine use, spent time in hospital after overdoses and had to have his stomach stapled because it was the only way to stop him becoming morbidly obese.

Continue reading "What all the fuss is about" »

A TV rights technicality meant you couldn’t watch Tiger’s first round at the Australian Masters live. Russell Gould of the Herald Sun followed him around the course live-blogging the event. You can replay it over the jump.

Woods finished the clubhouse leader at six under par.

Continue reading "Tiger Woods, first round" »

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" »

Catch the Tiger Woods press conference on Nine and/or Fox Sports today? That, ladies and gentlemen, was the most cringeworthy 30 minutes of television I’ve seen in a long, long time.

I’m heading down to cover the tourney for Alpha magazine on Thursday. Wish I’d been there today, though. There are at least 10 REALLY DUMB QUESTIONS I could’ve asked which would’ve OUT-DUMBED even the DUMBEST questions the DUMB Oz media put forward. So here they are. Add yours in the comments.

1. No, but do you really, really, really, really, really, really, really like being in Australia?

Continue reading "10 dumber questions I could have asked Tiger Woods" »

This week a man who will likely become the greatest champion in the history of world sport has arrived on our shores for the first time since 1998 to play in golf’s Australian Masters. 

Amongst the greatest of his contemporaries there are only four who have managed to win three major championships. Tiger has won fourteen. 

Tiger is not just the best in the world, he is in a world of his own. Over the course of history sport has blessed us with a handful of such champions such as Ali and Jordan; but with the possible exception of Bradman none has soared so much higher above the rest than Tiger Woods. 

Continue reading "Catch this Tiger if you can cause it’s history on the green" »

The Harbour City is abuzz with excitement today at news that Kevin, um, Spacey has agreed to be the foundation coach of the AFL’s Western Sydney team.

The star of such films as American Beauty and The Usual Suspects, Spacey – no, hang on, it’s not him, it’s another Kevin. Some bloke called Kevin Sheedy.

Used to play for the Tigers – no, not Balmain, the Richmond Tigers, and he coached a bit for a team called Essendon. Apparently he’s quite the deal down there in Melbourne.

Continue reading "Stealth bomber Sheeds the top choice for Sydney’s west" »

Last week in Australian Football Weekly, I wrote a couple of disparaging remarks about Central Coast Mariners. Nothing too heavy, but I basically called them a team of grinding, featureless clones cultivated by coach Lawrie McKinna in a secret lab in Gosford.

Then, on Saturday night, they nipped down to Melbourne and duly gave the reigning champions, who had won six of their last seven, a hearty 4-zip spanking in their own backyard.

I’ll put my hands up – it was a great game. McKinna’s men wore Victory into the ground, and they were fast and clever in and around the box. They didn’t just ruin Melbourne’s party; they turned up, drank all the booze, pulled out some classic dance moves and went home with both the best-looking girls.

Continue reading "The Central Coast Mariners: We are the Robots" »

Like many Australians of my generation and background, there was hardly a weekend when my dad wasn’t taking me to a football ground.  In fact, Sunday meant Sunday School and soccer and the opportunity to catch up with all the people who spoke the same sporting language. 

Football clubs were the centrepiece of the social life of many migrant and refugee communities and many clubs became some of the great nurseries of football talent over subsequent years.

Since then, football’s popularity has grown across Australia and has expanded from the weekend ritual of migrant families to become the most popular sport for Aussie boys and, increasingly, girls. Its rising prominence in Australian culture comes at a time when the country is bidding for the FIFA World Cup to come here in either 2018 or 2022.

Continue reading "5.3 billion reasons the World Cup would be good for us" »

1. VIEWED
Barrier: 9. Jockey: Brad Rawiller. Trainer: Bart Cummings. Odds: $5
Last year, he was an anonymous 40-1 shot. This year, the ’08 winner is a raging hot favourite who’s added the ’09 Caulfield Cup to his rapidly bulging CV. If he wins, Bart Cummings will be made president of the new Australian republic, alive or dead.

