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BOMBER REPAIR PIECING TOGETHER ESSENDON

EDDIE JONES

BACK TO BEAT THE WALLABIES

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JUNE 2016

Essendon faced a scenario in 2016 that no other AFL club has ever had to contemplate. So the Bombers went searching for some accidental heroes.

BY ROBERT DRANE

52 THE MAN BEHIND THE MACHINE Paul Gallen has been NSW’s mainstay through tough times.

But tough is what Gallen does.

Plus: Origin’s top ten enforcers.

BY JAMES SMITH

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61 BOX SCORE Optus’ surprise swoop for EPL rights shook up the television sport landscape, but it’s only the start. Hold onto your remote ...

BY SIMON CANNING

68 KEEP CALM AND EDDIE ON Took Australia to a World Cup final, guided Japan to a global rugby breakthrough. Now with England, can Eddie Jones cast off the Poms’ reputation as underachievers?

Plus: Jones vs Michael Cheika.

BY MATT CLEARY

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Features

44 THE REPLACEMENTS

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IT MIGHT BE THE MOST DELICIOUS COACHING MATCH-UP IN SPORT THIS YEAR – EDDIE JONES VS MICHAEL CHEIKA.

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10

NE of my most distinct, early memories in sportswriting occurred in a Canberra newsroom, when I picked up a colleague’s phone. Raspy voice at the other end of the line: “Can I speak to Gary?” Sure, and may I ask who’s calling? “Eddie Jones.”

For a still-new cadet journo, this was a pretty cool moment. The thenBrumbies coach calls us back.

This recollection came to mind during a recent holiday, in which I was travelling in Japan. Idly wandering around an opulent Kyoto shopping mall, hanging from the mezzanine was a giant portrait image of Jones, looking every bit the guru who had guided the nation to a paradigm-shattering victory over South Africa. It had a tinge of Spinal Tap to it – the ex-Wallabies coach, big in Japan – but it was hard not to be impressed by how far he’d come. Way to go, Eddie.

Now, Jones has England. And that’s enough to worry the rest of the world, as he points the Poms toward a triumphant return to Japan for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Matt Cleary’s story gets into the how and why of Jones’ success at every coaching stop, as well as what might be the most delicious coaching match-up in any sporting contest to be seen in the country this year – Jones vs Michael Cheika.

This time of year also brings on perhaps the biggest recurring spectacle of the Australian sporting calendar, State of Origin. Paul Gallen has been a fixture for NSW during a period that hasn’t been kind to the Blues, but he’s left an indelible mark on rugby league’s grandest stage, as well as a few Queensland players. James Smith caught up with Gallen as he approaches what might be his last time out for his state. And Origin’s position as a television ratings powerhouse calls to mind another of our features this month, as Mumbrella’s Simon Canning takes a look at Optus’ move for the rights to the English Premier League and what it portends for the near-future of sport on television – in short, there’ll be no shortage of games to watch, but how we’ll choose to watch is the question.

Jeff Centenera Deputy Editor www.insidesport.com.au

Join us on Twitter @InsideSportmag

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CLEVER FOXES Over the years there have been some awesome upsets in the world of sport. Australia winning the America’s Cup after 132 years of domination by the Yanks; Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson at 42/1; Japan beating the Springboks at the recent Rugby World Cup and who could forget Michelle Payne’s victory on an 80/1 outsider in the Melbourne Cup. But in the world of football, now a big business run by oil oligarchs and the like, there really is no room for fairytale stories.

In the EPL, only four teams have won the title in the last 20 years.

Leicester City finished 14th last year and their best result ever was second in 1929. Their odds for this season: 5000/1. This surely is the greatest sports result of all time; to stick it to the big boys beggars belief, and maybe a movie couldn’t even do justice to the enormity of the mountain they have just climbed. Well played, Foxes. Revel in your glory. This is why we love sport so much.

– Greg Whelan, via email

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FORWARD PLANNING

STATUESQUE

For the future years of 2026-2030, Australia should put in a bid for three major sporting events: the 2026 FIFA World Cup, 2028 Olympics and the 2030 Commonwealth Games. In particular, even though Australia put in a bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup which went to Qatar, and there have been corruption scandals in the FIFA organisation, Australia should put in a new bid for the 2026 event. FIFA has had a change in senior management and is now more accountable; an Australian bid could receive a lot stronger consideration than the 2022 bid.

Like the 2022 bid, a 2026 bid for the FIFA World Cup will need to have Federal and State Government support.

Australia has hosted two successful Olympic Games, Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000. Let’s also put in a bid to host a third Olympic Games for 2028. As Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympics, Melbourne and Brisbane could be candidate cities to host the 2028 Olympics.

With the support from the Australian Olympic Committee, the Federal and the Victorian or Queensland State Governments, let’s start working on a serious bid for the 2028 Olympic Games. While we’re at it, let’s start planning on a bid for the 2030 Commonwealth Games now. It will give us plenty of time to work on a strong bid, seeing as though the sporting facilities that would be used for the 2018 event would still be current and new.

If Australia was successful at winning the rights to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2028 Olympic Games and the 2030 Commonwealth Games, it would be great international promotion for Australia and Australian expertise. All these would attract strong corporate sponsorship which would offset a lot of the costs to stage these events. Another thing the Federal and State Governments and the Australian Olympic Committee should try to do is to get Australia admitted into the Asian Games. This is something Australia should start working on NOW. – Malcolm Webster, Boronia, Vic

I was a friend of Peter Norman when I was young (The Outer, May 2016 issue).

I used to train with him opposite the zoo. He used to train with Neville Sillitoe, who was an athletics trainer. During the off season, Peter would run the boundary for West Brunswick Amateurs with Gary Holdsworth. When Peter’s athletics finished, he played football for them. He loved it and they loved him. I remember him cutting up a sheep for me, as he was a butcher. I am all in favour of a statue to honour him, as he stood up for all things good. There is a book about him called A Race To Remember, written by Damian Johnstone and Matt Norman. Thank you.

– Alec Martin, via email

BUNKERED The implementation of the “Bunker” was supposed to be a brainchild that would be closeto-perfect and eliminate incorrect decisions.

Well, all the NRL has done is create more

WRITE & WIN

Our letter-writer-of-the-month, Greg Whelan, wins this awesome Canterbury Training Prize Pack. Drop us a line, either to our mailing address or at insidesport@ insidesport.com.au – or hit “Comebacks” on our website and you could WIN too.

controversy than ever. Why do we have the situation whereby the Bunker is repeatedly intervening during matches and playing the role of judge, jury and executioner?

The inconsistency between interpretations and rulings by the on-field officials and the man inside the Bunker is losing the NRL a lot of credibility.

The game of rugby league is so heavily scrutinised these days and even with the millions of dollars the NRL has spent on technology, they are still getting it wrong. Please do away with the Bunker and go back to the good old days when there was just one referee and two touch judges on the field who had complete and utter control of a match.

What will it take for the NRL to understand that in their desire for perfection, they are actually ruining the game of rugby league and the great spectacle that it should be by overscrutinising everything that occurs on the field?

We have so many loopholes in the National Rugby League at the moment, with players feigning injury and the concussion rule the two other biggest blights on the game.

– Garry Jacobs, Gold Coast

We get that the NRL takes its salary cap violations seriously (see 2002 Canterbury, 2010 Melbourne). But the penalty for Parramatta once again calls into question what the league exists for: to play the games, or for clubs to keep a clean set of books? In addition to the dubious timing of it all, kneecapping the Eels’ most promising start to a season for years, the NRL’s decision to strip 12 competition points again goes down the path of undermining the integrity of the comp. Putting aside the argument about the morality and utility of the cap itself, we’d make one humble suggestion: if you bust the cap you should get punished through the cap, with future-looking reductions or contract limits. Changing the ladder with a stroke of the pen has to be made an extreme, last-resorttype measure. Because if we’re okay with invalidating results on the field because of bad payroll management, how far are we from overturning matches because of bad Bunker decisions?

LOSER

As one British athlete put it on Twitter, Claudio Ranieri is the only man “to have completed Football Manager in real life”.

The Italian does merit a lifetime spot on the cover of the WIN N ER videogame for what he and Leicester City did during the 2015-16 Premier League season. All the praise directed toward the Foxes for pulling off perhaps the greatest sporting underdog tale is not hyperbole or recency bias – the sustained effort required of Leicester to prevail over the 30-plus weeks of an EPL season, stacked against the deeper reserves of its rivals, is indeed an against-the-odds challenge that has few comparisons in any sport, anywhere. A hearty congratulations to the fans of Leicester City, but this is an achievement for all non-superclub fans everywhere. While it may not be sound in terms of probability, we’ll now forever be able to say “If Leicester could do it ... ”

The political games involving Sydney’s LOSER stadiums played out to a rather desultory end. About the best that can be said is that NSW avoided the expense of the Baird Government’s proposed new venue at Moore Park, and instead will direct the $1.6 billion to upgrades of the existing staples, ANZ Stadium and Allianz Stadium, as well as a rebuild of Parramatta’s Pirtek. It makes sense in a bureaucratic way – these grounds serve Sydney’s sports-goers as they are. If you build it, they won’t necessarily come, particularly in the Harbour City. But Sydney’s unwanted reputation as a second-rate sports town compared to the other state capitals is going to get harder to shake.

Increasingly, it appears Olympic golf won’t have LOSER the happiest of lead-ins to the Rio Games. Adam Scott ’s refusal to represent Australia earned the classy Masters champ some flak that he wouldn’t be used to seeing. But Scott has been utterly consistent on this point – the Olympics just aren’t relevant to him as a golfer, something he didn’t grow up within the game valuing. And he’s not alone on this: South African contemporaries Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen have also passed. It’s not quite what the visionaries of Olympic golf had in mind: major champions skipping the event, an expensive new golf course that’s likely to be gathering weeds in a few years’ time and Tiger Woods not anywhere in sight.

photos by Getty Images

Sanity has come to the resolution of tied footy finals, as both major codes finally instituted new rules to break those tricky postseason deadlocks. The NRL’s epic 2015 grand final may go into history as a unique case, as golden point WIN N ER is shelved. It’s a good change – the system was not only unfair, but largely out of character with how the game is played. The mooted replacements, such as NFL-style alternate possessions, are immediate improvements. On the AFL side, doing away with the grand final replay is a move that was long coming, a belated recognition of modern spectator sensibilities. There was a romance to the AFL’s back-next-week policy, but it was undeniably anachronistic. Extra time to settle the flag is fine, and players can now schedule their October holidays with certainty.

15

In a victory that will be hard to equal in any sporting arena this year, the victims of the Hillsborough disaster were finally vindicated in court after 27 years. And not just the 96 who were unlawfully killed at the WIN N ER stadium that day, but the families, friends and extended football community that bore the brunt of British officialdom’s effort to shift responsibility for the tragedy. From the outset, Hillsborough was a contest to seize the narrative to serve self-interested ends, whether it was the police, the media or the footballing administration in England. And the outcome of that contest has been unseemly – Hillsborough’s place in the origin story of the Premier League, that 96 died so that all-seater stadiums could live, has always rankled. Hopefully, a new narrative can emerge along with the truth, and that hooligans-and-Hillsborough view of 1980s English football culture is treated with more nuance.

Our rugby rivalry with New Zealand is a fine thing, and works perfectly well within its local LOSER context. It’s why taking a Bledisloe Cup match on the road has that hint of exhibition moneygrab, and suggestions that a Twickenham or New York fi xture might be in the offing during ANZ Stadium’s renovation are greeted with the enthusiasm only in the ARU’s commercial department. Previous forays to Hong Kong and Japan were fourth games – this will be Sydney’s share of the three Tests. We appreciate that rugby is global, and naturally wants to seek to maximise its opportunities with an asset such as the All Blacks or the Bledisloe. But if rugby really wants to push its boundaries, what it should be focusing on is ...

Our homebrew footy code is often guilty of trying to make itself seem more globally important than it is. But a hat tip is due for AFL internationalism, which had a couple of moments in the past WIN N ER month. First, there was Collingwood ruckman Mason Cox, the American basketball convert who has adapted remarkably in less than a couple of years playing AFL. His debut was auspicious: Anzac Day game, his first kick, game’s first goal. A week later, for the Sydney Swans, Aliir Aliir’s (below) first senior match also drew advanced notice. A refugee from Sudan via Kenya, he found his way to the sport as a teenager in Brisbane. Both represent exciting possibilities for Australian football, suddenly a little less parochial.

Australia’s Test cricketers seemed to grin and bear the day-night match in Adelaide last November. But two pink-ball Tests in a summer was always LOSER bound to be a stretch, taking it from tolerable one-off to actual staple of the calendar. Pakistan in Brisbane is locked in, but another one in Adelaide against South Africa has fired up the players’ association, as well as their Proteas counterparts. The argument for the concept hasn’t changed, with Cricket Australia contending that the viability of Tests remains on the line. The players have said they don’t want to be seen as anti-progress, but they were naive to think that cricket officials wouldn’t push for more pink-ball Tests with a moderately successful public response. But in what could be the worst possible outcome for all, taking the novelty of the day-night Test and stretching it too far is just the thing to rob it of the attraction it creates.

16

photos by Getty Images

Had to love the result from rugby’s HSBC Sevens Series event in Singapore in April, where Kenya staked its claim for oval-ball WIN N ER relevance with a huge upset victory. The team they beat, long-time sevens powers Fiji, spoke volumes about the potential of the format to change the face of global rugby. As bad as the mojo seems for golf (on the men’s side, it should be noted) heading to the Olympics, the sevens event in Rio is shaping up to be a hit, with a dynamic mix of established and new rugby nations hitting the field, carnivallike, over the Games’ first week.

photo by Getty Images

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Squash stars Mohamed Elshorbagy of Egypt and Nicol David of Malaysia marked the announcement of the pro circuit’s series final in Dubai, to be played in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa. Which leads us to ask: from 138 floors up, won’t it look like two dots chasing a third, smaller dot?

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Winless after eight rounds, Adelaide United could scarcely imagine holding aloft the silverware after the A-League grand final, on home turf at Adelaide Oval no less.

The bicycle kick comes to the AFL? Not quite, as the Western Bulldogs’ Tory Dickson was merely spoiled in his marking attempt by Brisbane Lion Claye Beams.

Canoe slalom paddler Mike Dawson made a splash in earning selection to his second Olympics for New Zealand. Dawson raised funds for his Rio trip by writing a cookbook.

Stroke on the water: Shani Burleigh, Sian Whittaker and Emily Seebohm compete in the 200m back at the national trials in Adelaide.

World champ Seebohm was upset in the final by Belinda Hocking.

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photos by Getty Images

Now that Floyd and Manny are gone, the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world might also be the smallest. Nicaraguan flyweight Roman Gonzalez dominated McWilliams Arroyo in their LA fight, and the only consolation Arroyo could take away was he ended Gonzalez’ streak of ten KOs.

“Bet you I can jump over that horse.” Punters know not to gamble too often against Frankie Dettori, who achieved remarkable hang time after guiding So Mi Dar to victory at the Investec Derby Trial at Epsom. Well, those jockeys are rather light ...

photos by Getty Images

Think you can write a funnier caption for this pic than our humourchallenged Inside Sport staffer?

Check out page 89 for your chance to prove your wit and win stuff.

22

Would you believe that Texas Rangers players Hanser Alberto and Rougned Odor were already celebrating like this only a week into the season? Or maybe that’s the thing about Major League Baseball’s 162-game grind: you have fun whenever you can.

Count on Kobe Bryant to spell it out for the fans watching everywhere – in his last ever game after 20 seasons in the NBA, the Los Angeles Laker legend delivered a curtain call for all time, erupting for a vintage 60 points against the Utah Jazz.

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Fuel Fabulous With tailored nutrition advice from an Accredited Practising Dietitian

“It never was an ambition to be the first person to compete at both Games. I’ve always just wanted to compete at my best.”

– Table tennis player Melissa Tapper, who became the first Australian to qualify for both the Olympics and Paralympics.

“Hopefully the science has advanced far beyond what it is today and they don’t need it. It was something I didn’t have to ask myself whether I wanted to do it or not ...

It was a no-brainer for me.”

– Nascar driver Dale Earnhardt Jr, announcing he would donate his brain to concussionrelated trauma researchers. Uh, Dale ...

“I told my caddy, ‘Buddy, it seems like we are collapsing,’ because I wanted to be brutally honest ... Big picture, this one will hurt. It will take a while.”

– Jordan Spieth, after squandering a five-shot lead on Augusta’s diabolical little 12th at the 2016 Masters.

“I don’t know whether a woman would physically be able to drive an F1 car quickly and they wouldn’t be taken seriously.”

– F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, at it again.

“Thank you all for the sweet and kind messages. Blush won’t Blush, my baby.”

– Chris Gayle, in one of the supreme acts of trolling ever, named his new daughter Blush.

“The machine is in place, and it’s relatively stable. My biggest concern isn’t any individual issue. It’s the small demands that all come at once.”

– Presidential impeachment, economic turmoil, Zika outbreak ... no worries for Brazilian sports minister Ricardo Leyser ahead of the Olympics.

FIGHTIN’ IRISH “I have decided to retire young. Thanks for the cheese. Catch ya’s later.”

– And with that, UFC star Conor McGregor made the first big retirement on Twitter.

“I am paid to fight. I am not yet paid to promote. I have become lost in the game of promotion and forgot about the art of fighting … If this is not enough or they feel I have not deserved to sit this promotion out this one time, well then I don’t know what to say.”

– McGregor, in a published letter explaining his frustrations.

