The Wallabies’ win over Scotland by a single point was lucky you say, after their goalkicker missed an easy penalty goal with nothing left on the clock?
Maybe. But aren’t our blokes due a little luck? When you remember the appalling circumstances of the Wallabies’ loss to the All Blacks in the first Bledisloe Test three months ago – penalised for time-wasting just as Bernard Foley was in the process of kicking it out – can we not agree that our blokes deserve about five “one-point lucky wins” before we call it all even on the card?
And I’ll be happy with one this weekend, against the French.
Yes, yes, yes – oui, oui, oui, all the way home – it will be difficult task, given France are the incumbent champions of the Six Nations, playing at home, and have won their last 10 Tests straight. As a nation building to next year’s World Cup at home, they are nothing if not strong.
But against that, our blokes beat them in thrilling fashion in the three-Test series last year. And as to the one-point margin, that too has to be a better-than-usual chance given the last five Tests between Australia and France have been decided by three points or less.
As I said long ago to the late Greg Growden in slightly similar circumstances, I predict that instead of the French having a rendezvous with destiny, they have an appointment with disappointment!
Diamonds captain Liz Watson holds the Constellation Cup after beating New Zealand.Credit:Getty
Paying a Visit
Ah, how sweet it was.
You’ll recall TFF writing in this space a fortnight ago that, as upsetting as the whole Hancock Prospecting/Diamonds sponsorship imbroglio was, the value of the national team’s “brand”, if you will, had actually been enhanced by the players’ solidarity with each other, and that a new sponsor would soon emerge.
“Sponsors like Hancock Prospecting are not thick on the ground,” I wrote. “But here’s the thing. The Diamonds have now marked their names in the sand: ‘We are more than human billboards. If we wear something, you can believe that we believe in it, too’. That has real value.”
Sure enough, just as the critics were dancing on the Diamonds’ grave with unseemly glee – carrying on with endless repetitions of the “go woke, go broke” mantra, and predicting further financial disaster – who should emerge this week but the Victorian government, essentially stepping up where Hancock Prospecting stepped back!
The Diamonds will now wear Visit Victoria logos, encouraging fellow Australians and global audiences to spend their tourism dollars in the southern state. The netballers will also play five Test matches in Victoria over four years; the Super Netball grand final will be played there next year; and a good chunk of the $15 million sponsorship deal will go to supporting grassroots netball.
I am not sure what the netball equivalent of a “slam dunk” is, but this was that kind of win for both parties.
As to the tight band of bitter criticism levelled at the Andrews government for doing the deal, please. This was not vast swaths of public money thrown at sport on things like replacing 30-year-old stadiums and building the so-called “centres of excellence” that, even on the government’s own figures, will never pay for itself. It was a drop in the ocean of the Vic’s tourism marketing budget, and the goodwill it engendered with the move – goodwill, which is priceless on top of having a great product to spruik – will see a return on the money many times over.
Brendan McClements, the CEO of Visit Victoria, who I talked to on Friday, says, “We’ve never had a reaction like it. So many of our tourist operators have been so enthusiastic, and report the interest has been immense. We couldn’t be more pleased with how it has been received.”
McClements also mentioned he had just received a personal note of congratulations from Sarah Derry, the CEO of Accor Hotels – the biggest accommodation provider in Victoria – keen to work with them on the sponsorship and regarding it as a “win-win for all and certainly Tourism in Victoria.”
Racing to the bottom
Goodness!
What is the explanation for 350,000 fewer of us watching this year’s Melbourne Cup than last year?
“From a TV perspective,” this masthead reported, “the free-to-air ratings continued their decline year-on-year . . . Paramount said its race audience across television and 10Play averaged 1.5 million viewers nationally, down from 1.85 million in 2021.”
Most significantly, it was the fewest viewers on record, which takes us back over the last couple of decades. My explanation? Simply that, from the moment it became socially acceptable a few years ago to say “Horse racing? Yeah . . . nah,” more and more people are doing exactly that.
The Don takes aim
Oh, all right. With the Windies cricket team soon arriving to play a couple of Tests, it is time to retell my favourite yarn from their halcyon days in the 1980s, one first told to me by Australia’s former fast bowler Mike Whitney.
See, as Whit tells the story, on a stinking hot summer’s day at the Adelaide Oval in the February of 1989, none other than Merv Hughes goes out to face the might of the West Indies pace attack, with no one expecting him to last long. But Merv starts swinging. Sometimes he hits, sometimes he misses, sometimes he snicks it through the slips for boundaries, somehow or other by the close of play, he has put together a stunning 72 not out!
Patrick Patterson bowling in Adelaide in 1989.Credit:Bryan Charlton
The way Whitney tells it, the first one into the Windies dressing room at the close of the day’s play was Merv himself, armed with beer and determined to give them a blow-by-blow description of his innings.
Merv keeps guzzling and chatting as the West Indians get in and out of the showers and towel themselves down, and everyone is having a fine old time until suddenly . . . szzzzzzzzzt . . . everything falls quiet.
They look to the door and there is the great man himself, Sir Donald Bradman, being ushered in by several South Australian cricket officials, as the octogenarian had expressed a desire to meet this amazing team. Sure enough, as Sir Donald is introduced one by one, each West Indian stands up, reverentially shakes his hand, and has a few words.