2. C’EST LA GUERRE
Barrier: 7. Jockey: Nicholas Hall. Trainer: John Sadler. Odds: $25
His name means “it’s war”, but last year’s third placegetter won’t fire a shot this year. The jockey’s Dad, Greg Hall, famously waved his whip in triumph in ’97, only to lose in a photo. Young Nick won’t get the chance to make the same mistake this year.

Continue reading "The almost official Punch Melbourne Cup form guide" »

The only real winners in round 13 of the A-League were the competition’s two biggest teams to set up the most intriguing battle.

Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory both claimed impressive wins this weekend; Sydney’s dismissive 3-1 victory over Wellington and Melbourne grafting to a 2-1 win away at Perth.

Fans from the other eight clubs might disagree, but a battle for top spot between the two interstate rivals is just what the code needs right now.

Continue reading "Why the A-League needs a two horse race" »

So - members of the sporting community think its sacrilege for women to swan about in fashionable attire as horses race in the background (for in the background they most definitely are), do they? Well, I for one, think it’s cool.

Australia is a sporting nation but with almost every other sport, women get cast aside -  shunted to a cheerleader’s outfit or a cold seat on the sidelines. But with the races, we practically have complete run of the place.

Spring Carnival! Fashions on the Field!  Lawn parties! Make-up tents! Champagne! Vegetarian pies! Could it be any more female oriented?

Continue reading "Racing’s unrivalled appeal to both men and women" »

The spring racing carnival has been hijacked by fashonistas. And a motley assortment of B-listers, C-listers, gibberers, attention-seekers, hangers-on, creeps, drunks, wankers and wannabes.

I’ve never seen the fawning fashion media interrupt a Collete Dinnigan catwalk show to report the result of the fifth from Flemington. Why, then, should a racing carnival as short as an English summer share airtime with the frou-frou set?

When Jean Shrimpton shocked conservative Melbourne with her mini skirt in 1965 (the year Bart Cummings won his first Cup), fair enough. That, at least, was something approaching a real story.

Continue reading "It’s about racing, not fashion" »

Tomorrow, on the first Tuesday in November, millions of Australians will stop whatever they are doing for a few minutes to listen to or watch the Melbourne Cup. All over the country, people will tune into their radio or television for the race which stops a nation.

Much of the excitement of the event will be brought to them by a few race-callers, whose accuracy and colour will live on in their memories of the 2009 cup.

Racing without the callers would be dull. Yet for the first 64 years, there was no radio commentary of the race.

Continue reading "And they’re racing! How I learned to call a horse race" »

SO there we were performing a static hold in the push-up position down at the local park when the Dog Lady first came into our lives.

We heard her before she came into view, the swoosh of her nylon track pants and the tinkling bell on the collar of her Labradoodle cutting through the early morning silence.

“Good morning!” I said cheerfully as I got to my feet. “F…....g dickheads!” she bellowed in reply.

Continue reading "Abusing us park exercisers is a lazy national sport" »

Gold Coast United owner Clive Palmer has decided to save his club $100,000 every home game by capping the crowds at Skilled Park at 5000.

For mining billionaire Palmer, this makes perfect business sense. For anyone interested in furthering the football cause in Australia, it doesn’t even reach common sense.

Personally, I have two reactions to this story: first is the emotional fan who says this is an outrageous move that disregards the whole point of what Football Federation Australia were trying to achieve when they granted Palmer’s bid an A-League licence.

Continue reading "Gold Coast crowd cap means bad business for everyone" »

If blokes are honest, most of us would admit to behaving differently when there are no women around. While the extent of the change varies from guy to guy, most of us do things and say things we wouldn’t dream of doing or saying in female company.

Usually it’s low-level yobbo stuff - drunken anecdotes, sexual innuendo, a sneaky wee on the lemon tree – but for a minority of screwed-up blokes it involves a complete personality transformation where they drift into a shocking moral orbit, their macho posturing cheered on by their equally boorish buddies.

In the context of sport, particularly in light of Brendan Fevola’s unravelling and the car crash quality of Wayne Carey’s memoir, it’s clear that for many of our sporting heroes, life has been one extended boy’s night.

Continue reading "The boys’ clubs protecting our sporting yobbos" »

Over the past eight games between Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United, the tally stands Melbourne 8, Adelaide 0. I’d hate to be an Adelaide supporter.