“The one thing nobody is exempt from is promoting their fights … All the other fighters are showing up and doing it. So Conor, at the end of the day, for whatever reason, he freaked out about this. He’s a very reasonable guy, he’s a smart guy. And he likes money. So this is weird.”

– UFC boss Dana White, left dazed and confused

by McGregor's outburst.

“For the record also – For USADA and for the UFC and my contract stipulations – I AM NOT RETIRED.” – McGregor, with the last word.

GRANTED

photos by Getty Images

“I have stuffed up more than once and am working on these issues ... I apologise unreservedly to the gentleman on the flight. I am trying to make direct contact with him personally.”

– Grant Hackett, after he laid a nipple-cripple on the business-class passenger in front of him for reclining his seat too far.

“For sure, he’s a great guy to be around the team. I’d love for him to come away with the team and to be a mentor for us.”

– 100m freestyler Kyle Chalmers, unperturbed.

25

“I went through 20 years of everybody screaming at me to pass the ball and then tonight everyone’s like, ‘Don’t pass it!’”

– Newly retired NBA legend Kobe Bryant, on his 60-point final act.

“I think he really wishes he could retire, but he doesn’t know how to do it yet, and I don’t think he wants to leave it where it is right now. If he could win a major and walk away, he would, I think.”

– Michael Jordan, on mate Tiger Woods.

“Let’s be honest about this – people were against us. We had the media against us, as well as the establishment.

Everything was against us. The only people that weren’t against us was our own city. That’s why I am so grateful to my city and so proud of my city.”

– Margaret Aspinall, mother of Hillsborough victim James, on the legal decision that ruled the 96 Liverpool fans were victims of an unlawful killing.

NOTHING MAJOR “He’s not letting the country down. He’s not letting the Olympics down ... It’s never going to be a major. We’ve already got four majors.”

– Golf great Jack Newton on Adam Scott’s decision not to compete in the Rio Olympics.

“People who are not excited to play in the Olympics have just been spoiled. They’ve been spoiled rotten. The honour of playing in the biggest sporting event on the planet – you should be honoured to have the opportunity.”

– Golf great Gary Player, with a different opinion, after South African major champs Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen also opted out.

“I know how to play footy and it was just good to get back out there and rip in with my mates, because being on the sidelines has been hurting me big time.”

– Truer words never spoken by Sydney Roosters half Mitchell Pearce.

“When you see what Huth is doing to Fellaini, that’s a penalty. Shall I grab you by your hair? ... Every human being who is grabbed by the hair, only with sex masochism, then it is allowed, but not in other situations. They did it.”

– Man United manager Louis Van Gaal, with another press conference gem.

OUTFOXING

“It’s a life-changing amount of money and we congratulate our customer for holding his nerve this long.”

– A spokeswoman for Ladbrokes in Britain, on the punter who cashed out early on a preseason bet on 5001-1 Leicester City for the equivalent of $138,000.

If he waited, the payout was worth $480,000.

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photos by Getty Images

“It is important to finish the story like an American movie. Always in the end it is okay – there is a happy ending.”

– Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri (left).

Since the IRB World Rugby Sevens Series started, which team other than NZ, Fiji and South Africa has won the overall series?

2

The long side of a fulllength snooker table is approximately how many feet in length?

3

At which Olympics did mountain biking make its debut?

4

True or false: Australia does not currently hold at least one long course swimming world record?

5

Who kicked four goals in each of the first four rounds of the 2016 AFL season?

6

Who is the only Australian to hit a hole in one at the famed 16th hole at the TPC Scottsdale course in a PGA Tour event?

7

What was the first Winter Olympics in which Australia won a medal of any colour?

8

Who scored four goals in a game in consecutive matches during the 201516 La Liga season?

9

Which country won the 2016 Women’s Twenty20 World Cup?

10

Who is the only Australianborn basketballer to play in the NBA All-Star Game?

HONOU R ROLL

WORLDBEATING AUSSIE PERFORMERS XMathew Hayman claimed perhaps the most prestigious and usually most arduous of Europe’s one-day cycling classics, Paris-Roubaix. The 37-year-old (above), who rides for the Australian Orica-GreenEdge team, conquered the cobbles to surprise more-fancied names such as four-time winner Tom Boonen, who finished second at the end of the 257km route. The victory came as a surprise for Hayman, a classics specialist who had missed some early season racing because of a broken arm suffered five weeks earlier.

Hayman became the second Aussie to win L’Enfer du Nord, after Stuart O’Grady’s breakthrough in 2008.

XIn only her second full year as a professional, and before her 20th birthday, Minjee Lee (above right) won her second career LPGA Tour title at the Lotte Championship. The West Australian was five shots back to start the final round but blistered the Ko Olina course in Hawaii with a closing eightunder-par 64, which was good enough to win by a single stroke. Lee’s victory pushed her to the edge of the top ten in the world rankings, ahead of Karrie Webb, and nearguarantees her one of the spots in the women’s Olympic golf tournament this August.

XIn a banner National Football League moment for the nation, two Australians were chosen in the league’s April draft, and another three signed soon after. Melbourne’s Adam Gotsis, who played for Georgia Tech University the past four years, was selected by defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos. A defensive lineman, Gotsis is distinct from other Aussie NFL prospects, who usually come from the punting ranks – as is so for his two compatriots in this draft class, Lachlan Edwards and Tom Hackett, who will compete for the New York Jets’ starting job.

Euro ’96 headed to England, and under the tagline of “Football’s coming home”, the Three Lions gave one of their most spirited tournament showings since the 1966 World Cup. Terry Venables’ side swept through the group stage, including wins over the Scots and the Dutch, highlighted by some brilliance from Paul Gascoigne (left). England eventually set up a Wembley semi-final encounter with Germany, and when Alan Shearer headed one in the opening minutes, the dream run seemed set to continue. But Stefan Kuntz equalised soon after and the deadlock held after 90 minutes. Both teams headed to extra time with the spectre of golden goal – being used for the first time at the Euros – lurking. Eight minutes in, Shearer sent a ball across the face of goal in the direction of Gascoigne. What happened next? (Answer page 89)

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Quiz supplied by Trivia Madness.

Email: wayne@triviamadness.com.au.

For answers see page 89.

images by Getty Images

1

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS MONTH

BY JEFF CENTENERA

RUGBY LEAGUE Whither Origin? The dominant narrative entering last year’s series was Queensland’s quest for vindication after the end of eight-straight, and while the Blues got their hopes up after winning game two, the Maroons’ classic 52-6 smackdown in third game restored the order of the last decade.

New South Wales partisans have been reduced to waiting for Thurston, Smith, Cronk and GI to just age out, or hoping that the nocturnal foibles of Queensland’s emerging Origin players is a sign of future weakness. Or maybe Mal Meninga had a lot more to do with the successful formula than anyone imagined, and it might elude new coach Kevin Walters. Maybe having a pair of home games in Sydney will help, with State of Origin I (Jun 1) taking place at ANZ. It’s not much to hold onto, but it sure beats hoping for a miracle at Suncorp. Nine

NRL Even before the midpoint of the home-and-away is reached, we’ll have satisfied our quota of Cowboys-Broncos games for the season (unless, of course, they meet again in the finals as everyone expects them to). We can only hope that North Queensland vs Brisbane (May 20) in Townsville picks up where their cracking Easter encounter – a game in some ways better than the last GF, won

by Anthony Milford’s (above) extra-time drop goal – left off.

The Monday night contest of Parramatt a vs Melbourne (May 23) pits the emergent Eels against the good-as-usual Storm at Pirtek, the last game before the first two split rounds of the rep season.

When the full club slate returns in round 15, there’s another quality Monday fi xture, Cronulla vs North Queensland (Jun 13) at Shark Park.

Nine and Fox Sports 30

SOCCER

MOTORSPORT

The leagues are done; time for some trophy matches. While GT is not usually in the habit of backing Man United – they’re not exactly struggling for support – it will be deeply funny to see them win the FA Cup fi nal (May 21) against Crystal Palace, if only for how Louis Van Gaal will react on his way to the exits. Attention turns from Wembley to the San Siro a week later for the UEFA Champions League fi nal (May 28), as the comp maintained its impeccable record of denying repeat winners: what did happen to Barca late this season? No rest this off season for the continent’s elite, as Euro 2016 follows soon after, beginning with the hosts in action in France vs Romania (Jun 10), and Three Lions die-hards will take note of England vs Russia (Jun 11) amid the early action. Finals on ESPN and BeIN, Euros on BeIN and SBS

This is the customary time of year for motorsport’s great races, including two in one day if you start with the Monaco Grand Prix and then the Indianapolis 500 (May 30). The Indy 500 rings up a significant milestone this year, the 100th instalment of the American classic. And maybe the momentous nature of it all is what finally gets Australia off its Brickyard duck, as Will Power edged ever closer to it last year, overtaken for the win by Juan Pablo Montoya (pictured below) with only three laps to go. Mark Webber can relate – he was second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans (from Jun 15) in 2015, and will be looking for a milestone victory at the iconic endurance race. One of the racers he’s going up against is interesting – former Man United goalkeeper Fabien Barthez. Indy on Fox Sports, Le Mans on Eurosport

BASKETBALL The dominant theme of these NBA Finals (from June 2) will be whether the Golden State Warriors, with their guiding star Stephen Curry (above), can validate their record regular-season win total by taking home a second consecutive championship. But they’ll have to worry about getting there first, as the best contest in these play-off s will probably be found a series before the NBA Finals, specifically on the western side of the conference fi nals (from May 17). It’s not only the Warriors – the San Antonio Spurs have also been historically great this season, and a much-anticipated meeting of the two in a high-powered, seven-game series would constitute a title bout. That is, of course, unless Curry’s injury worries or an ultra-talented spoiler such as Oklahoma City don’t get in the way. ESPN

CYCLING The back half of the Giro d’Italia (ends May 26) sends the peloton into the mountains. There will be key moments in stage 14, with six climbs in the 210km ride over the Dolomites, and stage 15, a solo time trial that steadily climbs to a summit finish over nine kilometres. The penultimate stages feature more climbing in the French Alps, before the stage 21 finish in Turin, where the locals will no doubt be hoping that Vincenzo Nibali (pictured above during the fourth stage of the Tour of Oman between Muscat and Jebel Akhdar earlier this year) will be wearing pink. The Italian star has indicated that he’ll skip le Tour this year, but we’ll see the other big guns in the Criterium du Dauphine (Jun 5-12). Chris Froome, Alberto Contador and Fabio Aru will be racing a Dauphine course geared to the climbers. Eurosport and SBS

GOLF

ICE HOCKEY

Even as the likes of Adam Scott choose to skip the Olympics, the tour pros can’t avoid being affected by the schedule crunch caused by golf’s return to the Games. This month will be the last moment of peace before the hectic period lands, with Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament (Jun 3-6) likely to get hit by some pre-emptive withdrawals. One guy who shouldn’t skip it: Jason Day, who lives nearby. Aussie golf fans who don’t watch the ladies tour should check in this month for the KPMG Women’s PGA (Jun 10-13), if only to see how rising star Minjee Lee (pictured below) is faring. The Perth teen chalked up her second LPGA Tour win in April, and a major might not be far off. However, this event is owned by Inbee Park, who is going for a fourth-straight win, although at a new venue, Sahalee in Washington. Fox Sports

There was much anxiety expressed before and during this National Hockey League postseason that not one of the seven Canadian teams qualified.

If you want to understand the feeling, imagine not a single Melbourne side making the AFL finals, or a Sydney team in the NRL (if you fudge it a litt le and say Cronulla or Penrith aren’t Sydney ...) Rest assured there were plenty of Canadians playing for the other teams, but ice hockey’s heartland wasn’t represented in the pursuit of one of the coolest trophies in sports (pun intended).

The Washington Capitals, led by their charismatic Russian star Alex Ovechkin (pictured below), shaped as the leading contender for the Stanley Cup Finals (from Jun 2) – a distraction from that other contest dominating attention in DC. Fox Sports

NETBALL Round nine of the ANZ Championship heads to the big stage, with a pair of high-profile Australian conference match-ups booking a larger venue. Vixens vs Thunderbirds (May 28) will be played at Margaret Court Arena (which GT still insists should have been called: a) The Margaret Court b) Margaret Court Court or c) The Margaret), while the comp’s big-time contest, Swift s vs Firebirds (May 29), will go off at Allphones. On the NZ side, the Southern Steel proved the early surprise of the season, in addition to being a candidate as an all-name team: Storm Purvis, Jhaniele Fowler-Reid and the Selby-Rickit sisters, Te Huinga and Te Paea (pictured above, right). They’ll be tested when they welcome the defending champs to Dunedin for Steel vs Firebirds (Jun 11).

Fox Sports

photos by Getty Images

AFL The old antagonists meet again in Hawthorn vs Sydney (May 19) at the MCG, and even as the league’s order was shaken up through the early season, these two were right up there again. The Swans have a tough assignment over the fortnight, returning home to play the faststarting Roos in Sydney vs North Melbourne (May 27). The best match-up of round 11 sees the Eagles make a testing trip east for Western Bulldogs vs West Coast (Jun 5) at Etihad. And the Queen’s Birthday long weekend serves up those public-holiday familiars, the Magpies, in Melbourne vs Collingwood (Jun 13) at the MCG. It was the Wood’s loss to the Demons eight weeks ago that got the pilot light going under Nathan Buckley’s (right) seat – this will be a checkpoint for how the ‘Pies have gone since then. Seven and Fox Footy

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RUGBY

CRICKET

A couple of rounds of Super Rugby to clear before the June international window, with a particularly tough fortnight before the break for NSW: first a trip to Christchurch for Crusaders vs Waratahs (May 20), then back home for the other NZ heavyweight in Waratahs vs Chiefs (May 27). We can only hope Izzy and company are in working order for national duty, as Eddie Jones’ England comes to town. Remarkably, this is the first honest-togoodness three-Test tour that the two sides have played in a century of contests. Jones has pulled a quick turnaround with the English, who went from the debacle of their home World Cup elimination to Six Nations grand slammers months later. But that’s only northern hemisphere rugby, right? First Wallabies vs England Test (Jun 11) is at Suncorp Stadium.

The West Indies have made it apparent that Twenty20 is their cricketing future. So naturally, our boys are heading to the Caribbean to play one-dayers, and hey, invite the South Africans as well. This may look for all the world like one of those moneygrab series, but it certainly doesn’t lack for intrigue: pace-bowling spearhead Mitchell Starc (pictured below) returns to action after his foot and ankle injuries last domestic summer, and star-batsman-of-the-future Travis Head has been named in the national ODI squad for the first time. Three matches each against both opponents with a final to follow, beginning with Australia vs South Africa (Jun 6) and Australia vs West Indies (Jun 10) in Guyana, before Australia vs South Africa (Jun 13) at Warner Park.

MOTORSPORT Whatever is ailing Formula One – often the latest thing that’s come out of Bernie Ecclestone’s mouth – it always seems a litt le less bad when F1’s classic, the Monaco GP (May 29), comes around. And should Nico Rosberg (pictured above during last year’s race) win on the iconic street circuit, it’ll only be the secondcoolest thing he’s done here this year – in March, he saved a drowning child swimming along the coast. Next race: different continent, just as much French, for the Canadian GP (Jun 12) in Montreal. MotoGP zips along to Tuscany and Barcelona – now there’s a terrific holiday itinerary – for the GP of Italy (May 22) and the GP Monster Energy de Catalunya (Jun 5). And the V8 Supercars head to humble north-east Victoria for the Winton SuperSprint (May 20-22).

SPOTLIGHT FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTY ON FOX Fox Sports’ every-match deal with the NRL means you never have to change the dial, and even encourages you to check in well before kick-off for its countdown shows. Friday Night Footy on Fox assembles Matt y Johns and his merry band of Monday-night regulars, Bryan Fletcher, Nathan Hindmarsh and Gorden Tallis, to get you ready for the blockbuster fi xture that signifies the end of the working week. Joining them is Fox Sports News’ Megan Barnard, who delivers the news before the rugby league action gets going for another round.

What’s happened in tennis since the Australian Open, in a sentence: we all became much more familiar with what meldonium is, an equal-pay controversy flared up thanks to ill-advised comments from a big tournament organiser, and Novak Djokovic (right) gave us the first reason for doubt in about a year. All fine things to talk about during those long rallies on the clay of the French Open (May 22-Jun 5). Former winner Maria Sharapova might be missing, which may not hush the doping talk beginning to plague the sport. The other storyline, as always, will be Djokovic’s quest to complete the career Slam, and what looked like a fait accompli (how French!) suddenly looked more dubious after he lost on clay in the Monte Carlo Masters to Jiri Vesely. It wasn’t lost on anybody that the winner there was none other than Rafa ...

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photos by Getty Images

TENNIS

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The football world is waiting on a breakout from Belgium, which VALUE seems bound to happen considerBET ing the crazy amount of talent the country has minted recently. Or maybe it’s about validating the FIFA rankings, which had the Belgians ranked no.1 at the end of 2015. But their qualifying campaign was somewhat indifferent, and some of the big names, such as Eden Hazard (above), Kevin de Bruyne, Vincent Kompany and Thibaut Courtois have battled health and form during their club seasons. The quality is there, if not comprehensive (the full-back spots are still a question), and playing close to home should help. But then there’s their draw: in Group E with Italy (which offers its own neat value at $18), they may find themselves traversing the tough side of the knockout stage.

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You don’t win a World Cup as SA FE B E T convincingly as Germany did and not go in as favourites for the next big event. And after France and Spain backed up a global title with a continental one, the target is clear for die mannschaft , which still oozes midfield quality (Ozil, Muller, Kroos, Reus, Gotze), buttressed by Manuel Neuer (left) in goal. There are concerns over who starts up front – does coach Joachim Low go with a false nine or not?

