History was made this week when ‘rugby league’, ‘Voldemort’ and ‘free speech’ were used in the same press conference. And while I rarely venture into the cauldron of rugby league commentary, it’s hard to resist a word combination like that. Canterbury coach Des Hasler was having a bit of a snot after copping a $10,000…
Category: Footy
A day in the life of a remote control thumb
8am: The human is particularly excited this morning, talking about a big night of sport and checking the batteries in the remote. This looks ominous. 9am: Now, she’s carb loading. Banana pancakes. Which I’m expected to help her cook, by the way. Midday: So, it seems tonight I am to navigate the Australian Open women’s…
The year in sport… in song
Who better than Miley Cyrus and the cast of Deliverance, among others, to recap some of the highlights — and lowlights — of the year in sport? Budget schmudget Vladimir Putin spent $US51 billion staging the Sochi Olympics, more than every other Winter Games combined. It wasn’t enough to adequately furnish the facilities, light up…
The Christmas Truce of 1914
You’re as close to hell on earth as you can get, stuck in a frozen muddy trench a few hundred metres across from a bunch of blokes trying to kill you. It’s five months into a conflict so devastating they’ll call it the Great War and — at least for the next twenty years —…
Catch a falling star…
It was a classic own goal. Having successfully offloaded serial biter Luis Suarez in July after he took a chunk out of Italy’s Giorgio Cheillini during the World Cup, the powers that be at Liverpool Football Club could look forward to some relative peace and quiet. All they had to do was hire a less…
A tale of two minnows
These are two stories with very different endings. Of two Davids taking on their Goliaths. One was a lamb to the slaughter. But one prevailed. Let’s start with the lamb. During the 2003 Rugby World Cup, I had the pleasure of watching the All Blacks get beaten twice in one afternoon. First I took in…
Wanderers have fairytale ending in sight
It’d be hard to find a more passionate bunch of sports fans than those that don the black and red in support of the Western Sydney Wanderers. This is them doing a jig called the Poznan. And here they are doing their chant which, for the uninitiated, goes: “Who do we sing for? We sing…
Jarryd Hayne’s Plan B
At the beginning of each year, Aussie starlings flock to Los Angeles in search of the juicy but random morsels to be found in the feeding ground that is the US TV pilot season. It’s a notoriously difficult passage. Many will vanish without trace, gobbled up by fat industry predators. Others will land in Hollywood’s…
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