sidelined

It’s summer, so my perusal of the Realfooty page of The Age is sporadic, but it’s a good time of year for thinking about the future. As some of you are aware, the AFL has just conducted its draft picks. The selectors rank the aspirant draftees at national draft camp, just after season’s end, and [...]

Poor old Stuey MacGill. He is one of the best leg spinners Australia has ever produced but also the unluckiest given the presence of one SK Warne. Left out of the squad for the Second test, one wonders is this the end for Stuey? He may get a run in Sydney but only if Shane [...]

Les Scheinflug nails it. Do we want to be a retirement village or a serious competition that wants to produce young, exciting Australian players? I think the clubs would be better off spending the huge money they are wasting on some guest players on youth development. I was talking to someone who was at the [...]

Some people say that the current Ashes series is crap. I don’t agree. Watching the Poms get smashed by the Aussies is, by definition, delightful. Who cares if England barely scores a run in the entire series? That’s what the Ashes are for. Rafe, methinks epic verse is the appropriate epic form to celebrate this [...]

Damir Dokic is claiming that his daughter Jelena has been kidnapped. Damir Dokic claims his daughter Jelena Dokic has been kidnapped in Croatia by her former tennis coach and an ex-boyfriend. Dokic, the former world number four, had been training in Germany with former Croatian tennis star Mikola Pilic before travelling to Zagreb in Croatia. [...]

It’s finally on! Have your say on the progress of the First Test at the Gabba in the comments.

Well, I’m hanging by my thumbs for the first day of the Brisbane Test, hoping and praying I’ll be able to slope off early and watch some of it on the telly. Last year, I shouldn’t have watched as much as I did (a fair whack of the series fell in my exam block). This [...]

I am almost too disappointed to write this. Frankly, what a waste of a game. I suggested before that the backline selection was illogical, and indeed two people who had never played together in the centres before turned out, against arguably the best centre pairing in the world, to be a liability not a magical [...]

Experience the magic that is Critical Mass – and encourage the State Government (and opposition) to do more to support cycling – and walking and public transport, by riding over that lovely Bridge thingummy in Sydney. 5:30pm Friday 24 November Meet: Hyde Park Fountain (north end) Arrive: In your own, human powered, individual way, or [...]

“I only hoped that I wanted to swim half as much as other people want me to.” So a glittering swimming career ends, at the tender age of 24. As Thorpe has apparently said, ‘I’m a 24 year old, and I’m only just 24 as well.’ I guess it’s a ripe old age if one [...]