I would literally be tearing my hair out, punching the bed, slamming doors, kicking the cat, and quite probably losing friends and alienating anyone I knew in Melbourne.

I should qualify that I have nothing against Adelaide; I’m actually a fan. They’re an honest team with some good players, they play good football and in Aurelio Vidmar have one of the best young coaches in the country.

Continue reading "Why Adelaide fans love losing to Melbourne" »

Morning, all. I’ve written a profile piece on Olympic and world Champion pole vaulter Steve Hooker in today’s Weekend Australian Magazine.

As I was writing the piece, I pretty much came to the conclusion that Hooker is Australia’s best current athlete in any sport. If not him, then who?

I’m going to run through a few candidates, then throw it over to you. But my vote goes to the 27 year old Victorian who, apart from being an absolute genius with a five metre pole in his hands, is one of the most natural, chatty, intelligent individuals on the sporting scene.

Continue reading "And Australia’s greatest living athlete is ..." »

Before Ben Cousins, there was Wayne Carey. The full forward from Wagga became the King of North Melbourne and the greatest train wreck of them all.

His legendary love of a bender – and a life without boundaries - culminated in a famous sex act somewhere between the tooth brush holder and the soap dish with his best mate’s wife.

Carey was the perfect example of a sports star whose self-loathing only increased the more the public fell in love with him. I don’t know if he’s ever met Andrew Johns, but you’d imagine they would have plenty to talk about.

Continue reading "Wayne Carey: Your typical angry white male" »

It would be interesting to know just how much longer our football administrators are prepared to tolerate the oafish behavior of some of the country’s top class players who seem hell bent on turning themselves into low rent non-celebrities.

Several names come to mind but first it might be just as well to take a look at the long term effects their actions might have on the hundreds of young blokes who look up to them as the sporting giants they once were and try to emulate their incredible achievements on the field.

Role modeling is an important part of growing up and it might be interesting to get the take on what’s been happening lately from the dads and mums and older brothers who devote their Saturday mornings taking the very young kids to Auskick.

Continue reading "Footballers don’t need to go public with their ‘problems’" »

The A-League is by no means the best football in the world, but as a competition, it’s better than the EPL.

I spend my week talking and writing about football and my weekends watching it - but I can’t get a single round of the A-League right in my tipping comp.

It’s an ongoing joke in the office that the editor of a weekly football magazine can’t get his tips right. Things are so bad even my art director’s beating me – trumped by a crayon monkey!

Continue reading "The A-League has it all over the English Premier League" »

SO Melbourne gets Tiger Woods. So what? Sydney got Long John Daly and, on behalf of this city of drunken misfits, I say we couldn’t be happier.

Sure, the man they call “Wild Thing” isn’t exactly sweating Tiger in the rankings or snapping up Nike contracts bigger than the GDP of African nations.

Truth be known Daly, whose financial nous could have seen him make the board of Enron, is flat broke. He was selling t-shirts out of his car at the US Masters and depends largely on the proceeds of his
psychedelic golf trouser label to pay the bills.

Continue reading "All hail the Wild Man of golf" »

Remember the good old days of Australian soccer, when a 0-0 draw to the Dutch would spark jubilation in the crowd, shirt swapping on the pitch and a victory speech from the coach?

I can almost picture old Eddie Thompson saying how delighted he was with the result, and what a privilege it was for his boys to mix it with some of Europe’s finest. Eddie, a wonderful servant of the game and one sadly missed, would be delighted with 1-0 losses, such was our standing in the game and the lack of really meaningful matches.

How times have changed. Saturday night’s draw was dire. We should have been beaten comfortably. It exposed a host of deficiencies.  And thanks to the game’s new-found maturity in this country, people are not afraid to admit it.

Continue reading "What the Socceroos have to do before the World Cup" »

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" »

Soccer has all the ingredients to capture the imagination of Australia’s sporting public in the same way the AFL and NRL grand finals have done. All the ingredients are there except one: common sense.

The facts are this: football - as it has been rebranded - has the highest registered participation rate of all the football codes in this country.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more kids play football than AFL and NRL combined. So why aren’t the kids and their parents filling the stadiums at A-League games?