– and the injury toll is mounting, among them the talismanic Man United midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger.

But as we saw in Brazil two years ago, the Germans don’t suffer for lack of depth, which might be the most convincing reason that it can claim its fourth European title and its first since winning it in England 20 years ago.

We could be cruel and brush the Netherlands, who somehow didn’t qualify. But the short odds on BRUSH France also leaves us cold, considering they haven’t advanced beyond the quarter-finals of a World Cup or Euros since winning them in ’98 and 2000, and have been eliminated at group stage twice. And they’ve blown up in spectacular fashion, with team strikes and player-on-player dissent making the French national side a byword for dysfunction. This time there’s been the Karim Benzema sex-tape blackmail scandal, although the swift response to excise the Real Madrid striker has been effective. The French do have plenty of remaining talent, such as star Paul Pogba (above); it’s about whether this underachieving group can channel the spirit of the previous generation ...

Prices courtesy of Unibet. Pre-market odds at time of publication. Prices subject to change

Famously, the World Cup doesn’t produce surprise winners. But the BOLTER Euros do, as the Danes in 1992 and the Greeks in 2004 will remind. The effect of the expanded field will be interesting, as will the dynamic of the four best third-place teams advancing from the group stage. We’ll be pulling for tiny Iceland, which is putting together a world-class team with a population the size of Canberra. But a more realistic darkhorse would be Austria, which has the kind of sound, solid outfit to make a deep run.

They have a genuine world-class star in David Alaba (above), liberated in the midfield rather than the full-back spot he plays for Bayern, while Christian Fuchs brings the Leicester mojo. And A-League fans should enjoy former Sydney FC striker Marc Janko running around up forward.

photos by Getty Images

UEFA’s confederation championships, last seen toiling deep in the wilds Eastern Europe, returns bigger, literally.

Euro 2016 expands the field to 24 nations, which has led to some delightful surprise entries, including the likes of Euro first-timers Northern Ireland, Albania and Iceland. They all head to France, which reprises its hosting duties from the 1998 World Cup, an advantage for a talented French side that would seek to emulate the home-standing feats of Zidane and company.

did you know...

spain’s Vicente del Bosque became the first coach in history to lead sides to glory in the euros, fifa world cup and european cup Germany and Spain hold the most Euros wins with 3 each

LUCK IS NO COINCIDENCE

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BODI TURNER BMX, formerly best-known as the subject matter of Nicole Kidman’s film debut, has instead become the notoriously capricious Olympic event where Australia’s strong medal chances are tossed like dice every four years. Established stars Sam Willoughby and Caroline Buchanan remain the marquee names, but a new wave of riders are on their bike, motivated from the moment the training wheels come off by thoughts of Olympic glory. For the likes of 21-yearold Bodi Turner, the goal is nothing less than to make out like a bandit in Rio this August.

WHAT’S HIS STORY? It wasn’t always about the Olympics. Turner started racing when he was four years old, pushed along by the presence of the Eastfield BMX track around the corner from his childhood home in Kilsyth, Victoria. By age ten he was competing in junior international events, and with his brother also racing, the Turner family made a decision to get highly involved in their sons’ pursuits. “Mum and Dad realised, ‘We’re going to be in this,’” Turner says. “So we opened up the shop. It’s called BMX Mad, and it’s gone 12 years strong now.”

A year before the shop opened in the Melbourne suburb of Boronia, BMX had been added to the Olympic program for the Beijing Games. As it looked like a grab for youthoriented relevance by cycling’s organising body, the UCI, and came at the expense of some traditional track cycling events, the new Olympic discipline was treated with some derision. But the effect on BMX was landscape-altering.

“Before the Olympics, BMX was pretty serious, but a lot of people didn’t understand what BMX

racing was,” Turner says. “At school, I would always be asked: ‘Can you do a backflip?’ Well, yeah, I can do tricks for fun. But I don’t do them in a race because I’m trying to get to the finish line first.

“I guess the Olympics shone a light on the sport. When people hear ‘BMX’ now, they don’t think of it so much as freestyle. They see it as: you need to be an elite athlete to perform, you just can’t go out there and have fun. We do it because we love it, but it requires a lot of discipline and training.”

Turner had to leave the family store behind in 2013 to move to the Gold Coast, where he joined up with BMX’s high performance program under coach Wade Bootes. He was the overall winner of

36

the BMX national series in 2014 and 2015, and last August he travelled to Angelholm in Sweden for the World Cup series event. Up against a world-class field, Turner passed reigning world champ Niek Kimmann of the Netherlands and beat Willoughby to the line to claim second place.

Turner ended the 2015 season 11th on BMX’s world rankings.

Coach Bootes said it was an affirming performance for Turner, who admits to riding scared at times. “Simply, he just raced to his potential,” Bootes says.

“He raced into the first corner, he didn’t back off. He didn’t back off down the start ramp as people crowded him. When you’re in a position to do what you do well, everybody’s fast. What he did well there was he raced ... That comes from confidence in himself, to do what he can do.”

"BEFORE THE OLYMPICS, BMX WAS SERIOUS, BUT PEOPLE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT BMX RACING WAS."

WHO’S HE LIKE?

mentally and psychologically.”

Turner heads to Colombia at the end of May for the World Championships, important in itself but also a significant step toward the Olympics. If Australia qualifies as one of the four leading BMX nations (currently ranked third), the nation gets to take three riders to Rio. And as it would happen, Turner is the third-highest-ranked Australian rider in the world, behind Willoughby and Anthony Dean. There are all manner of permutations to qualify for the Games, and the process could end up as unpredictable as, well, BMX racing. Turner knows this is another situation where he will control what he can, and hope the track leads to his Olympic debut. “It’s the pinnacle of the sport,” he says. “You may only get one chance there. I watched 2008 and 2012, and set my sights on 2016, and hopefully I can make that happen.”

– Jeff Centenera

WHAT DO THEY SAY? “What’s impressed us with Bodi is he’s very articulate – he can identify, describe and have a really good perception, which makes him really easy to coach ...

He can come back up and he can tell you exactly what happened; he’s so switched on with that stuff.”

– National BMX head coach Wade Bootes

photos by Getty Images

Every male BMX rider in Australia gets lumped with comparisons to Willoughby, the 2012 Olympic silver-medallist and two-time world champion. “The biggest difference between a Sam and a Bodi is pure confidence,” Bootes says.

“Any given day, a Bodi can do it, but put him around the pressure and self-doubt comes into play. They’ll do something slightly different technically, and that’s the end of it. Because 0.01 is a significant difference now for us going down the start ramp, 20m at 60km/h.”

Turner’s greatest asset, according to Bootes, is a keen mind. “In years past, if you had talent, you got away with it, but now there’s so many talented people, so you’ve got to actually have a very good race brain,” he says. “It’s like motor racing – you need to know what really happens to understand how to correct it.”

Perhaps the toughest thing that BMX racers have to wrap their minds around is the element of chance inherent to the sport. It’s not quite the lottery it’s made out to be – the two Olympic golds on the men’s side have been won by the same person, Latvian Maris Strombergs. The way Turner deals with it is to focus on what he calls the “perfect” race – to think in terms of his ideal ride and less about what the over seven competitors are doing.

“BMX is so unpredictable, and that’s what makes it so exciting to watch,” Turner says. “You can’t be leading that perfect race if you’re losing tenths of seconds around the track. It gets really technical. It just comes down to the individual.

Sam does it really well. Maris Strombergs does it exceptionally well, to have won two out of two gold medals.

“There is so much unpredictability, but if you can control everything that you can control, you’re going to come out on top.

"That is what you keep telling yourself, and they’re things I’ve struggled with in the past

37

“SEEING THESE QUEENSLANDERS FROTHING AT THE MOUTH, THROWING XXXX CANS AT THE BUS, IT’S AN INTENSE AND INTIMIDATING PLACE.”

speak about it in the Queensland camp; they use it as motivation.

Once again, showing the fact that us terrible NSW people have no respect for Queenslanders, rubbed their noses in it, treated them like second-class citizens forever. They truly hate us. I was given the fortune of driving down Caxton St in a team bus. They don’t do that anymore but seeing these Queenslanders frothing at the mouth, throwing XXXX cans at the bus, it’s an intense and intimidating place.

It’s certainly an arena for players to find what’s deep inside themselves. Paul Harragon, for me, was one of the great Origin players because he was such a big man but he was able to push himself beyond that pain threshold every game, squeeze more minutes, metres, tackles out of himself. He’d always talk to us before the game about not leaving anything in the tank: if you walk off the field with one ounce of energy left in your body, you haven’t given it 100 percent.

That’s the thing, you have to leave everything on the field in Origin. As an ex-player, I don’t miss getting up on a Monday sore, but when Origin

comes around, the few hairs I have left on my head stand up.

I always wondered about the role of the coach in Origin. You played for Tommy Raudonikis and Wayne Pearce, and alongside current NSW coach Laurie Daley.

How vital is the role?

I think it’s the hardest coaching job in the game. You’ve got huge pressure and expectation to get it right in a small period of time. The best are coming together and players are very good at what they do. You’re trying to balance egos; like it or not, footballers have egos.

Everybody wants to play a huge role.

With the NSW Blues, we were most successful when we were able to relax. The great coaches recognise that, they don’t secondguess themselves. It’s hard, because as a coach, you project.

If you have nerves, that projects onto the players. Tommy just did it, full stop, by being himself. He was such an infectious character.

Junior was very innovative, way ahead of his time. He understood the importance of the mind, and he allowed players to prepare ` Adam MacDougall with the NRL premiership trophy in 2001. above Trucking it up for the Blues earlier that year.

39

themselves the way they wanted to.

He was big into building the bonding without alcohol – when I first came into Origin, the major tool to building bonding was alcohol. Junior said, "Well, hang on, we’re about to play the most important game of our lives here, it’s detrimental to performance. So let’s take another tack.” State of Origin, it does come down to forming that mateship, that desire that you want to play for your mate. It’s got to be bigger than you when you step on that field.

I think that’s why Queensland has been so dominant, to be fair; they’ve been able to pick and stick with a team for so long.

I want to ask about innovative approaches to training, but first I have to ask about you yelling at your thighs. You explained later on it was something the Johns boys cooked up – and seeing the kind of storyteller Matty has become in his media career, that’s quite easy to believe. But it did stick, right?

The Johns brothers, Joey and Matty, are characters, and they’re great storytellers to this day. It’s why they’re making good money on TV. That sort of stuff, that laughter, is important in rugby league, it’s a release. The Johns were so good at that. So is Kevin Walters, which is why I think he’ll go well as coach of Queensland.

You’ve got to know when to take the pressure off, and in the dressing room before a game, a simple joke or smartarse comment can really help. The Johns’ imaginations have never let them down.

The story stuck because you had a reputation for being intense.

But was it intensity as much as you were a bit out-of-the-box in how you approached your football? Notably, by the end of your career, training methods in league did come around to your way of thinking ...

It’s funny, we often joke about the first time I turned up to training wearing [compression] tights.

MacDougall didn't drink the league Kool-Aid [beer], preferring a post-match protein shake instead.

People thought I was trying out for the ballet. First time I wore colour boots with the Johns boys, drinking protein shakes after games, ice baths – people thought I was crazy.

I used to travel a lot to America, read a lot about sports science at university. I was a little bit shocked that there wasn’t a lot of common sense in the way that we prepared “PEOPLE IN ourselves for games.

THIS INDUSTRY I thought it was common ARE SO BLINDED sense not to drink after

BY MAKING MONEY THAT THEY HAVEN’T you played, particularly ASKED PEOPLE when you only had five WHAT THEIR days between games, and LIFE IS.” not to rehydrate with water.

It has evolved a lot. I was lucky to play into my late 30s, looked at the game in a practical way. We went through an era there where [the introduction of] full-time professionalism, we struggled with it. We tried to be time-fillers, find reasons for players to keep training that served no purpose.

You had your injury woes, as well the drug suspension for which you were largely vindicated. Was this always part of your make-up as a player, the attention you paid to your body?

I was always appreciative of what I was given as a footballer. My Dad played several grand finals, was a great player in his own right. The one thing I learnt was not to take a career as a rugby league player for granted. In some ways, he enjoyed too much beer and too much of a good time, to be fair. He probably didn’t reach his potential because he didn’t get the balance quite right. He told me so. For me, I realised when I retired, I’d have plenty of time to drink beer and eat crap food. As an athlete, I realised it was a job.

I was blessed to go to university for the 17 years I was playing rugby league. That was the balance for me, education. It gave me a different outlet. That was odd in itself back then – to be full-time in rugby league and make time to go to university; I was seen as a weirdo.

The Johns boys though I was weird going to uni: “What are you doing that for?”

It made sense, with your uni qualifications, that you would go into business. But did you think you’d end up in the health and wellness space?

I always wanted to be more than a footballer, not let it define me as a

40

person. When I first went into the business world, people saw me as just a footballer.

It was a challenge when I started, getting people to take me seriously.

That’s another thing that people don’t realise – as an athlete, the greatest pleasure is helping people.

You run out there on the weekend, you’re not just representing yourself, you’re representing your community. For a lot of people, that’s the biggest joy of the whole week. People go to the mines for a living, and get their most amount of joy watching their team run around.

I’ve been lucky I’ve found something I’m passionate about, I am helping people. Funny story: I went to an Origin last year in Brisbane and was walking down Caxton St. When I do go to Origins these days, I have people call out, “Hey, there’s Darren Lockyer.” I just wave back, put my head down and walk as quick as I can. I was approached by three big, burly Queenslanders, and I thought, “Here we go, I’m going to get a rev-up.” The guys came over and shook my hand and said, “Mate, want to thank you for helping us lose a lot of weight.” That was pretty cool. For once, I was getting a handshake from a Queenslander instead of a slap!

The story of your mate Dennis – could you recount that?

THE MAN CHALLENGE

Mad Dog crashes over for the Knights in 2009.

photos by Getty Images

I was going down the path of working with elite athletes. I didn’t see myself doing what I was doing today, wasn’t on the radar. When my best mate died of a heart attack, it rocked me to my core. I didn’t realise someone could die so young from being overweight. And when I looked at it, I realise the biggest killer in our society is cardiovascular disease. It touched me deeply. I was shocked our health is the biggest killer, but largely selfinflicted. People are overwhelmed and confused about what to do. So much mixed messaging, so many diets, so many people telling us how to exercise. And to be frank, a lot of it is just BS ...

You have an emphasis on making your exercise and meal plans relatable to blokes – that you’re not going to stop them from having burgers and beers, but you can nudge them in better directions ...

The first thing is, people in this industry are so blinded by making money that they haven’t asked people what their life is. People are busy, they’re time-poor, they don’t want to be always denying themselves. The whole industry is so focused on extremism – why do two out of three people who go on a fad diet put on more weight within six months of when they started?

People aren’t designed to deny

themselves, and they don’t want to feel bad about themselves ...

If you really want to help people, you’ve got to educate. It’s not about buying my product. It’s about showing people they don’t need to make huge changes to get big results. A lot of guys don’t eat breakfast, or eat something crap for breakfast. If they start their day with a good breakfast, and do that for a few weeks, and find they lose three to five kilos, that’s the start they need: hang on, what if I got up and moved a little more?

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Is it true that your game-day meal during your playing days was McDonalds?

Yeah, the morning or after the game, Maccas as a bit of a treat.

That’s the thing with our lives – as an economist, I’m a big believer in the 80-20 rule: 80 percent of your results from 20 percent of your inputs. Been proven time and again.

That’s what I say to people: if you can focus on a few simple things like eating a high-protein breakfast, or getting some veggies on your plate, they’re the things that’ll give you 80 percent. Banning dairy or banning gluten, that might get the last ten percent of body fat off yourself, but you only need that if you’re a bodybuilder. When you’re an everyday person, it’s about finding practical tools that’ll give you the payoff.

– Jeff Centenera 41

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photo by Ezra Shaw / Getty Images

Bodies in motion: Mexico’s Miguel Romero on the parallel bars, Kiwi Callum Phillips on the floor, Vladislava Ryzhkova of Russia on the trampoline and Columbia’s Michael Vargas on the high bar were a study in composition at the Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships in Washington state.

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E SSENDON M AY NOT ONLY BE STA RTING TO SEE THE LIGHT FOLLOW ING TH AT SUPPLEMENTS SCA NDA L , THE MEN THE CLUB H AS R ECRUITED AS FILLERS FOR THE 12 SUSPENDED M AY JUST PROVE TO BE PA RT OF SOMETHING BIG.

THE

REPLAC

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EMENTS

photo by Getty Images

By RO B E R T D R A N E

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F

OR Essendon’s round-two match against Melbourne, 10,000 faithful gathered at Federation Square and walked to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the game. Essendon had been blown away by Gold Coast in the first round. A feeling that the sluice gates of overwhelming defeat were about to open would have been perfectly justified. Kevin Sheedy, a key organiser, of course, was addressing them via megaphone, evoking champions: “Allan Jeans always said you don’t know what it’s like till you’re down the bottom and you have to work to get back to the top.”

Urgency was in the air. Past players marched alongside present players, staff and fans. It was a cavalcade. The emotion was powerful.

Sheeds was sombre on the walk. “The club’s very sorry this has all happened. The fans are, too. But we can only do our best.” The past players stood by the banner with the current team before the game.

As an air-raid siren wailed, Sheedy stood on the Melbourne Cricket Ground fence surrounded by hundreds of fans. Together they swirled black-and-red jackets and scarves over their heads, as the former coach did against the Eagles in 1993, the year his “Baby Bombers” pinched the flag. No doubt about Sheeds. Air raid sirens!