This goes swimmingly until they get to the last man left on the bench, who pauses before standing. It is Patrick Patterson, two metres of pure whipcord steel, one of the fastest bowlers the world has ever seen. He has just got out of the showers and now rises, his towel wrapped around him, the steam rising from his rippling muscles as the whole gathering leans in.
What is going to happen?
Towering over the diminutive Sir Donald, Patterson bursts out with a disbelieving: “You, Sir Donald Bradman? You, Sir Donald Bradman? I kill you, mon. I bowl at you, I split you in two, mon!”
Sir Donald looks up at him and without hesitation said, “You couldn’t even get f—ing Merv Hughes out. You’d be no hope against me, mate!”
I know, such a good yarn has to be embellished, yes?
When I asked Whitney on Friday morning, he replied.
“It’s more or less true! One thing I always say is nobody had ever heard The Don curse or swear. He did that day!”
What they said
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews on sponsoring the Diamonds: “We are really thrilled today to be able to announce a four-and-a-half-year sponsorship deal where Visit Victoria will become a significant sponsor for the Australian Diamonds netball team. This is a coup for our state. Obviously there was a sponsor. That sponsor was no more, so there was a gap and Visit Victoria raced to fill it.”
Reverend Tim Costello on the federal government tweaking sports gambling ads, so they will soon finish with something more gritty than the supremely anodyne, “gamble responsibly”: “It’s a good step forward. It’s not enough when we have 943 sports betting ads on free-to-air TV a day. A responsible step from the government would be to actually limit or ban – as Italy and Spain have done – all sports betting ads”.
Nationals Leader David Littleproud lends impressive support: “I believe changes to gambling ads don’t go far enough. We need to have a conversation about whether or not gambling ads should be on at all.”
Laurent Frayssinous.Credit:Getty
France coach Laurent Frayssinous, after they lost 62-4 to Samoa at the Rugby League World Cup: “But I don’t want to summarise our World Cup by the scoreboard we saw tonight.” Exactly. Judge us by the stylish cut of our uniforms.
Zoe Goss, who got Brian Lara out in 1994, on how the WACA wants to put a statue of her out the front: “I’ve always been intrigued about how amazing that night was and how long it lasted because I honestly thought it was just my 15 minutes of fame and then I’d move on with my life, but here I am.”
English soccer pundit Jamie Carragher on the upcoming World Cup: “I think it’s an absolute disgrace the World Cup is in the position that it’s in for lots of reasons. It was corrupt that Qatar were given the World Cup, we knew that at the time . . . The stuff that goes on in their country is a completely different issue, but I think it’s absolutely disgusting.”
Jake Trbojevic on the pride jumper imbroglio: “I understand their biggest thing is religion, my biggest thing is footy.”
Craig Young and the letter supporting Brett Finch.Credit:Twitter, NRL Photos
Craig Young on resigning as chairman of the Dragons after he gave Brett Finch a reference on official club letterhead: “I believe this is the appropriate action, given my individual decision to provide a personal reference on official letterhead, for which I have already apologised. I regret my error in judgment to provide the reference on letterhead, at the request of legal representatives. I do not regret my decision to provide a character reference for a long-time family friend, as to his character and behaviour prior to a damaging addiction.”
Sir Michael Parkinson in his new book My Sporting Life: “I’ve never believed the adage that ‘sport is the opiate of the people’. It is not a blindfold to the firing squad nor an anaesthetic against the evil world. Rather I believe that for some of us sport, at best, uplifts our very souls, engages all our senses, describes that ultimate in human achievement, the perfect interlocking of the physical and the intellectual.”
Brooklyn Nets forward Kyrie Irving on tweeting anti-Semitic content: “Please stop calling it a promotion. What am I promoting? I put it out there, just like you put things out there. You put things out there for a living, right? Let’s move on. Don’t dehumanise me up here.” You can put out awful offal that vilifies particular races or you can say “don’t dehumanise me”, but I don’t think you can do both.
England rugby captain Sarah Hunter on their tactics: “A lot has been said about the driving maul and how we’re scoring tries. But, ultimately, no one’s going to look back and go, ‘Oh, how did England score?’ They look at the result and if it isn’t broke you don’t need to fix it. I don’t think there’s any concerns within ourselves about how we want to play or what we’re doing at the minute. If it’s not working, we know we’ve got other things to go to.”
Dragon Zac Lomax on the length of the NRL season: “At the end of the day, the season is probably long enough.”
Team of the Week
Ashley Chandrasinghe. The 20-year-old scored a century on debut for Victoria in the Sheffield Shield, if you remember that.
Tess Flintoff. Her 16-ball half-century is the fastest 50 in Women’s Big Bash League history.
Wallabies. Beat Scotland by a point last week. Take on France in Paris this weekend.
Nathan Cleary. Won the battle for the Kangaroos halfback spot over Daly Cherry-Evans.
Max Verstappen. Broke the record for wins in a season with his 14th at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Dustin Johnson. Ended the first LIV season by taking home $35.6 million. As for the golf, I have no more idea than you do. The excitement does not seem to go any further than the money, yes?
Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis. Qualified for the upcoming ATP doubles finals.
RIP Alan “Froggy” Thomson. The Australian fast bowler who “bowled off his front leg like a frog in a windmill” and took the first wicket in men’s one-day international cricket died this week, aged 76.
RIP Kenny Williams. The iconic Swans supporter passed away, aged 93.
Twitter: @Peter_Fitz
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