Continue reading "Why aren’t these kids growing up A-League fans?" »

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?" »

Following England’s cricketers on Twitter is becoming almost as entertaining as watching them on the field.

Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson led the way, giving us the inside track on everything from room service meals to the perils of only packing two pairs of underpants for a tour.

Swann, in particular, went the extra mile by providing details of a stomach bug he picked up.

Continue reading "English cricketers do something right" »

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" »

Hundreds of thousands of fans and millions of dollars worth of sponsorship and merchandise sales can’t be wrong, but for a small clique of passionate motorsport fans born in the 50s and 60s, the annual Bathurst event is struggling to arouse our passion.

Bathurst is wedged in that twilight zone between the end of the footy season and the start of cricket, when a young man’s fancy turns to things racing on four wheels and four legs. Bathurst Sunday was once a holy day of obligation. 

You locked the doors and drew the curtains and sat for 8 hours oblivious to the wife’s hurrumphs and the kid’s pleading eyes. I even timed a certain, erm, conception-negating operation for the Saturday so I had an excuse to sit around all Sunday.

Continue reading "Why the Bathurst racing isn’t what it used to be" »

This is not a League v Union v AFL v Soccer rant. This is about whether we can agree that sport is important. If we agree it is important, then surely we can work together to do it better.

Sport can be part of a coordinated strategy to get a number of results - we need healthier kids, we need people to think binge drinking isn’t acceptable, we need people to want to solve conflict without violence.  We need more kids to dream, big.

The ugly argument about what is better - thugby league, yawnion, gayfl or wogball - is as sophomoric as those phrases are offensive.

Continue reading "The power of sport" »

It’s about time I came clean. Some 31 years ago I masterminded an elaborate swindle involving the starving kiddies of Africa and some of my closest family and friends where I fraudulently solicited $17 by falsely claiming to have completed the World Vision 40-Hour Famine.

In truth I only completed some four hours of the famine which, from memory, started just after breakfast on a Saturday morning, and immediately fell apart shortly afterwards at the Unley Oval, home ground of Adelaide’s Sturt Football Club.

I wrongly told Dad and Uncle Bruce that I had to go to the merchandise caravan to buy another badge for my duffle coat (with Phil 16 Heinrich stitched on the back in blue letters) but snuck off instead to the rear of what is now the Jack Oatey Stand where they used to make the greatest steak sandwiches in recorded human history.

Continue reading "A grand old flag: the emblem of the teams we love" »

In July 2006, I was standing in a queue at Charles De Gaulle airport with my wife and daughter when I heard a slightly high-pitched, Australian voice behind me.

Looking around, I recognised the man whom we had watched the day before finish fifth in the Tour de France on the Champs-Elysees.

He was later elevated to fourth in that first “post-Lance” tour after the winner, Floyd Landis, was disqualified for using drugs. It was the best result ever for an Australian, eclipsing Phil Anderson’s two fifth placings in La Grand Boucle.

Continue reading "Cadel Evans’s humility hid his brilliance from critics" »

UPDATE 4.20pm Wednesday: Carlton has just announced they have dumped Fevola. You can read about at the Herald Sun here. The following was posted by Anthony Sharwood yesterday afternoon:

It’s starting to look likely that Brendan Fevola will be sacked from Carlton after his Brownlow Medal night antics.

At least, that’s what the tssk tssk-ocracy is baying for. If Fev is booted, the Sydney Swans must swoop. As Homer Simpson would say: this must happen, this should happen and this must happen.

Twice, the Swans have poached troubled key forwards from Melbourne and twice it has been a huge success for player, club and city.

Continue reading "If no one else wants Fevola, Sydney should grab him" »

Television ratings from the weekend’s big finals clashes will confirm for most that Australians love nothing more than large chaps smashing each other in pursuit of a football.

(Why would you watch sport when you can watch Antiques Roadshow, this is great)

But there is now evidence that we are not as sports-mad as we might think.

A new survey reveals that the number of TV viewers who think there is too much sport on their regular channels is greater than those who think there is not enough.

Continue reading "Enough with sport, we might not be that keen on it" »

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" »

Never underestimate the power of camaraderie. It’s the making of a champion team.