Did I say “former coach?” The description cheapens Sheeds. He’s much more than that, for Essendon, for AFL footy – for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear what the man puts into this world. Essendon needs heroes in 2016, and Sheedy, master of the symbolic, ingenious promoter, motivator extraordinaire, is there for them.

Essendon don’t need wins this year so President John F. Kennedy was once much as they need heroes, and they will asked what sounded like a staged question: produce them. Some will give us cameos, “how did you become a war hero?” Right others will emerge from the wings and there were grounds, if ever there were, for remain centre stage, playing the lead role self-righteous homily and self-conscious they were destined for all along. One will be humility. Instead, “that’s easy,” he replied. coaching them.

“They sank my boat.”

On January 12, 2016, the day the Court of In other words, he had no choice. His Arbitration for Sport handed down its ruling heroism was an act of survival. He survived, banning 34 former and current Essendon and he helped his team – those who weren’t players for season 2016 killed by the Japanese for their part in the destroyer that ran over the ESSENDON doping regime of 2012, top of his boat – to survive.

Essendon’s hull sustained I risk the wrath of those D O N’ T N E E D 12 gaping holes. On who believe the label that day, Inside Sport “hero” should only ever be WINS THIS completed its “Pigskin applied to those who fight YEAR SO Preview”, in which we for their country, but tipped them to wind up sporting heroes – those we M U C H AS stone-bottom, giving little look up to, who represent THEY NEED explanation. This was a our colours and perform requirement. It was deeds we wish we could H E RO E S, nothing personal. Any perform – are almost other prediction would obligatory in Australian AND THEY have looked silly. culture. Furthermore, W I L L P RO D U C E Those banned still on only irredeemable the Dons’ list were Jobe partisans fail to learn from THEM. Watson, Dyson Heppell, them. Heroic acts in sport Michael Hurley, Tom can be a heuristic for the Bellchambers, Cale Hooker, Heath Hocking, rest of us at any time, war or peace. Consider Michael Hibberd, Brent Stanton, Travis Colyer, Hawthorn’s Robert Dipierdomenico playing David Myers, Heath Hocking, Ben Howlett and out a grand final, ribs shattered, lung Tayte Pears. From that day Essendon went into deflating, body swelling, as his team fell over emergency mode, scouring the footy cosmos the line in ’89; an exhausted and hurting for reconsidering retirees, rookies and rejects Muhammad Ali rising from the canvas in the in order to field a team. They’d already 15th round against Frazier in ’71 and risking appointed John Worsfold as coach back in his life against a savage assailant desperate October, which might just prove the best to finish him.

A loud and proud 10,000strong Essendon support crew marched from Federation Square to the MCG.

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photos by Getty Images

PPING UP

move made at the club since – oh, 1981?

Worsfold, contrary to his playing reputation as a lethal mugger, is a measured coach, a systems thinker renowned at West Coast Eagles as a man who got all systems working, from family participation to onfield performance. When he arrived at Essendon he noticed the entire club and its fans were “a little flat”. He had problems to solve, but Worsfold, a chemist by qualification, looked at his ingredients and carefully considered what combination reaction he required.

What’s is the ra effect. It before t themsel exhaust underpr bodies h themsel since th victory a probabl felt pres they’ve very qu perform Justin Cr a compl on his h top of no workad he has y and com bodies, Many key play a four-m pre-seas The hol the Don midfield extensiv

experience, it adds up to 820 games. In the absence of Watson, Heppell, Stanton, Hocking, Myers and Colyer, David Zaharakis has been labouring intensely, and though he loves the challenge, at some point it might become unbearably burdensome.

The chemist might need to brush up on alchemy if Essendon is to rise from the bottom. Fortunately, his job in the shortterm is part-sinecure – not that it will ever be easy, it’s just that he probably has two free-hit seasons: this one, because survival lse is a ning ed into

ady the handpicked standbys – former er Ryan Crowley, former Hawks Jonathan kin and Sam Grimley, former Cats James and Matthew Stokes, former Tiger Matt former Demon Mark Jamar, former Lions nghorne and Michael, and former Roo an Grima – have been a powerful example ayers like Joe Daniher as they’ve watched prepare. emiership players Kelly and Stokes in cular set standards that are secondre to them. They were a masterstroke. delisted at the end of 2015, each has the gy of discontent powering him. If either er was on the wane at Geelong, it’s barely ed. Kelly shows a mature appreciation of ole: “It was exciting for a young group to win on the board early and give them a bit nfidence that we’re doing the right thing, we can win if we play the right way.” owley hasn’t played since the 2014 finals eturns after serving a drugs suspension us irony. He’ll spend time as a tagger, but oach wants to test the 31-year-old’s running ability and strength in other positions.

Defender Grima, the Bombers’ secondlast “replacement” player, will be a walk-up start if fit. He retired from North with chronic back problems and seemed primed for a media career. That he answered the call at all after a year off and got himself into shape is a story in itself.

Oft-injured former Lion Matthew Leuenberger (below), whom the Dons acquired through free-agency, has been giving them excellent tap work and follow-up on the ground. Despite a long, sporadic career at the Lions, Leuenberger is still only 27, has always been esteemed highly and is still determined to prove himself as a number-one ruck. This year might give him his chance.

nge n it by

ed out att pean vils’ yond

ate us in of ar selfe nt during ies e an hen Bob d Rodney ed `

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something special to our cricketing lore. We'd never have had the story of Graham Yallop – a man who deserved better returns for his talents. We learned a lot about the way people emerge from the cruel grinders of fate.

Roy Emerson became one of the great players of all time as he held the fort after Australian tennis lost Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver to the “professional” circuit and they were barred from Grand Slam tournaments and Davis Cup. Roy was a beloved hero. What these circumstances show us is that notions of “success” and “winning” in sport are not confined to the scoresheet. Sometimes, humanity wins. Whatever success looks like this year for Essendon, you won’t find it on scoreboards and premiership ladders.

Victory here and there will be valuable.

Worsfold understands that. “A win will certainly be the best way to boost morale. But I’m going to try not to hang our morale on whether we win or lose week to week. Morale will be around the way we play out games, the way we commit to each other and what we’re asking from each other.”

Where Essendon are at this point in time is just as important as where they’ll be through time, and balancing the two concepts will take the insight of Ferdinand de Saussure.

Worsfold needs to be a blend of philosopherfor-hire and MacGyver – the bloke who could build a leopard tank out of a matchbox, a rubber band, a pen, a paperclip and four Jaffas – no, three.

having helped out, they’ll go, and either pass “Their bodies obviously need to be able into folklore or wind up mere asterisks. to handle the rigours of a season,” says Others will, if they have it in them, use 2016 Worsfold, “and their mindset has to be as a platform for great, distinguished careers. one of not only coming along and really There will be victims and victors. supporting us, but looking forward to being Brutal losses will come their way, but the part of what we’re trying to build in terms players will absorb the adversity. Worsfold of our overall culture.” ensures his team shares feedback about Morale. Culture. Winning games? whether or not they’ve met Not so much. Paradoxically, the challenges. His aim, he winning a lot of games said, is to have them “enjoy would only deepen existing ESSENDON the learning”, if not the dilemmas – not that there’s H AV E N O result. He’s also smart much chance of that. enough to articulate right Worsfold, not the most CHOICE up front that he intends to excitable of men at the B U T TO have his contract extended worst of times, looks beyond its initial three relaxed. What he does with REDEFINE years, because “building those “free hit” seasons will a premiership side” is matter enormously in the E V E RYO N E’S his aim. His long-term goal long-term, though, and N OT I O N S O F is clear. In the mediumpotentially he might be term he’ll get the majority judged more harshly than SU C C E S S of those 12 players back, any coach handed more AND and a few will be essential normal circumstances. But as the club aspires to the his short-term challenge is FA I LU R E . next level. the reverse of Barassi’s Member asperity, fan at North in 1973, when he anger or media criticism won’t be factors for brought in – bought in – a fleet of champions two seasons at least. Nevertheless, Worsfold and immediately lifted the struggling faces predicaments many coaches don’t, all Kangaroos out of the primeval slime. regarding development and what it means: Worsfold’s the bear to Barassi’s bull. he’s already had a couple of rookies burst Under Worsfold’s careful guidance, we from the blocks, but needs to manage their might all benefit from watching the Dons in progress though a grinding season. At times 2016. If they rise from the floor at all, it will be he’ll give them the seasoning they require; at a gallant effort. The walk-ons will come and,

David Zaharakis, the bloke who refused during the supplements regime. below left Joe Daniher.

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LEADING THE CHARGE Brendon Goddard (pictured below) had plenty of cause for grievance, having arrived from St Kilda just as the supplements scandal broke, but instead he became a mouthpiece for the club immediately, when other players weren’t able to speak publicly. Goddard has the perfect opportunity to become the sort of bloke he was meant to be. He has wells of character beneath a sometimes-prickly exterior. He and vicecaptain Mark Baguley are the only two from the 2015 leadership group not banned for 2016. Both have excellent leadership qualities.

photos by Getty Images

this image and below Young Bombers Anthony McDonaldTipungwuti and Darcy Parish.

others he’ll need the right recipe for the occasion. An MCG match against Geelong will differ greatly from the Eagles at Subiaco.

At the heart of Worsfold’s dilemma is the need to develop “winning” ways and emerge with a respected – not merely respectable – team. Winning, if it occurs at all, will be a happy by-product of development Worsfold can theoretically field a side he’d do so need eliteand the clu top-up play up the form deeper the star will be Orazio Fan Jamar in re longer-term Leuenberg Stokes is st capable of great footy a forward crumber, b where will the likes of terms of op such decis team all aro But of cou to ensure t players are wasted, eith They have answered

Essendon’s call. How can they effectively help the coach bridge present and future? If the Dons win a premiership within the next decade, will songs of praise be sung about any current top-up player at the beginning of the journey?

The flip side to these quandaries is the fact that, while he has so much experience in th i f l n i young men y McDonaldy of runs in the stified resting as newcomers wley and pkin, and Dons Adam Cooney endon ard are rming. ill Essendon up to our skin Preview diction? It argued that team – is in a worse Former threeon premiership d Parkin is in He believes h Brendon lossal task, and l need up to me competitive. out the position has found ’t want to be `

PUTTING THEIR HANDS UP Rookie Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti, exciting, already hard-bodied, is taking to tough, elite football as though he was born to it.

Darcy Parish, top pick from the Geelong Falcons, has had no time to anneal his young body in reserves, yet in his first two games he starred, kicking five against Melbourne. But he’s also done the hard, physical stuff, laying on tackles, getting ungettable ball, and has run when he gets outside.

BREAKING OUT Quality and quantity of supply to the forwards hasn’t been great this year, but Joe Daniher is the sort of bloke to make the most of it anyway, rather than being a static target for a midfield still working out its best mode of attack.

Daniher wants something he hasn’t experienced yet – a “normal” club. Now he feels he can take control and create that. This season Daniher has reminded everyone he’s a talented, dynamic power forward. There have been plenty of them, but none have required the character Daniher has needed to get through his first 50 games. Daniher doesn’t just mark dominantly, he attacks it with confident hands, like his uncle, Terry – one of the most straightforward and effective forwards ever seen. His character has immediately come to the fore in his media appearances and on-field demeanour, and his transformation from gangling wunderkind to powerful, physical presence has been sudden and remarkable.

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kicked five, including the sealer.

John. He didn’t know he was going to Joe Daniher’s presence was somehow lose half his team. He’s brought a reassuring, even when he missed goals. variety of players with various histories He was a focal-point. When David Zaharakis of success and non-success into the took off on one of his damaging runs and bunch that’s there. Brendon has at least kicked it to Joe, who goaled, it was a started the group he’s got and they significant moment. all go together. I’m hoping John can It was their second game together as a work a miracle.” team. They’d been challenged, and won.

Ex-Dons player, football analyst Worsfold showed his Robert Shaw, is coaching mettle. With sanguine. “The longer new players handpicked this season goes A L R E A DY for the MCG’s open and the more settled WE'VE SEEN spaces, he structured the the side becomes, it’s team and imparted his going to develop into IMPRESSIVE expectations perfectly. a very encouraging PUBLIC Essendon mustered football team.” every sense of who they Then there’s the club.

S O L I DA R I T Y. were that day. They lost Already, we’ve seen nobly to Geelong in impressive public THIS IN ITSELF round four and fought to solidarity. This in itself I S A SU C C E S S. the finish. At the press is a success. With 51,000 conference Worsfold members, the Bombers W I T H 51,0 0 0 was relaxed, but a faint are well ahead of last ambivalence suggested year’s figures. There’s M E M B E RS, he’s being challenged: a prevailing feeling of THEY ARE “there’s a lot of stuff I’ve coming into light. Yes, that optimism has a touch of WELL AHEAD OF never seen in footy that we’ve had to deal with the manic, but it’s the way L AST Y E A R'S this season ... new energy is mustered. challenges which you can The support was F I G U R E S. either get depressed incredible for their march about or excited about”. to the MCG for the roundEssendon have no choice but to redefine two win against Melbourne. The team took everyone’s notions of success and failure. the field sharp and motivated, tougher Regardless of win and loss, under a around the contests, and beat Melbourne, rejuvenated Worsfold failures might be few who’d won big the previous week. It might and heroes many. Persistence, resilience and be Essendon’s only win for the season. But it courage won’t be a choice. If they play the was one win more than was expected. season out with these attributes, it will have Victory was a bonus. This event was a been an achievement. ■ victory. Unexpected hero Darcy Parish

GREATER EXPECTATIONS David Zaharakis has already played the role of the conscientious objector. During the supplements regime, he was the one who refused. This year might be the making of him.

Surrounded by experience in the past, he now needs to show the way. Zaharakis has been damaging already, becoming more of an inside player, getting more contested footy. He’ll only improve as he leads the way for Zach Merrett and Parish. He was elevated by Worsfold to the leadership group this year, and has taken the task seriously, on and off the field.

Adam Cooney’s pre-season was delayed thanks to a rebelling body, but Cooney is working hard to get back to his best. Against the strong Geelong, he picked up 28 possessions and played his part in getting the Bombers to within striking distance at the last change.

Merrett, who’d coveted a role in the leadership group and just missed out, was elevated after five of the group were suspended. The sharp left-footer is ambitious and doesn’t want to wait. It’s experience he wouldn’t have had otherwise. Already, the extra midfield responsibility and leadership have had a noticeable effect on his game.

Michael Hartley was drafted because of his endeavour and commitment: attributes the culture demands at Tullamarine. In round four against Geelong he kept Tom Hawkins goalless.

His challenges have been greater than he might have expected, but he’s risen to every occasion.

photos by Getty Images

THE COACH John Worsfold (pictured above) was criticised for inflexibility as Eagles coach; for sticking to the man-on-man method. After 2009 he became more of a “situational” coach, experimenting with a blend of manning up and zone defence. At the Eagles, there were many crises beyond his control, and he gets much less credit than he deserves for navigating the club through them.

After his mate Phil Walsh’s death in 2015, he spent time at the Crows as a counsellor and coach, showing enormous character and leadership. With a new circumstance and the resourcefulness required, he might actually improve as a coach. Essendon needs a man of his mettle, and there’s muted hope we might be witnessing the beginning of a mini-Sheedy age.

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STATE OF OR IGIN WON’ T BE THE SA ME W ITHOUT PAUL GA LLEN A F TER HE DEPA RTS THE INTERSTATE BAT TLE ZONE AT THE END OF THIS YEA R’S SER IE S. W HILE NOT NEW SOUTH WA LE S' BE ST PL AYER ACROSS HIS CA R EER , HE HAS PROVED THEIR MOST IMPORTA NT.

By JA M E S S M IT H

photo by Getty Images

P

AUL GALLEN loses sleep over State of Origin, literally. We’re not talking about the coach-like stress that keeps mentors the world-over awake in the nights before an important game. Surprisingly, it’s the after-effect of elite rugby league matches that takes the greatest toll on arguably the most vital New South Wales player of all time. In game three of last year’s Origin series, dominated by Queensland 52-6, Gallen still made 41 tackles, clamping blokes down all night with his lethal one-on-one technique and carting the ball up the guts at Queensland’s engine room. In a wellbeaten pack, he was the only NSW forward to run for more than 100 metres and was bettered in the tackle count only by uber-enthusiastic hooker Michael Ennis, who racked up 50 efforts in his return to Origin via a Robbie Farah hand injury. Similar performances over the years to Gallen’s on a losing side have attracted predictions from commentators such as “he’ll sleep well tonight, that man”. But the comedown, says Gallen, is where the real battle begins.

“It’s very hard, I tell you ... After any game,

I do not sleep; it’s terrible,” the 34-year-old, ten-year Origin veteran shares with Inside Sport.

We’ve caught him on a Friday morning, which is good for him – and us. “I can’t explain how bad it is. You have a win, and you’re happy, obviously, but you can’t come down off it straight away. The amount of energy drinks we have during a game and the amount of adrenaline running through you ... The effort you put into it; people do think you’d be exhausted and that you could sleep for days, but it’s the complete opposite.

“The next 24 hours become really hard because you’re wanting to sleep all day and then you can’t sleep the next night. It’s a real tough roller-coaster, rugby league. Going out with the boys and having a couple of drinks, there is reason to it, otherwise you’re laying at home staring at the ceiling, almost going insane. I’m not the only one; there are a lot of boys who struggle to sleep post-game. It’s just something you have to put up with.”

At a touch under six feet tall and a hefty 104kg on the scales, there’s quite a bit of Paul Gallen.

