from the land down under ....

July 2008 

Rugby League

The 2008 Centenary season of the NRL has been full of upsets, controversy, injuries and drama, but as we head into the 19^th Round, the cream is starting to float to the top.

The Manly Sea-Eagle sit alone on the top of the table with just 4 losses from 16 games, but there are 3 teams hot on their heels. The Storm, Roosters and Sharks are looking to round out the top 4, but after the Sharks lost heavily to Manly last weekend, they might just be hoping to scrape into the 8.

The battle for the last few places in the 8 will be tough with the Broncos, Panthers, Knights, Eels, Raiders, Tigers and Warriors all in striking distance. Not to mention the Rabbitohs who have pulled off 5 come from behind victories in the last 5 weeks to put pressure on the pack.

State of Origin has been completed for 2008 with the Queenslanders once again coming out on top with a comprehensive series win culminating in a 16-10 win at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney to clinch their 3^rd series in a row. This was done without the assistance of Lockyer for Game’s 1 and 3 as he battles injuries.

The big news in the game is the exodus of players to English Super League clubs, with the Dragons’ Mark Gasnier the latest to defect. He joins no less than 90 Australian players that are playing in the English Super League competition. As clubs are struggling to survive and players being offered multi-million dollar contracts in England, it could be a tough time ahead for Rugby League in Australia.

The Rugby League World Cup will commence at the completion of the season and it will be interesting to see if New Zealand or England can challenge Australia on home turf. It’s hard to consider any other serious contenders from such teams as Papua New Guinea, France and Samoa.

Aussie Rules

For some, the AFL Season of 2008 will be one to forget with several prominent teams failing to make an impression this season.

Whilst the ever impressive Geelong Cats have only been dealt one loss this season, and the Bulldogs and Hawks sit 2 and 4 points off the lead respectively, the rest of the field are hanging on. If you count out the 2 West Australian teams, Port Adelaide and Melbourne from the field, you have 9 teams battling for 5 spots in the Top 8.

The Swans’ Barry Hall has had a tumultuous season with multiple suspensions for smacking out opposition players, leading to an ‘indefinite ban’ from Swans senior players.

Big Dean Solomon from Fremantle has been handed an 8 week suspension for an elbow hit on Geelong midfield Cameron Ling which smashed his cheek bone. He won’t play again this year, whilst Ling will miss 4 – 6 weeks.

Hawthorns Lance Frankling is topping the goalscorers list (much to the editors pleasure I am sure!) with 70 goals so far this season. Brendan Favola from Carlton is 6 goals behind before a gap of 10 to Matthew Pavlich from Fremantle.

The Other Football (aka Soccer)

Australia’s new football coach Pim Verbeek is happy that Australia has progressed through to the 2^nd round of the Asian Qualifying section for the 2010 World Cup.

They will now have to play home and away matches against Japan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain and Qatar. If they can secure a top 2 finish in this table they will directly qualify for the World Cup to be played in South Africa in 2010. If they finish 3^rd, they will have a few more games to play with a playoff against the 3^rd team from the other table and then a tie with the winner from the Oceania region (most likely New Zealand).

With Harry Kewell throwing his weight behind the team’s qualification matches and great support from Emerton, Schwarzer, Neill and a recovering Cahill, Australia should be able to grab one of the top 2 spots and attempt to emulate the 2006 success and the World Cup.

The A League pre-season has commenced with a rematch of last years final between the Newcastle Jets (the premiers) and Central Coast Mariners being played in Canberra last weekend. An easy win was secured by the Mariners, 3-0, in front of a soccer-starved Canberra crowd of just under 5,000 people.

Speaking of Canberra soccer, there is a big push for Canberra to be given an A-League team in future seasons. Join this petition if you are interested in helping!(http://nearpost.blogspot.com)

Rugby Union

With the Super 14’s complete for another year (The Crusaders won AGAIN, beating the Waratahs 20 – 14 in the final), focus is turned to the Tri Nations which have commenced with New Zealand and South Africa already playing each other twice with a win a piece.

Australia have thrashed France in 2 internationals in recent weeks but commence their Tri Nations tilt on Saturday night against South Africa in Perth. Unfortunately it seems that more Springbok fans travel over to Perth for this game than Australians, but hopefully the Wallabies will give them what for.

Cycling

The Tour De France is currently underway and Australia’s Cadel Evans is the favourite to take it out after a gutsy 2^nd last year. After the 10^th stage he has snagged the yellow leaders jersey in the Pyrenees by a whole 1 second and has a good chance of keeping it if he can avoid the tangles in the main field (peloton).

Moto-GP

Last years champion Casey Stoner has had a slow start to the season, but has won the last 3 Moto-GP races to pull within 20 points of Championship leader Valentino Rossi. His surge has come at a good time if he wants to win back to back Championships, but will have his work cut out against 5 time winner Rossi.

Australia’s Chris Vermeulen is also making an impression on the field with a 3^rd in the German MotoGP and postioned 7^th overall on the ladder.

Tennis

Wimbledon has been run and won for 2008 with Australia’s chances making it has far as the 4^th round when Hewitt losing to Federer in straight sets and in the women’s, Casey Dellacqua made it to the 3^rd round, but lost to Nicole Vaidisova.

Basketball

There have been 2 big news items in basketball over the last week or so. Firstly, the Sydney Kings have collapsed under financial pressure and no longer will have a team in the NBL competition, even though they narrowly lost to the Melbourne Tigers in the finals of the 2008 competition.

The West Sydney Razorbacks have survived and renamed themselves to be the ‘Sydney Spirit’. The NBL has been struggling financially for years, but hopefully it can rebound (pun intended) to become a popular Australian sport again.

In NBA news, Australia’s Andrew Bogut has just re-signed with the Milwaukee Bucks on an astonishing $75 Million over 5 years. This places him just under Greg Norman in the highest paid Australian sporting stars around the world. How I wish I was tall…and had talent.

Bogut will be spear-heading the Australian Boomers at the Olympics in the hope of snagging a medal against the fancied US team.

The Olympics

The Beijing Olympics are just around the corner and of course there will be any manner of Aussies to come out of the woodwork and become national sporting heroes during this time.

Already we have the disappointment of Jana Rawlinson (nee Pittman) pulling out of her hurdling events which she was ranked No.1 in the world at because of a toe injury.

Our swimming team will surely secure our majority of medals, but we are highly fancied in Cycling, Hockey, Basketball and Soccer.

A special Olympics edition in the next issue of The Goss!