Mateship is the very thing that attracts players to sporting teams. The social fabric of a team – and club – is just as powerful as the skill and endeavour of its players.

A champion team will always beat a team of champions. The Cats put this case to rest on Saturday afternoon, after surviving an epic battle against St Kilda in the AFL Grand Final.

Continue reading "The Cats: a champion team, a team of mates" »

THOUGHT I might wander out to ANZZZZZ Stadium tonight for the Parra v Dogs game. Who knows? Maybe 70,000 screaming westies can breathe some life into the old Homebush morgue.

The majority of the crowd will be watching Jarryd Hayne, the kid in the red boots who plays every game as if it’s backyard footy and his mum’s about to call him inside for the night.
Me? I’m there to see Hindy, the shaggy-haired old-timer whose work-rate literally leaves his arse hanging out of his shorts at the end of the 80 minutes. Whose sway back and puddin’ guts gives him the look of a brickie in an age when footballers spend more time in Sydney Confidential than the sports pages.

Continue reading "Shaggy-haired old-timer gives everything to game" »

Losing is not something we like to talk about much at this time of year.

We’re reminded of the greatest premiership winning teams, the possibility of St. Kilda or Parramatta breaking the drought or Geelong or Melbourne Storm cementing their place as real champion teams.

But given that the team or individual that we follow is more often going to lose the premiership, not win the gold, or fail at the World Cup, our experiences with losing are arguably are more important in defining our support of the team or person than that of winning.

So in the lead up to the two biggest sporting weekends of the year The Punch writers have compiled, in no particular order, the ten teams or people that have let us down or just not performed when it mattered in Australia’s recent sporting history. What are yours?

Continue reading "Our ten biggest sporting losers" »

Australia loves a winner, but not with the same affection as we love a loser.

Our entire national psyche is built on it. Triumph over adversity is great, but what is more important is effort.

Ned Kelly fought the law, and lost, and we loved him for it.

Continue reading "A red hot Aussie go:  a brief history of our love of losing" »

I loved this team and still do but, like most things we love at one time or another, it my broke heart.

Neville Wran was wrong when he said Balmain boys don’t cry: they cry a lot when you’re seven and the Tigers lose the Grand Final.

While writing this I’ve come to the spooky realisation that today is exactly the 20 year anniversary of that fateful afternoon on September 24 1989: Balmain Tigers vs Canberra Raiders NSW RL Grand Final.

Continue reading "Balmain 1989: 20 years on the Grand Final still hurts" »

Conduct on the sporting field often reflects the values of our society.

As a young lad growing up in Western Sydney and attending Catholic Schools in the 1980s and 1990s it was almost pre-ordained that I would play rugby league - the game that the Patrician Brothers taught me was the game “they played in heaven”.

While the behaviour I witnessed on the sporting field was less than saintly, rugby league became a great training ground for me and many of my team mates as we sought to grow and develop as young boys on the road to manhood.

Continue reading "Some of the spectators are as bad as on-field thugs" »

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" »

News broke yesterday afternoon that the New Zealand bowls’ four (yep, bowls) tanked a game in the Asia-Pacific championships in Malaysia last month.

Reports state that as a result of NZ’s poor performance, the Canadian side failed to progress to the championship playoffs. One Black Jack has been stood down as a result despite denying the match-fixing allegations.

No word on how the NZ economy has reacted to the news or if Prime Minister Key is donning his whites in preparation of a statement from the Blockhouse Bay bowling green.

Continue reading "I bet you won’t believe what’s going on in the bowls" »

A funny thing happened on the way out of the glamorous Punch TV studios yesterday. As we stood in the carpark waiting for Penbo to remember where he’d left the Commodore, a heavy-looking dude called out: “Oy, what’s this show The Punch and how come I’m not on it?”

It was world cruiserweight champion Danny Green, stepping out of the shadows with his hand extended and a mischievous grin spreading across his face.

We explained that despite Penbo and Tors being, ahem, avid fight fans, it was in fact a politics and current affairs show (although I reckon there’s a spot for Greeny on the panel somewhere down the track.)

The mood was upbeat until we got around to the topic of the paedophile Dennis Ferguson, whose situation we had just spent a fair slice of the show discussing with Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek.

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