He’s reminiscent of the Masters Of The Universe character Ram Man, who He-Man called on to `

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Captain courageous ... in the line of fire. below right Paul Gallen has earned his spot in Blues folklore alongside past winning captains [l-r] Steve Mortimer, Wayne Pearce, Laurie Daley, Geoff Toovey, Brad Fittler, Andrew Johns and Danny Buderus.

destroy rock walls and such with his heavily armoured head and shoulders. Gallen doesn’t have Ram Man’s spring-loaded legs, but he’s quick on his own. In Cronulla’s thrilling 30-28 win over Brisbane, just days after reclaiming his Kangaroos Test jumper, he raced past the super-quick Bronco Anthony Milford in pursuit of a Mick Ennis grubber to score under the posts at a packed Shark Park.

Us mere mortals watch on and wonder how this bloke backs up from Origin to Origin, let alone series after series. In game two of 2011, in his debut series as captain and his first match at prop for the Blues, Gallen clocked 27 runs for 212 metres and made 32 tackles on top of that. To get a taste of how tiring and bruising that had to have been, go home tonight and run into your fridge 27 times, tackle that big tree in your front yard 30-odd times and then run to your local shop and back. (Disclaimer: Don’t do any of that, unless you’re in serious need of milk and the shop’s about to shut). “To be honest with you, it doesn’t matter who I’m playing for, I always try to play the same way, give my best,” Gallen says. “But I suppose, the Origin games, they’re like a season in themselves. You put so much time and emphasis on the training to get there.

Then when you get to the game, it’s two states, you’ve got seven million people in New South Wales and I don’t know how

54

many in Queensland, but everybody is watching; there’s so much media attention around it, so much focus on the games, so much tension. You have to go out and put everything into it. That’s just the way I’ve always been. It’s so important to both states.

It’s the number-one fixture in the rugby league season besides the grand final.

That’s why there’s so much effort put into it, from not only myself but from everyone.”

As the State of Origin monster has exploded in popularity and hype, especially over the last five years, so Gallen has felt a comparative rise in intensity on the field during that time. “Every game gets bigger,” he reports. “The last two or three deciders I’ve been in, I’ve said amongst the group this is the biggest game in Origin history.

There’s no doubt that Origin gets bigger and better every year. The players have to get better.”

The viewership data backs up Gallen’s on-field sense of a rise in importance and intensity. Last year over 224,000 tickets were sold to the three clashes held at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, Sydney’s ANZ Stadium and for the first time since 1997, the colossal Melbourne Cricket Ground, at which a record Origin crowd of 91,513 watched Gallen’s Blues square the series with a 26-18 win in game two. At homes in the ’burbs and at the city watering holes across Australia, 2.62 million people tuned

into Nine’s Origin telecast of that MCG return, while games one and three attracted metropolitan television audiences of 2.43 and 2.21 million respectively. Gallen’s unsure of when the game will peak; perhaps it won’t. All he knows is he’s going to enjoy sitting back watching it in years to come, perhaps glad he won’t be having to keep up with whatever supersonic version of an Origin player we’ll have in the future.

“There are always new players coming in, that’s the evolution of the game: players get bigger, stronger and faster and therefore the game gets better,” he says. “Every Origin game is massive. The biggest game in Origin is the next game coming up, that’s the only game that matters. There’s been unfortunate dead-rubbers over the years but let me tell you, the blokes going out there to play are going out there to win. I don’t know where it will be in ten, 20 years’ time. It’s going to be amazing.”

Gallen will be stepping away from the Origin cauldron at the end of this year’s series. Fair enough too; he’s donated enough of himself to the cause. He’s played 21 Origin matches and only two missed games – last year’s game one and game three of 2013 – since acquiring the captaincy.

There’s been a lot of blood, sweat and water under the bridge in that time, an enduring war of words playing out in the build-up to each meeting: two-headed Queenslanders

and all that. That’s why it was nice to see Gallen and the man at the heart of all his Origin heartbreak over the years, new Australian coach Mal Meninga, sitting enjoying a chat at a recent function in Sydney. Meninga himself bowed out of the interstate rivalry in an official capacity last year to hand the Maroons’ coaching reigns over to Brisbane Broncos great Kevin Walters.

All of a sudden, Gallen was in Mal’s sights for selection, with the Raiders legend contemplating plans for his forthcoming international coaching debut against the Kiwis. To be a fly in the soup at that table ...

“It was good; to be honest with you, he came and sat next to me and we spoke about where I was rugby league-wise for about 30 seconds,” Gallen says. “He simply said, ‘Mate, look, you’re in the mix [for Australian selection]. You’ve got to keep playing well.’ That was it.”

The occasion was very likely the first New South Wales-flavoured event Meninga had attended in his life. The main item on the agenda that night was to open deliberations on which NSW Blues team was the greatest of all-time (Gallen’s drought-breaking victorious 2014 outfit is well in the running).

That’s rugby league – comparing eras, as

topical as it gets, is a game-wide pastime anyone can play, from the biggest superstar to the young fan saving up his pocket money for a ticket to the footy. The setting at the True Blues get-together, then, was the perfect chance for two of the most influential figures in the game over the last decade to catch up after all that time on opposite sides of the dividing Origin barbed-wire. “The rest of our chat was just us chewing the fat like a couple of blokes do,” says Gallen. “I asked him about his family and his kids. We spoke about Adrian Lam; I asked him if he had anything to do with Papua New Guinea, because my brother in law is half-Papua New Guinean, so we spoke a bit about PNG and the work he did up there, and the work he did with Adrian Lam, who is part of the Australian coaching squad now. We just talked about footy and blokes stuff, really.”

TEAM GALLEN Indeed, Paul Gallen the bloke – the family bloke – might seem a difficult concept to digest for the typical bloodthirsty Queenslander, but yes, there is a seldomreported-on human being inside that battle suit, be it the sky blue of New South Wales, the light-sky blue of the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks or the green and gold. Gallen has

kept his private life particularly guarded from the media, as has been his right ... however difficult that has proven over the years in the dust of issues such as the peptides scandal which engulfed the Cronulla club, and for which Gallen and a group of 2011 Sharks players accepted an offer from ASADA of a reduced ban for their involvement. He’s been no angel, nor has pretended to be, but the protection of his family from media crossfire has been part of a group effort involving his most important team-mate, wife Anne. “I’ve got three kids now,” Gallen reports proudly, just months after the arrival of baby Macy (perhaps another reason for his lack of sleep). “My partner doesn’t like being spoken about. I don’t mind if you print this, either, but she stays right out of the limelight, so to speak.

She usually wants nothing to do with it, which is absolutely fine. But she’s a terrific mother and terrific wife; she’s been great for me. Obviously my kids; they’re the numberone thing in your life, they’re outstanding.”

Feeling your cynicism, dear rugby league reader, this isn’t the part of the story where we begin the tale of how family life has softened Paul Gallen. He still wants to leave the Origin stage at the end of the series with his rep for being one of the fiercest players `

photos by Getty Images

“The effort you put into Origin ... People think you’d be exhausted and that you could sleep for days, but it’s the complete opposite.”

55

“Definitely post-game and pre-game, parenthood changes you, but when you’re on that field, you do what you gotta do.”

56

you’re cranky, tired, sore ... When you walk through the front door and you see a smiling little face and all they want to do is see their Dad and hug you ... it takes all those worries away and gives you another perspective on life.

“As soon as the game finishes these days, all my kids want to do is come onto the field and run around with their Dad. They don’t care whether we win or lose. Definitely post-game and pre-game, parenthood changes you, but when you’re on that field, you do what you gotta do.”

Or in the ring, for that matter. Gallen is five bouts into a five-win boxing career which began in 2014 and has featured victories over leaguies Bodene Thompson and Anthony Watts. His last fight was in Toowoomba in January, a TKO against Herman Ene Purcell. At the moment his approach to boxing preparation is a casual one, his full-time training commitments with the Sharks proving far too physically demanding for any serious tilt at professionalism. “I don’t really do any boxing training so to speak during the season,” he says. “I do a bit of fitness; punching bags, that kinda thing with my trainer Graham Shaw, but we don’t do any fight preparation or anything like that.

We’ve done one session a week for the past three weeks, just because we’ve had some good seven-day turnarounds, but basically I’m too sore after games to be able to focus any more on boxing than I do.”

His most famous on-field outing – against Queensland enforcer Nate Myles, in which he literally beat the Maroon giant to the punch in 2013 in what would become one of the last mid-game connections before the NRL’s no-tolerance stance on punching kicked in – sure set the scene for a boxing career which has more elite football identities on the menu. “There are more fights in the pipeline; we obviously want to fight Sonny Bill,” Gallen reminds. “We’ve been offered to fight Monty Betham at the end of this year, too. He’s obviously New Zealand cruiserweight champion at the moment. That could be a big fight.”

SHARKIES’ MAIN MAN Often the most successful athletes start out scrapping for chances, let alone wins and titles. Not that anyone knows it at the time, but the need to prove themselves is mostly what gets these guys over the line against the kids from privileged upbringings used to getting what they want. And so it was with Paul Gallen, who hails from the outskirts of one of the fastest-growing cities in Australia, Parramatta. “I didn’t make the Eels’ Harold Matthews Cup [under-16s] side when I was 15,” he recalls. “The next year I was playing year ten footy at school with a lot of my schoolmates from Parramatta Marist; Parramatta sent a lot of their juniors there.

I’d just play my games for Marist, have fun, enjoy myself and I suppose halfway through the season I thought, ‘I’m going `

photos by Getty Images

in the sport still intact. “I have to be honest, it never changed my attitude to the way I play, or the aggression you need to show on the field,” he tells Inside Sport of fatherhood.

“Nah, your professional life is your professional life and I’ve always said I’d do what it takes to do my job. So, as far as that part goes, when you cross that white line, so to speak, it doesn’t change.”

While it might not have softened him on the field, what being a dad has done for Gallen – importantly as the sun sets on his rugby league playing days – is given him an alternate focus for his energies which might have been invested in that famous aggression in previous years. “I remember before my first child, I had a lot of the older Sharks boys like Danny Nutley and David Peachey telling me how much kids will change you; just the whole thing – the experience of the birth, etc. And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’ Now I tell young blokes when they’re about to have their first child the same sort’ve thing. I do tell them ‘nothing I tell you will prepare you for the experience’ and that’s true. When you’re there, when you experience the birth and when you hold that baby for the first time, it certainly changes your life. It gives you something else to live for, I think. They become the number-one thing in your life.

Football is my profession and I play to provide for my kids, basically. I suppose on top of that, when you’ve been at training all day, you’ve had a hard day, you come home,

alright here, I’m as good as these guys, I reckon.’ When I was 17, there were trials for the SG Ball [under-18s] squad. I went and trialled for Parramatta and I made the team; made the starting side. I grew up in Greystanes. Dad lived there and mum lived in Blacktown. So I played SG Ball for Parramatta that year, and the next year I signed with Cronulla while I was still at school. And I’ve been here ever since.”

Gallen made his debut for the CronullaSutherland Sharks all the way back in 2001, and had since pulled on the sky blue and black 265 times as this edition of the magazine went to print. Alongside that have been 32 Tests for Australia and 21 Origins heading into his swansong 2016 series. With many pundits forecasting a

repeat showdown between North Queensland and the Broncos in this year’s NRL grand final, their next choice is usually Cronulla.

With his side chock-full of young talent, Gallen has also recently discovered the joys of mentoring the Sharks’ current breed such as Jack Bird and Valentine Holmes.

“Definitely the past three or four years I think I’ve evolved and become a better talker, better at telling people what I think,” Gallen says. “I’ve probably gotten on better with the younger boys, just giving them a quiet word, you know? Tell them you’re going well, telling them before the game, particularly our young outside backs, just to keep doing your good runs, make your good metres, defend well, just one or two things I might tell them before the game.

They always tend to listen. I’ve definitely done that the last couple of years. I think you’re always evolving as a captain.”

His evolution as an on-field leader has taken place within the broader framework of a sport which has undergone massive changes to the way it’s not only governed, but played. Tackling styles have come and gone. Before slotting Gallen into the old-school basket merely because of his tenacity, look carefully at his tackling technique and you’ll see something which you won’t in that grainy footage of your retro heroes. Once known for his solid, bruising hits, Gallen’s developed into the most potent defender in the sport because of a drastic change he made to his own game a few years back. These days he grabs at his

FIERCEST ORIGIN ENFORC GARY LARSON

(QLD, across 1991-1998) With his voice box busted, the ultrarugged, determined and fit Larson did his talking on the field.

Played 24-straight State of Origins across eight years.

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PAUL SIRO

(NSW, 1989-1994 Former police officer who broke several laws of attrition on the footy field.

Amongst the mos fearless players to ever lace on a boot; a human battering ram.

TREVOR GILLMEISTER (QLD, 1987-1996) No Origin player it defenders as ard as “The Axe”. e wasn’t only a ough bastard, e was very quick n his feet, too. mall in stature ut a giant in spirit.

RAY PRICE

(NSW, 1981-1984) Never tasted a series victory but he’ll be forever celebrated as one of the men who built the legend of State of Origin. Mr Perpetual Motion grew more dangerous over the 80 minutes.

MARTIN LANG

(QLD, 1998-2000) A milk van crossed with a top-fuel dragster. Boasting absolute disrespect for his own skeleton, he charged blindly into the defence and left them falling like nine pins ...

photos by Getty Images

victims and pulls them down to the ground.

It’s all over in a second and a half, his technique proving inescapable for the poor bastard with the ball. “I really got into jiu jitsu over the years,” Gallen tells us. “I probably haven’t done it for two or three years now, but I got to a blue belt there. Jiu jitsu and wrestling came into the game about ten years ago and now a lot of the teams have wrestling coaches; blokes who are good at jiu jitsu come in and train them.

There are still some blokes who can hit hard in the game, no doubt about that, who come up with big shots, like Dylan Napa. On occasions, when you go for those big shots, you’re also becoming ineffective because you can bounce off and away. I was coming to the point where I realised you’re better off being effective than coming up with one big hit and missing the next two or three tackles.

That was the attitude that I had. Being an effective defender is the best way and that’s the style I adopted.”

Gallen and his Blues managed to achieve the seemingly impossible by claiming a State of Origin series win against what’s possibly the greatest side ever assembled back in 2014. An even bigger goal, though one which has to be appearing larger and larger through the windscreen on the Sharks’ journey year-by-year, would be winning the club’s first-ever premiership.

The Sharks have housed many heroes since their birth in 1967 – take your pick of anyone from Steve Rogers, Andrew Ettingshausen, to two-time Dally M medallist Gavin Miller.

What’s quite interesting, then, is that the team’s current idol never really had a footy hero of his own as an emerging star. No one he looked up to, chased autographs off?

“I never really had any, to be honest,” Gallen admits. “I never followed rugby league to the point where I had posters on my wall and thought, this bloke is my hero.

That’s why I think I struggle a little bit these days when I’m compared to being a role model or being a kid’s hero. I never looked up to anyone like that. But in saying that, I do remember at his peak, Brad Clyde was the player who I definitely liked. He had a terrific work rate; he also had the ability to score tries. He was the one that I liked, but as far as having a hero, I can’t say I had one.”

All good, Gal. Nothing to lose sleep over. ■

PAUL GALLEN

(NSW, 2006-2016) A reincarnation of Price, perhaps, he’s the current keeper of the NSW flame.

Amongst the few players Queensland genuinely feared across their eightyear streak.

SHANE WEBCKE

(QLD, 1998-200 Maroons cornerstone who seemed to grow tougher each season.

Rewrote the requirements of an Origin fron rower. The peop still celebrating

“I never followed rugby league to the point where I had posters on my wall and thought, this bloke is my hero.”

UL RRAGON

W, 1992-1998) ovely guy off eld and scarily ious on it. He royed every he ran into and ally bled for the e more often not.

BOB LINDNER

(QLD, 1984-1993) Played 25 Origins with the same intensity in the last as his first.

Possessed power, strength, speed and an utterly uncompromising Queensland spirit.

WAYNE PEARCE

(NSW, 1983-1988) Skippered the Blues to their first series cleansweep in 1986. A tremendously skilled footballer and the game’s finest athlete. Incredible staying power.

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OP T US’ ACQU ISIT ION OF T H E ENGLISH PR EM IER LE AGU E ’ S AUST R A LI A N R IGH TS IS EM BLEM AT IC OF T H E FA ST- CH A NGING FACE OF SPORTS A N D BROA D CA ST ING. A M I X OF FR EE TO A IR , PAY T V A N D DIGITA L COV ER AGE H A S T H E AT-HOM E V IEW ER – H U NGRY FOR A N EPIC GA M E-DAY E X PER IENCE – IN A W IN N ING PO SIT ION.

By S IMO N C A N N I N G

I

T WAS the television broadcast deal nobody saw coming – and it didn’t even involve television. Appearing out of nowhere, phone company Optus stunned Fox Sports and lashed out $189 million in November to secure the broadcast and digital rights to the world’s most popular soccer competition, the English Premier League. It was a move as audacious as anything that might be seen from the code’s stars on the pitch or managers in the transfer market. More broadly, it was a play that looks set to redefine how Australians watch their sport, local and international, in what is being seen as a major changing of the guard. Sports, a market once owned by Seven, Nine and Ten – and more recently Fox Sports – with their linear broadcast models and captive audiences, are now fodder for phone companies, broadband providers and social media giants. Nothing will be the same again.

The lightning strike on one of soccer’s crown jewels by Optus chief executive Allen Lew preceded a social media backlash of anger and fear from the EPL’s Australian fans. They begged Fox Sports to cut a deal with the new rights holder and voiced their anger about how the pay TV platform had

An estimated 930 million viewers world-wide get up close and personal with the English Premier League.

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allowed the premier football brand to be delivering the best domestic and lost to a rival – one that refused to reveal just international entertainment for our how or where it would broadcast the sport. customers. With 930 million followers When bidding began, Fox Sports knew worldwide, the Premier League is one Optus was in the mix, but given the sport of the most sought-after sports properties broadcaster’s legacy of bringing the EPL to for content providers.

Australian fans, insiders “Today’s announcement suggest it never took Optus’ is a great win for Optus and THE LOSS overtures to the EPL seriously. will ensure that Aussie football OF THE EPL It was a fatal mistake in the fans can watch all the action HAS BEEN negotiations. However, even from the world’s most popular if it had taken Optus more football league.”

PREDICTED seriously, Fox Sports’ efforts Richard Scudamore, TO COST FOX executive were dead in the water, with chairman of the SPORTS UP Optus coming over the top English Premier League, with a mammoth offer of also chimed in with his TO 70,000 $63 million per year for three that the left-field SUBSCRIBERS confidence years. Insiders at Fox Sports choice was the right one for IN AUSTRALIA Australia’s soccer fans. called the offer a massive WHO SIGNED over-valuation.

“They have an excellent Lew begged to differ, track record as a multifaceted ON PURELY TO claiming there was value for telecommunications company WATCH THE Optus and even more value in Australia and we look LEAGUE. for fans to be revealed in the forward to working with them lead-up to the 2016-17 EPL to make all the best Premier season. “This is another significant step League content available to our fans across in our strategy to become a mobile-led the country,” Scudamore said. multimedia company,” he said at the time of After the initial backlash from fans, Optus the announcement. “We are dedicated to finally revealed how it would deliver the sport to Australians, promising a mix of free access for the telco’s customers and users of its Fetch TV platform, and the option to subscribe for those not already with Optus.

A 24/7 dedicated channel will be available to subscribers, either through a phone app or a mini set-top box with pause and rewind capability, while SBS has jumped on board with a weekly match of the round.

The loss of the English Premier League has been predicted to cost Fox Sports up to 70,000 subscribers in Australia who signed on purely to watch the league. In a bid to soften the blow of the loss, the pay-TV broadcaster cut a deal with the Al Jazeeraowned BeIn Sports, offering three new HD channels for free in their sports pack which will include coverage of key European leagues such as the Champions League and the European Championships.

While snaring the EPL is seen as a coup for Optus, for the EPL it appears the play is about revenue, not necessarily generating more fans. For other sports, choosing a broadcast channel is about gaining broad exposure where free-to-air TV remains important – at least for now. The National Football League in the US is a case in point, doing a deal with Seven to capitalise on the hype that surrounded the signing of former NRL star Jarryd Hayne to the San Francisco 49ers. For the sport, growing a fan base in Australia was seen as more important than the revenue that could be made out of a broadcast deal.

“The EPL is more focused on revenues and so rather than pursuing a free-to-air deal, they have been more focused on building a really strong bidding process for when they go to market every three years and attempt to extract significant increases

photos by Getty Images

Cameras are beaming content out to at-home viewers and patrons at the stadium via new media platfoms.

out of those deals,” one sports observer said.

“Ultimately they could have done a very different deal, but the Optus deal, because it is digitally focused, is innovative, but there is some risk there in terms of the amount of people that can access that content.”

For Australian soccer, from the Socceroos to the A-League, the arrival of Optus on the scene as an owner of rights is possibly a major fillip; the league having hired a strategic consultancy from the UK, Oliver & Ohlbaum, to help with rights negotiations beyond the deal with Fox Sports and SBS, which ends next year. Football Federation Australia CEO David Gallup is believed to want to cut a stronger free-to-air deal, with concerns a single match each week on SBS has not delivered value. He also wants to boost the sport’s coffers, with the current deal worth just $40 million a year.

The key will be not in the digital experience, or necessarily what the broadcasters do, but in how sports such as soccer use the various media platforms to help build a better experience for fans at the game, which in turn can enhance `

TV IS STILL KING The power of TV as a broadcast platform may be on the wane, but in the battle for eyeballs, free-to-air and pay-TV players continue to throw record amounts of money at sports.

Viewers are more than happy to time-shift entertainment programs and fast-forward through the ads, but when it comes to sport, live rules. And while Australia’s broadband infrastructure remains under development, the reliability of streaming as an option is yet to be fully realised.

Last year both the Australian Football League and National Rugby League signed new longterm broadcast partnerships with the major networks – the funding to be used to support competing clubs and help develop sport at community level.

When the rights come up for bidding again in five years, players such as Optus, Telstra, Google, Twitter and Facebook could be bidding head to head with the likes of Foxtel, Seven, Nine and Ten. But for now, when it comes to writing big cheques, television still rules.

RECENT GROWTH IN SPORTS BROADCAST RIGHTS DEALS AFL 2007-11 $780m 2012-16 $1.25b 2017-22 $2.5b*

NRL 2007-12 $500m 2012-2016 $1.025b 2018-22 $1.8b*

SANZAR RUGBY** 2006-10 US$323m 2011-15 US$437m 2016-20 US$646m

SOCCER*** 2008-12 $120m 2013-17 $160m 2018-22 $320m (estimated)

*Most-recent AFL and NRL deals include digital **Includes Super Rugby and Tri-Nations series ***A-League and Socceroos matches (excluding World Cup)

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it as a broadcast experience.

Shane Mattiske, managing director of global sports and entertainment sponsorship consultants Repucom, and former interim CEO of the National Rugby League, says while the Optus deal will introduce a new model to Australian sports fans, local sports are already showing a level of entrepreneurship in looking to how they deliver their product.

The success of Cricket Australia’s Big Bash League is an example Mattiske highlights as a case study other Australian sports could follow. “I think the BBL is a good example of how a change in broadcast distribution changes a sport,” he says. “Perhaps not the style of play, but it certainly changed its impact and its following. It’s been a breakthrough sport not only in terms of ratings, but in terms of people who are avidly supporting that particular form of the game.”

And, ironically, even as the power of free-to-air is being challenged, he sees the Ten Network’s decision to televise the sport as one that has let administrators do new things. “I think that’s been built off the exposure that channel Ten has provided as

Aussie sports have followed the lead of American leagues like the NFL, which offers its product to both free to air and pay TV broadcasters.

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“Given our sport is traditionally played opposed to Fox Sports – Fox still provided over a long period of time, a multi-platform exposure, but they were providing approach helps us tell the story of a match exposure to 30 per cent of the population. wherever those fans are and whenever they When you go broad and you give a very choose to engage,” Amarfio says. “Taking innovative treatment to sport – new, young a customer-centric approach players and commentators, and being wherever the innovation in terms of how it’s OPTUSconsumer is naturally helps broadcast ... Plus, they already BRANDED us increase engagement and had a new marketing approach attract new customers. Working – the names of the teams, CONTENT with a partner like Optus has colours, and money spent REACHED allowed us to provide more on not what was happening MORE THAN affordable options to consume on the field, but off the field.

33 MILLION live cricket and also allowed us With the impact of free-to-air to develop content targeted for television, that is how that FANS VIA particular customer segments sport has exploded.”

CRICKET that we may otherwise have not Big Bash has been a success AUSTRALIA been able to reach and engage for Cricket Australia on Ten, but the game has also been AND OPTUS as effectively.

“We’ve been able to add working hard in the digital SPORT brand-new elements to our space over recent years, CHANNELS. match day coverage as well as last season with Optus, for creating original feature content example, to spread its reach and surfacing archive content in multiple across platforms. Cricket Australia’s general formats. This content has generated some manager for media communications and terrific numbers, making our overall brand marketing, Ben Amarfio, says it has been a more attractive proposition to committed a successful formula for a game that often cricket followers and casual fans alike, demands fans invest large amounts of time.

The ultra-successful Big Bash League [this image and left] gives the crowd and viewers what they want: lights, cameras and action.

photos by Getty Images

leading to significant audience growth on previously existing social channels as well as newly created Optus Sport channels.”

The audience numbers for Cricket Australia this past summer were impressive: Optus-branded content reached more than 33 million fans via Cricket Australia and Optus Sport channels, with total impressions of 109 million and 10.8 million video views respectively.

For soccer, one marketer close to the sport sees the opportunity to make the most of the experience of being at the game, and then translate that across how the sport is portrayed; being a Socceroos supporter doesn’t necessarily translate into supporting the A-League. Indeed, some measures suggest while there are 4.5 million people saying they are fans of the national team, less than half say they are followers of the A-League at any level. “There is a real opportunity to grow that love of football into a love of the A-league,” our marketer said.

“So there is absolutely an opportunity there. The fans of EPL are avid, but the quality of the product is obviously very different. A-League is never going to be at the same standard as EPL; it’s not going to happen. But certainly what the Wanderers have done and Melbourne Victory and

Melbourne City, they are starting to build the atmosphere of the EPL around the games and that’s a really important factor for them moving forward.”

Like the Big Bash League, having an atmosphere that broadcasters can tap into is a crucial part of sport as entertainment.

But there is another challenge being faced by sports wanting to tap the holy grail of a regular free-to-air audience, as Cricket Australia, the AFL and the NRL have done.

Free-to-air television is a finite resource and there is just so much time broadcasters can devote to sport.

Mattiske, who lived in the pressure cooker environment of TV rights negotiations when running the NRL, says regardless of other opportunities on the horizon, a TV deal will always carry a certain level of importance.

“Free-to-air television is always going to be an important part of the mix for the big Australian sports and to be honest, the sports looking to grow their fan base, Olympic sports for instance, are trying to gain more and more free-to-air exposure,” says Mattiske.

“But the free-to-air model is challenging in that the free-to-air broadcasters have a limited ability to invest in sports that are emerging or that don’t bring a huge

ANTI-SIPHONING The arrival of pay-TV in Australia in 1995 created a new headache for politicians. Sport was seen as a major driver to subscriptions and there was public concern that events which had traditionally been seen free on TV would be locked up by the likes of Fox Sports and Optus Vision.

Urged on by powerful lobbying from the free-to-air networks, the Federal Government stepped in with Sports Anti-Siphoning legislation, quarantining more than 1000 sporting events and matches from being acquired exclusively by pay-TV.

audience; they have already invested so much in the big football codes or cricket. So those sports that aren’t at the same level as AFL or NRL or cricket, they would love to get more and more free-to-air exposure, but the economics simply don’t allow for it.”

Both the NRL and AFL are augmenting their extensive free-to-air contracts with Nine and Seven and pay-TV deals with Fox Sports with digital distribution on a subscription model that mirrors that of the NFL, NBA and NHL in the US. But with television deals worth more than $3 billion between them, digital remains a sideshow for the moment.

The free-to-air networks have also been aided by the Sports Anti-Siphoning list, brought in by the Federal Government in the 1990s with the launch of pay-TV to guarantee major events such as the AFL and NRL grand finals and the Melbourne Cup remain available to Australians for free. But the networks are not required to broadcast the sports they own the rights to and have even been accused of “hoarding” some events.

So while free-to-air remains the shop window most sports covet but few in the Australian market can aspire to, the field is now open for players like Optus to `

The move meant major events such as the AFL and NRL grand finals, Melbourne Cup, Cricket Tests and others had to be offered to free TV broadcasters first and at one time there were no guarantees in the legislation that once a network acquired the rights to a sport, it had to broadcast it, leading to accusations the networks have simply “hoarded” some events on the list to keep them away from pay TV. Ever since, the list has been a central element in discussions over broadcast media reform, with Fox Sports lobbying for it to be scrapped (increasingly important for the pay-TV broadcaster), with digital operators Optus, Telstra, Facebook and Twitter not bound by the legislation.

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Interestingly, the world of sports video games is proving fertile ground for sports fan recruitment ...

shake things up, while Fox Sports can promote itself to players with a dedicated core of subscribers wanting a broad choice of sports.

For the Australian Rugby Union, a $285 million deal with Fox Sports and the Ten Network announced earlier this year was well below the billion-dollar deals of the AFL and NRL, but ARU chief operating officer Rob Clarke said it was what they were looking for even as the code reports a loss. “Our recent media rights outcome was a great result for rugby on a couple of fronts, not only because it has given the game a 150 percent uplift in media rights income over the next five years, but also because it delivered additional free-to-air exposure for the Super Rugby competition through Network Ten,” Clarke said. “We will always need to look at an arrangement which delivers the right commercial outcome for the game, but also an opportunity to take the game to new audiences. Our partnership with Fox Sports is also highly valued and the quality coverage the game receives across their platforms is second-tonone in the world.”

But still, it appears the Optus deal is a reflection of what the landscape of the future looks like. Soccer’s deal with the telco mirrors what the EPL has done in the UK with its digital strategy, giving fans multi-platform access through BT Sport, which has become a major sports platform for the UK giant in its own right.

But even more tantalising for the future of

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sports rights, can only be a good thing fans is the deal struck in April by Twitter for sports fans. Sports lovers want their with the National Football League in the US. premium content delivered to them via The landmark deal will see the social the channels they live on. While this is media platform stream ten Thursday night still predominantly via free-to-air TV, we games globally in 2016. are no doubt starting to see the shift and The deal is being hailed by the NFL as this is something the free-to-airs are the completion of an important mix of freevery attuned to. They themselves will to-air TV, cable TV and digital. “There is a more and more serve their content via massive amount of NFL-related conversation other channels such as streaming.” happening on Twitter during our games and So with Twitter now a sports broadcaster, tapping into that audience, in addition to our can Facebook be far behind? viewers on broadcast and if it is, what impact could cable, will ensure Thursday IT IS ABOUT And the company that invested Night Football is seen on ALLOWING $2 billion on Virtual Reality an unprecedented number developer Oculus Rift have of platforms this season,” FANS TO the future of the way we NFL commissioner Roger SHARE IN THE on watch sports?

Goodell said.

DRAMA, AND Facebook and the NBA have “This agreement also provides additional reach for INNOVATION already lifted the skirt on the those brands advertising with WILL SIMPLY possibilities, having broadcast an NBA game to virtual reality our broadcast partners.”

ENHANCE set owners, giving them the Cricket Australia’s Amarfio THAT. feeling they were sitting in the highlighted the move of social “Jack Nicholson seats”. media giants into the sports Mattiske is watching the space carefully broadcasting space and said the Optus play and sees nothing but an upside for sports with the EPL was equally bold. “As a rights fans in the future. “At Repucom we talk a lot holder, we are always excited when new about the fan segments and the way people players, with new platforms, get into the engage with their team or their sport,” rights market to take premium content to Mattiske says. fans,” Amarfio says.

“Some people are game experts and are “Optus has made a very bold play ... very much into stats and exactly what’s a telco exclusively purchasing a truly happening. Other people are more about premium sports offering. This move, along the atmosphere and being part of a big with recent plays by some of the world’s event. One thing you will see over time is biggest social media platforms in buying up

photos by Getty Images

that when a sport presents itself, it will start to differentiate between the various types of fans that are following the teams.

“So ten years ago it was one single broadcast stream or signal that went to everyone, and everyone saw the same thing. I think in the future there is absolute opportunity for customisation and recognition of what a fan wants and making sure that you deliver that to the fan.

“There are a whole lot of sports that are doing particular things well. American sports have got huge scale, so they can invest heavily in digital platforms and they have led the way in developing direct-toconsumer products. The NFL is a great example of a business, or a sport – however you describe them – that has invested in creating their own content. For example, they produce fantastic documentaries around the game which actually bring many fans to their sport.

“There are great innovations and the virtual reality innovation with the NBA, that’s amazing and it does make you wonder what’s next beyond that. But I think VR absolutely is going to be really interesting for sport. I think gamification of sport is really interesting as well and brings you an opportunity almost to play against some of these stars in a virtual environment. So there is potential for e-sports to somehow merge into traditional sports. FIFA 16, Madden, those sort of games, there is a whole population of fans that have become fans of a computer game and then linked to the sport rather than the other way around.”

It is a path cricket has already walked down, with its apps in partnership with the Nine Network offering innovations such as live interactive “Viewers Verdict” polls and even a brief – if highly criticised – flirtation with allowing fans to use their phones to select the Man of the Match.

Amarfio says it is about allowing fans to share in the drama, and innovation will simply enhance that. “Sports provides the greatest dramatic live entertainment on a consistent basis,” he says. “New technologies and platforms will continue to come along that will assist us in sharing that drama in new and interesting ways.

We think the ongoing evolution of augmented reality will play just as much of a role as virtual reality, if not more, in how sports are consumed in a live environment in the future.”

For fans of the EPL, Amarfio is expecting big things from Optus. “Knowing Optus, we’re confident they will have a very smart plan on how best to serve that content to Australian fans – whether they are current or prospective Optus customers,” he says.

Sports are facing a revolution – the question for the future is, will the revolution be televised? ■ Simon Canning is Marketing & Advertising Editor at Mumbrella

Merely watching sport isn't enough for some people. above Oi, you three, watch the game!

Oops, they probably are ...

WHAT’S ON THE ANTI-SIPHONING LIST Olympic Games: Summer and Winter; every event including the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Commonwealth Games: every event including Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Horse racing: Melbourne Cup. AFL: Every match during the premiership season.

Rugby league: Every NRL and State of Origin series match; each Kangaroos Test played in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and each Australian match at the Rugby League World Cup. Rugby union: Every Wallabies Test played in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or Europe; every Wallaby match at the Rugby World Cup, as well as the quarters, semis and final of the tournament.

Cricket: Each Test, one-day and T20 international in Australia involving the senior men’s Australian team; every Ashes Test in the

UK; every Australian match of the ICC World Cup and ICC T20, as well as the semis and final of the World Cup, and final of the T20.

Soccer: Every match of the FIFA World Cup, as well as each Socceroos World Cup qualifier; FA Cup final.

Tennis: Each match in the Australian Open; the quarters, semis and finals in men’s and women’s singles at Wimbledon and the US Open; each match in the Davis Cup world group involving Australia.

Netball: Each international involving the Diamonds, played in Australia or New Zealand; the semis and final of the World Championships if Australia is playing.

Golf: Every round of the Australian Masters, the Australian Open and The Masters.

Motor sports: Every Australian Formula One and MotoGP Grand Prix; each race in the V8 Supercars Championship series.

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photo by Getty Images

KEEP CALM AND EDDIE ON ENGL A ND RUGBY COACH EDDIE JONE S W ILL H AVE THE POMS BELIEVING THEY CA N DOMINATE AUSTR A LI A ACROSS THEIR THR EE-TE ST SER IE S HER E THIS MONTH. STR A NGER THINGS H AVE H A PPENED. ASK THE BOKS …

By M AT T C L E A RY

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E

DDIE JONES is an imp. A mischievous, little imp with a half-grin and dual cocked eyebrows; less a glint in his eyes than a mini-galaxy of mischief. He haunts the dreams of rugby players around the world, from Wallabies' props to Japanese pin-heads who’d hide under chairs rather than face his withering stare-outs. And now he’s coach of England. And you wonder: do they know what they have done?

“Eddie could go through a litany of players throughout his coaching career and single them out: ‘I remember him crying, I remember him crying, I remember him crying’,” says Jones’ friend and colleague, Australian Rugby Sevens coach Andy Friend. “And they couldn’t handle it and left thinking Eddie was the worst coach they’ve ever had. But they’re the minority. The rest work harder than they ever have and achieve probably more than they would have.”

All players will tell you that coaches are “crazy”, in their way. Obsessive, paranoid, manic, mad. Bob Dwyer was piss and wind and frothy exhortations. Alan Jones had stirring oratory, played favourites. Rod Macqueen had the kindly schoolmaster thing going on, but was actually something of a hard-arse. He made players believe they had “power” but looking back, the coach had been tugging their strings.

Ewen McKenzie was crazy enough to hire a woman, Di Patston, to sort out finances.

When players couldn’t cop her, McKenzie stood firm. And out the door he went.

Robbie Deans? Killed it with Canterbury Crusaders. Super coach. Oracle. His legacy in Australia is dropping Matt Giteau, the crazy bastard. That and being a Kiwi.

And that won’t happen again in a hurry.

Cricket, footy, netball, anything – hiring non-Australians to coach Australian teams is over. Aussie coach, Aussie way.

The Poms have no such qualms, indeed covet the Aussie way over their own.

Following their flat-out hopeless home World Cup in which they were eliminated before the quarters, England Rugby went

Winning the Six Nations trophy was a buzz for Eddie Jones, but it's Bill he really wants to snare.

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global. Who? Where? Doesn’t matter! Get one! And came up with E. Jones, whose Japanese Cherry Blossoms in the same World Cup had, at the odds of 66-1, beaten the old-world might of South Africa. How about that? Japan! Beat South Africa! No one thought that would happen except Jones and former Wallabies' prop Ben Darwin, who specced a few quid at the price, and drank the winnings many a night.

And so here he is, coaching England, Our Eddie. And it’s not hard to see him on the training track, those thick, caterpillar eyebrows cocked, ever-present half-smirk, eyes fairly gleaming, and he’s taking the piss out of everybody, every day. Putting shit on blokes, calling them “weak”, calling them “soft-cocks”, even “Poms”! Ha! Get into it, you Pommy bludgers. High comedy.

Jones is not everyone’s cup of English Breakfast. Darwin wrote that “Eddie Jones is not my favourite person in the world.

Four years as a player being harangued, taunted and dragged kicking and screaming into a professional career means his name does not fill me with an enormous amount of joy. But I wouldn't have

played for Australia if it were not for him.

“When coached by Eddie, you spend 90 percent of your time cursing his name.

I once saw a Japanese player at Suntory Sungoliath, the Japanese Top League team Eddie coached at, climbing under furniture to avoid just getting within eyesight of him.”

“Players do fear him,” says freshly retired NTT Shining Arcs and NRL man Craig Wing. “But you only have cause to fear if you’re not doing your best. If you’re having a crack, listening, acting out the game plan, you’re good. But cut corners or do something outside the game plan ... I mean, if it succeeds, good luck to you. If it doesn’t, look out.”

One-time Wallabies fullback Matt Burke remembers being bawled out on the training paddock for seeing a hole in a semi-opposed training drill and running into it. Burke was operating against The Plan, outside boundaries. For Jones, the rugby field is a chess board of human pawns. Eddie’s Way of Rugby is that Result X will happen after Moves A, B, C and D. If there’s a maul here and a ruck here, and the ball then travels to this part of the field, space will open up over back here.

And so on.

Rugby types respect his tactical nous.

And they’re in slack-jawed awe of his work ethic. His man-management is considered abrasive at best, but most players respond well, according to Friend. “He’s one of those coaches; when you’re being coached by him, I don’t think you realise how much you’re getting challenged, how much you’re learning. But ask a lot of the ex-Wallabies, ex-Brumbies, ex-Japanese players who’s the best coach they’ve ever had and they’ll say Eddie Jones. He pushes you so hard.

He pushes you to limits that normal people would never consider reaching.”

Wing has been a professional footballer more than half of his 37 years on Earth.

He’s played for NSW in State of Origin and contested four grand finals with the Sydney Roosters. He’s played 17 Tests for Australia (in league) and 11 Tests for Japan (union).

You might have a problem with an Aussie coaching England ...

Eddie doesn't. above left Marching orders for Tommy Taylor.

But until he trained under Jones, he “didn’t know what the human body was capable of”.

“I was pushed to levels I’d never experienced,” says Wing. “I learned how far the human body can go. Eddie could never push a foreign team like he did the Japan team, but over there it’s a different environment. You tell Japanese players to do something – go without sleep, train on their days off – and they’ll do it. Eddie thrived on that. But he understands people. He’s good at finding strengths and weaknesses, and working on them. He’s not afraid to shake things up. Confronting players with ‘home truths’ is one of his specialities.”

Jones’ modus operandi is to weed out the weak through attrition. He’ll flog them physically and mentally. Nothing seems good enough. Pull out your best game, he’ll find a weakness. And those that can’t cop the verbal and physical barrage, well, if they can’t cop a few barbs on the training paddock, how are they going to fare against the All Blacks under the pump?

“He’s the same with his staff,” says Friend.

“He’ll challenge them, mentally, to be better at every single session. Even if they’ve had a

blinder the day before, he’ll say something’s not acceptable, you can be better. So the constant battering – it gets to people.”

Some would say it’s a weakness, the preference for brickbats over bouquets; that you catch more flies with honey. And what of our sensitive Gen-Ys and their feelings?

There have been books written about coaching them. Doesn’t everyone respond best to a belly-rub?

“He’ll do it privately; he’s very good at that,” says Friend. “But very rarely will you hear people being publicly praised. He said during the World Cup that he had the hardest-working staff. And for the staffers, it was ‘you beauty, big rap’.

But when he’s talking to players and staff, they’ll never get a ‘well done, you’re going well, keep it up’. It’s just his style.”

When Jones left Japan to coach the Stormers, Darwin casually asked a member of the Japanese Rugby Union how everyone felt now that he was leaving. The man’s reply was “we are very relieved”.

photos by Getty Images

“HE PUSHES YOU TO LIMITS THAT NORMAL PEOPLE WOULD NEVER CONSIDER REACHING.”

JAPAN No one in world rugby union – the world, period – is as disciplined or obedient as the

Japanese. The Japanese economy works on efficiency, works on doing things because you’re told to do them. Stand at traffic lights and wait to cross the road, and if there’s a little red man, no one will cross. A thousand people waiting and no car in sight, no matter. They won’t cross until the man is green. Three-million people a day pass through Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station. Everyone lines up, no one pushes in. The doors open, you shuffle in and find your seat.

“In a funny way it’s a society that doesn’t lend itself to playing footy,” reckons Andy Friend, who spent many years coaching in Japan. “In footy, you hustle for space, try to be more aggressive than the next bloke, do things outside the square. It’s bizarre that Japan is actually any good at rugby given the way they’re brought up.”

But they are good – and it’s because of Eddie Jones. Walk around Tokyo’s shopping malls today and there are billboards featuring Jones’ head, 30 feet high, because consumers are “impressed by his powerful conviction that Japanese people can exceed their expectations by refusing to become complacent” according to a PR Newswire blurb. When you lead the team that beats the Boks, you earn a certain level of deity. And still today there are dazed South Africans wondering how the hell did it happen.

“They were just better prepared than us, they had a lot of focus areas where they `

71

targeted us,” said Boks halfback Fourie du Preez, who plays club rugby for Suntory Sungoliath. “They just outsmarted us. I’ve been playing there [Japan] for four years, so I knew what was coming. I tried to let the guys know during the week that they are a proper nation.

“We were better prepared than they were,” says Wing. “We’d been preparing for South Africa for three years. We had a training drill called ‘Beat the Boks’, an up-tempo thing that was about the style we wanted to play against them. They would’ve had a look at us a week out.”

Du Preez and Suntory team-mate Schalk Burger had been telling team-mates: beware Japan. But according to Wing, “They were like, yeah, whatever. But the tries we scored against them, the strength of our scrum – it wasn’t a fluke. We had a game plan to beat them.”

Japan’s first training camp for the World Cup ran for five weeks, every day. There wasn’t a single day of rest. Players would be roused at 5:30am, be back in bed dog-tired at 10pm. Across three sessions a day it was train, eat, sleep, repeat.

“There isn’t an NRL team that could go do it,” says Wing. “OH&S wouldn’t allow it. No players’ union in Japan! And if you asked me now could I do it again, I don’t think I could.

We really pushed ourselves to our limits.”

Yet the Cherry Blossoms’ results weren’t great leading up to the tournament. And privately Jones worried if he’d worked his men too hard. But they beat Samoa in their pool game and went into the match against South Africa – who’d “rested” several key players – fitter than they had ever been. None of them truly believed they could win. And then the game began. And they did.

“Eddie would have put the message into their mind subconsciously,” says Friend.

“He would never have outright said you’re good footballers, we can win this – it’s not his style. But through the attrition of his training they would’ve felt like they could go another step. They’d have been out there playing the Boks and thought that it’s not as hard as training. They’d survived worse.

“And then the belief came in the game: we’re stronger, we’re quicker, we can run more, we can run for longer. And in a subtle way Eddie would’ve made them believe it. But they wouldn’t have believed it until they were in that contest, and then all of that learning, the training, and out it comes – belief. And the longer the game went the more they believed.”

“Nobody went through what we did – nobody,” says Wing. “In meetings Eddie said there’s no need to be nervous or stressed. We’d done all the training and preparation, and we’d give it a good shake as long as we stuck to the plan and did our best with the knowledge

that we couldn’t have worked harder.”

And they knew what the Boks would bring – big blokes, hard charging. They’d played against Burger, knew how to tackle him. Japanese players are taught to tackle below the knees. And down came the big Boks, one after the other. They tried to get their hip bump on. Jones knew the move.

And they kept coming. And kept coming down. “They didn’t have more skill and their game plan was so predictable,” says Wing.

Jones had told his players pre-match that the longer they stick to the game plan, and stick in the game, the more South Africa will think.

And the more they think the less they’ll play. And the longer it went, the more Jones’ mantra came to be.

And Japan scored a famous victory 34-32.

And England had their man.

HOW DO THE WALLABIES BEAT THE CRAZY BASTARD?

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ENGLAND The English were shit-house in the Rugby World Cup. You wondered what they were trying to do. What was their defined style?

The All Blacks were abrasive, contested physically through the middle of the park and stretched you with that amazing width game. The Wallabies became tenacious over the ball and showed off subtle skills and an ability to unleash outside backs.

And so on.

But what were the Poms? Normally you’d say they’re a strong set-piece team. But their lineout was hopeless. Normally you’d say theirs is a dominant scrum. But it wasn’t. You couldn’t see what their strengths were and what they were trying to play to.

But then came Eddie. And he gave them a plan, said this is what we are. And now they

come to Australia as Six Nations champions with their first Grand Slam in 13 years.

Three of their provinces – Wasps, Saracens and Leicester Tigers – made the semifinals of the European Cup. The Wallabies Tests are all sell-outs. Jones has joked that ARU boss Bill Pulver owes him a commission. A resurgent England is money.

And given the ARU’s parlous financial state, manna from heaven.

So what will be going around in the heads of these Grand Slammin’ England rugby men as they run out onto Suncorp Stadium?

TALE OF THE

TAPE

THE COACHES OF ENGLAND AND AUSTRALIA BY THE NUMBERS ...

EDDIE JONES 56 Heavy Massive in Japan

WEIGHT REACH

48 Heavy Well-known in Coogee

Cherry Blossoms 34 def Springboks 32.

Brighton, September 19, 2015

BEST WIN

England 20 def Wallabies 17, Sydney, November 22, 2003

MEMORABLE LOSS

All Blacks 34 def Wallabies 17, Twickenham, October 31, 2015

“Everyone hates England, it’s true.

Because of the history involved, that long-seated rivalry, there is a hatred and you can feel it.”

MEMORABLE QUOTE

“We’re not all guys who are camped out by the billabong with a cork hat.”

Wallabies 27 def All Blacks 19. Sydney, August 8, 2015

Media

LOVED BY

Leinster

Wendell Sailor, Lote Tuqiri, Mat Rogers

NOTABLE PLAYERS BLOODED

Sean McMahon

One-third of England’s World Cup squad

NOTABLE PLAYERS DROPPED

James Horwill

Bob Dwyer Nil Wizened Genie

photos by Getty Images

MICHAEL CHEIKA AGE

MENTOR WALLABY TESTS STATUS AT RANDWICK DRFC

Jeff Sayle Nil Venerated Warhorse

Hooker

PLAYING POSITION

No.8

Lippy scrapper

PLAYING STYLE

Brutal, bloodied pig-dog

Hectoring, badgering, “crazy”

COACHING STYLE

Intelligent, articulate, “crazy”

Caterpillar-like raised eyebrow, “stink eye”

GIMMICK

Callaway Big Bertha

None

INTERESTS OUTSIDE RUGBY

Fashion

Ewen “Link” McKenzie

CELEBRITY LINKS

Collette Dinnigan

Japanese-Australian

STOCK

Lebanese

Japanese, Australian

SPEAKS

Arabic, French, Italian

“He was a decent player – but an outstanding sledger.

Excellent with the lip, mate, and a really good guy to play with.”

<- JONES ON CHEIKA CHEIKA ON JONES ->

What messages? What mantras? What over-arching narrative of how to play the game? What will Eddie Jones have banging about in their heads?

Fear, for one thing. Jones’ first move as England coach was to sack one third of the World Cup squad ... ten of them given the flick. England’s players will run around in Australia genuinely fearing for their career.

Says Friend: “You do need to keep blooding blokes. But straight away he’s gone, boom, a third, gone. Everyone will have thought, ‘What the hell?’ So they know they’re playing for their career. They know he’s not afraid to pull the trigger on them.”

In Jones’ first month as England coach he watched more video of premiership games than Stuart Lancaster and all his staff had in two years. And that’s no slight on Lancaster because that’s what everyone does. But Jones’ nocturnal habits are an outlier event.

There is nothing else in his life than family and rugby. He sees his wife and daughter rarely, though it’s quality time according to Friend. But he has no other outlet. Not a one.

In 2013 he had a mild stroke. Once recovered, he organised that five-week Japanese hell camp. Friend worries that given Jones’ singular drive for success, his balance isn’t right. “Rugby is not the be-all and end-all,” says Friend. “And you’ve got to be alive to enjoy it.”

But Jones now is invigorated – he has a project: England, a gig he’s wanted for years, according to Friend. “He’s so driven to success and the World Cup is the pinnacle of rugby. It was no surprise he went to the Stormers. But soon as England came up he was always going to take it, because he wants to win a World Cup. He’s got a great opportunity.

It’s given him a four-year project.”

For the Six Nations, Jones picked seven uncapped players and made

hothead hooker Dylan Hartley captain.

Today Jones is talking up another former Kiwi in flanker Teimana Harrison, along with ex-NRL man Ben Te’o, who qualifies courtesy of his England-born mum.

Jones doesn’t so much stir the possum as rattle its cage and poke it with sticks.

So how do the Wallabies beat the crazy bastard? “You’ve got to do something different,” reckons Wing.

“That’s why it’ll be a great matchup with [Wallabies coach] Michael Cheika. He’ll have tricks up his sleeve. You can’t do what you’ve always done. If you do what Eddie expects, you’re a shot duck.”

What’s coming? Big blokes, hard charging. Jones’ England will challenge the Wallabies at the set piece. He’ll challenge our halves in their ability to tackle or not to tackle. He’ll be fearful of the threat at the back with Israel Folau and company, so it’s high punts and big blokes with white shirts down to bash the backs. The Wallabies’ back-three can expect a bombardment.

Barring disaster and a tabloid bloodbath, Jones has until the 2019 World Cup in Japan to prove himself.

Though Ben Darwin reckons it could “end in tears” if the RFU and clubs aren’t willing to change. “Eddie could become too frustrated. The players could push back against this brilliant, but crazy Australian. [But] if the RFU and the clubs are willing to bend to Eddie’s iron will and the current crop of players buys into his tactical nous and arduous methods, there will be very little anybody else can do to stop England becoming a powerhouse again.”

Like just about everybody, Friend didn’t get on Japan to beat South Africa at 66-1, though he told mates the price was overs. But the day Jones signed with England, Friend went to his local bookmaker and got on them to win the next World Cup. The price was 11-1. Not so crazy. ■

The eyes have it. above left Commiserating with Wendell Sailor after the 2003 World Cup final. left A pat on the back after Japan toppled South Africa last year.

“He’s definitely got his number on speed dial for [the UN's] Ban Ki-Moon because he wants to control [the message], and that’s a really quality part of what he does."

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photo by Scott Barbour / Getty Images

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We know what Newcastle’s Jack Stockwell is thinking: “Does it really take five blokes to stop me?” The lone Knight was outnumbered by a disciplined Melbourne Storm defensive line here, but it does raise another question: what about moving the pill to the 12-oneight on the other side of the field?

5

Ambassador Erin Molan

HELP SAVE LIVES

this Bowel Cancer Awareness Month - Donate today!

bowelcanceraustralia.org

photo by Getty Images

H E ALTH & FITN E SS

â&#x2013;˛ Now this is the kind of place to train for a sword fight. Italian fencers thrust and parry at the Academy of Arms Musumeci Greco in Rome, regarded as the "temple of fencing" in Italy. Dating back to 1878, Musumeci Greco is one of the oldest fencing schools in the world.

77

REGIMEN

hen rising star Kim Ravaillion was twice

W overlooked for NSW’s Under-17s state

netball squad selection a few years back, the ambitious junior was devastated. Her long-term response, though, tells you everything you need to know about the now-Queensland Firebirds mainstay: without getting too technical, Ravaillion ripped in, throwing herself into drastically improving her strength and conditioning, as well as the finite skills needed to succeed at the top level of the game.

Eventually picked for the NSW Under-19s, in January 2013 a 19-year-old Ravaillion was chosen for Australia before making her debut in the domestic ANZ Championship competition. Today, there are plenty of experts in netty circles who think Sydney-born Ravaillion has the potential to develop into one of the greats of her sport.

At just 22, Ravaillion has already appeared in three ANZ Championship grand finals for the Firebirds: their 2013 and 2014 disappointments, and last year’s thrilling win over the NSW Swifts.

She has also twice worn a gold medal around her neck, firstly at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014 and then at Sydney’s 2015 Netball World Cup, where she took to the court in every one of the Australian Diamonds’ encounters.

The Fox Sports ambassador and 50-game Firebird can be seen burning up the court each week during the network’s ongoing coverage of the ANZ Championships. If you haven’t caught her in action yet, it’s well worth it to gauge just how far she’s come, now that you know her back story.

Here, the 175cm centre not only shares with us her weekly training regime, but the sources of motivation for her ongoing success at both domestic and international level.

KIM RAVAILLION REDEMPTION “When I was younger I didn’t make my first state team. That flicked a switch in me which drove home the importance of focussing on the extras behind the scenes ... without anyone seeing how hard I was working. Eventually I let the secret out about my extra work. I wasn’t strong enough or fit enough and I didn’t possess enough strength in my core or have enough balance, so I made sure I completed a lot of gym and strengthening sessions as well as a lot core work that I still do today. On top of all that I did a lot of running sessions to get my fitness up. I’ve since learnt to reduce the running and instead 78

focus on specific fitness work more suited to my position. This means more interval running; not so much long distances, just more sprinting and power sessions. Listening to good advice from the right people was definitely another key to it all.”

myself into becoming a trainer. I tried it out and really liked it. Then I started doing it as a job.

Seeing results in clients is what makes me really happy. You love what you do and you can see results in other people; it makes the whole experience that much better.”

FITNESS FANATIC

A WEEK IN THE LIFE

“I was a little chubby kid when I was younger.

As I grew older I worked out and saw the results.

Training was something I really got into.

Throughout school I knew I wanted to be a personal trainer and netballer, so I studied for accreditation straight after school and threw

“If we’re playing a Saturday night match, such as our recent game against the Vixens in Melbourne, Sunday will be a day off for us.

We’ll just do our own thing, go on our own little adventures for the day, not really have much to do with the team.

main image courtesy Fox Sports. top and bottom images by Getty Images. other images by David Callow

“THROUGHOUT SCHOOL I KNEW I WANTED TO BE A PERSONAL TRAINER AND NETBALLER.”

“We’ll just get away from it all and have that complete day to recover mentally and physically.

“On the Monday we’ll have a massage followed by a team recovery session. We’ll see the team physio if we have to, going through all those one-percenters, ensuring our bodies are fully capable of getting through the new week of Queensland Firebirds training.

“On Tuesday we’ll have a really early-morning team gym session – at 5.30am! That will be a fairly heavy session. We’ll have four-five hours’ spare in the middle of the day, before heading back in for court training at 3.30pm.

This particular courtwork is usually an analysis of our opposition; we’ll split up into shooters and

mid-courters, for example, and we’ll go through our opposite numbers on paper in an in-depth discussion. Then we’ll head out onto the court and put all that into practice.

“Wednesday is a day off. Thursday is a similar session to Tuesday, where we’re up early in the morning for another gym session. This one is relatively light, though, especially if we’re playing a game on the Saturday night. We will have a break during the day and we’ll come back in about 4pm to do a hard match-play on each other. On the Friday we’ll either have a day off or it will be a travel day; this just involves putting your skins on and doing all those little things that help ensure your body ` 79

REGIMEN

is ready for the game. Come Saturday we’ll have a captain’s run in the morning – it usually means a blondes vs brunettes match to bring out our competitiveness for when we play that night.”

AT THE TOP “It’s easy to stay motivated playing with a team like the Queensland Firebirds. We have a fantastic bunch of girls who all get along and who all want to achieve one goal and that’s winning. That winning feeling is the best feeling; that’s what really motivates me. Also the joy you feel with each success and the friends you make from the sport. Your family watching on ... it just brings everyone together.

We’re pretty lucky to live the lifestyle. I love the game itself, too. It’s such an easy-going group here at the Firebirds. No one is too big for their boots. We’re all on the same level, 80

whether you’re Laura Geitz or the youngest player in the team. Everyone is equal.”

TALKING TACTICS “The main areas we’ll cover in our team tactics meetings will be things like the importance of remaining unpredictable, which especially applies to myself and the position I play. For me, it’s all about not having a certain pattern that I stick to, but to always keep the opposition guessing. In each game, I’ll go out there and read the play as the match unfolds. Once I’ve been reading it for a couple of minutes, I can adjust and do what I need to do for the rest of the game.”

IN THE GYM “Our gym sessions are all about power and animal movement; and pushing ourselves to the

limit, whether it be bench presses or squatting.

We’ll work on every part of our body in these sessions, which last just over an hour. We’re buggered in the afternoon after we’ve finished, but it’s all about working under fatigue while also making sure we’re fresh again by the time game day comes around. It’s the hard work that you put in at the start of the week that makes it so much easier at the end.”

ORDER ON THE COURT “Depending on when we play, and on how the support staff who monitor us think our bodies have recovered from the week before, we’ll have two-three courtwork sessions each week. These last two hours. In these sessions we’ll focus on our game. Our approach to netball is different to a lot of other teams’. It’s not structured; we’re very unpredictable in what we do. Sure, we’ll `

left image by Scott Powick/SMP Images. right image courtesy Queensland Firebirds.

“WE’RE LUCKY OUR TEAM IS FULL OF ELITE ATHLETES. WE JUST GO OUT THERE AND DO OUR THANG.”

REGIMEN

“YOU CAN NEVER BE FULLY PREPARED FOR A GAME; YOU JUST HAVE TO BE READY.”

FIREBIRD FOOD “On training days I’ll start with a bowl of porridge with a bit of honey for breakfast. For lunch I might have a wrap of some sort, bit of chicken and lettuce. I’m not really into using 82

supplements. Maybe iron tablets, though, and sometimes some Berocca for some vitamin C. I like to do a bit of stretching and walking on my days off just to keep my body moving and keep me from getting too stiff. Nothing too crazy.”

BUSINESS TIME “Gretel Tippett, my team-mate at the Firebirds [and my flatmate] and I have put together a program made up of fitness and nutrition components which work hand in hand

over a six-week period. The program isn’t just aimed at young netballers looking to get fit and prepare for their coming netball seasons, anyone can use it, really. There are pre-season, in-season and off-season options available.

We launched it in 2014; we’ve had a few good client results from it so far and we’re really happy with how it’s all going. It will be something for us to focus on after netty, but also a tool we can use to maintain our fitness throughout our playing careers.”

– James Smith

photos by Getty Images

work on certain skills, but we don’t really have a set go-to plan. For us it’s all about reading the play. Later in the session we’ll pretend to be the opposition and test our reading of the play against our makeshift opponents.

“Playing our unstructured way isn’t difficult because we have all the tools ... we just do what our coach Roselee Jencke says and go with it.

Besides, it’s always different on game day: everything changes. You can never be fully prepared for a game; you just have to be ready.

We’re lucky our team is full of elite athletes. We’ll just go out there and do our thang.

“In saying all that, our courtwork sessions do involve a lot of hard drills which help maintain quick ball movement and keep our footwork sharp – it might be half-court play or a few agility drills which our coach will make up, all with the intention of maintaining that unpredictable flavour to our approach. For us mid-courters, we’ll do a lot of drills where we’re hitting the circle really hard, then changing pace. We’ll work on making sure our passing angles aren’t flat at the circle. We need to be in a good position to feed the shooters; being able to feed the ball under pressure is vitally important, so we’ll add defenders in drills which focus on that aspect of our play.”

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DUKKAH-CRUMBED FISH WITH SWEET POTATO WEDGES Serves 4. Cost per serve: $5.50.

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CHICKEN ANTIPASTO RISONI SALAD Serves 4. Cost per serve: $4.50.

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400g chicken breast fillets, sliced in half horizontally 1 cup risoni pasta 350g deli antipasto mix, drained of excess oil 4 cups rocket 50g reduced-fat feta, crumbled Lemon wedges, to serve

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2 tablespoons gluten-free dukkah 4 x 150g frozen firm white fish fillets, thawed 500g sweet potato, scrubbed, cut into thin wedges 8 cups rocket 1 large carrot, peeled into thin ribbons 2 tablespoons shaved parmesan 1–2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar Lemon wedges, to serve

1387kJ/332cal Protein 32.4g Total Fat 8.2g Sat Fat 1.9g Carbs 28.7g Sugars 13.2g Fibre 5.5g Sodium 228mg Calcium 310mg Iron 4.0mg

1 Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two baking trays with baking paper.

2 Place dukkah in a shallow dish and coat fish fillets, one at a time. Place crumbed fish on one of the baking trays and set aside.

3 Place the sweet potato wedges onto the second baking tray and spray with olive oil. Bake wedges for 30 minutes, or until golden and tender. Add tray for the last 10–15 minutes of cooking time, or until just cooked through but still moist inside.

1 Cook risoni in a saucepan of boiling water according to packet instructions, or until al dente. Drain well and set aside.

4 Place rocket, carrot and parmesan in a salad bowl; add vinegar and toss to combine.

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Remove from pan and slice.

5 Divide crumbed fish, sweet potato wedges and salad among four serving plates and serve with lemon wedges.

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1316kJ/315cal Protein 23.7g Total Fat 16.0g Sat Fat 6.2g Carbs 16.3g Sugars 3.7g Fibre 5.8g Sodium 492mg Calcium 309mg Iron 3.8mg

1 Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place tomatoes on tray and roast for 15 minutes, or until soft and blistered.

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This article is taken from the latest issue of Healthy Food Guide magazine (rrp $5.60).

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FIRST CLASS

STEPH MAGIROS After performing as a nine-year-old in the Closing Ceremony of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Steph Magiros was inspired to make it to the Games one day as a competitor. But the thengymnastics prospect probably didn’t expect how her path to becoming an Olympian would unfold. Magiros, who hails from Sydney’s south, represented NSW at national gymnastics championships all the way up to level ten (just below elite). But at 17, having tried snowboarding for the first time, Magiros made the decision to switch sports. Six years later, she made it into the halfpipe event at the Winter Olympics in Sochi where she reached the semi-finals and finished 18th.

Having accomplished that, Magiros made another bold switch – back to gymnastics in the hope of qualifying for Rio and becoming the first Australian athlete to compete in a Winter and Summer Games back to back (the nation’s only two hot/cold Olympians, Jana Pittman and Paul Narracott, went ten and eight years respectively between Games). It didn’t happen for Magiros, as Australia failed to qualify its women’s gymnastics team for the Olympics for the first time in 30 years, but she’s relished her second act in the sport. We caught up with her as she had just returned from a trip to the snow in the US (for recreational purposes only) to chat about what she brought from one sport to another, and what she might try next ...

86

A GYMNAST’S TUR N

“I started gymnastics when I was two and a half. My mum sent me to my first class because I was trying to teach myself how to do somersaults on my bed. She took me to gymnastics thinking I would do my flips and somersaults in a safe environment and that I would stop jumping around like a jellybean at home. And that kind of backfired, because everything I learned at gym I’d just come home and practise even more on my bed.

“I was competing from eight years old; I was an all-round gymnast: vault, bars, beam and floor. During my teenage years I was training 25 hours a week, 4pm to 8.30 at night. I’d come and eat at 9pm by myself, miss family dinner, wake up and go to school the next day.

“Gymnastics builds such incredible air awareness and strength in the core. As gymnasts, we can basically choose any other sport our body will let us do. When I was going through my gymnastics, I wasn’t always on the Olympic pathway – you can go on the national level side, or the elite Olympic side.

“I learned how to snowboard on a year ten school snow trip. That was when I started thinking about where to transition my gymnastics ... I had always thought of diving or aerial skiing, the sports that gymnasts feed into. I came home from the school trip and told my parents that I wanted to try snowboarding.

“I took to it straight away. I found the halfpipe, found Torah Bright, watched as many YouTube videos as I could. I turned to Dad and I was like, ‘I want to try and make the Olympics in snowboarding.’ And he was like, ‘You don’t know how to snowboard, so how is that going to

happen?’ But that’s how I started my sixyear-long journey; went from a beginner snowboarder to Olympian.”

BOARDED UP “I’d always wanted to be an Olympian, and I knew that wasn’t going to happen in gymnastics. I actually was scouted by the aerial skiing team at one of my last gymnastic competitions, but I had already learned to snowboard by then and had made my decision.

“My brain straight away went: I can do this. Half-pipe was like gymnastics with a board attached to my feet ... It was an easy transfer to learn how to snowboard – the hardest part was turning my gymnastics tricks into a snowboard style. One of

“GYMNASTIC S BUI LDS SUC H I NC R E DI B LE AI R AWAR E N ESS AND STRENGTH I N TH E CORE.”

images courtesy Steph Magiros; Getty Images (snowboard)

my first coaches, Aaron Savage, would say, ‘Okay, we’ve got to lose the pretty, glitter gymnast, lose the pointed, straight legs.’

That was probably the most difficult transition, and just really becoming a snowboarder, using my air awareness and balance to my advantage.

“I could do a backflip on the ground, do one on a beam, do one on a trampoline. But I had to change the way I did a backflip so it could be on a snowboard.

The backflip was my very first snowboard trick – I felt a lot more comfortable doing a backflip than a 360-spin. One of the hardest things for me to learn was spinning, because you spin such a certain way in gymnastics: bring your arms in toward your chest, and that’s what generates your spin. Where as in snowboarding, you spun all different directions, did it on a different axis where in gymnastics, it was just straight up and down or mid-somersault. It was more about transforming the way I did my gymnastic skills. I spent a lot of time on a trampoline with one of those foam boards velcroed to my feet.

“The first time I stepped on a snowboard, I remember it being completely out of my control.

Everything in gymnastics is stable, not many variables to go wrong. As soon as I got on my snowboard, it slipped out from under me. I spent a lot of time on my bottom the first hour. But I was very determined: I know that I’m going to fall over so many times but I will master this. Even though it was the smallest and flattest run, I made it down the very first day.”

BOUNC I NG BAC K “I never really stopped training, which made the transition back so much easier. When I did make the transition, I was fitter and stronger than I was before. I started from the beginning, started with forward rolls and straight jumps. Everything I was trying to re-remember in my body, it was happening so easily. Each day I would reclaim another skill I had before. I still had to work up to a couple of a harder tricks, and I set myself a goal to learn some new vaults.

“One of the reasons I went back into gymnastics in the first place was, when I went into semiretirement after level ten, deep down I knew I wasn’t finished. I had been thinking about it leading up to the Olympics, and I found a couple of gymnastic centres in Colorado. The day the team was announced for Sochi, I called my gymnastics coach, told him I made the team, and asked him to register me for this round of nationals, I want to make a comeback in gymnastics. That was a month after Sochi.

“I decided to try and take my gymnastics even further than before. I moved into senior elite, the Olympic level. I competed as a vault specialist. I ended up finishing second to London Olympian Emily Little. That was such a huge achievement, even to compete in senior elite. I remember standing with Emily, both Olympians, both made a podium on vault, and we’re on such mutual ground.

It was an incredible feeling to come back into the sport and excel further than what I had trained for when I was originally a gymnast.

“I recently got my yoga certification, so I’m now a teacher. That came through after competing last year; I suffered ankle and knee injuries. The only thing I could do was yoga, and that started that journey. At the moment I’m not competing in snowboarding or gymnastics, and I’m focusing on my yoga, as well as giving back to my sport.”

– Jeff Centenera

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88

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IT’S JUST A JUMP TO THE LEFT ...

April’s Freeze Frame Freebies caption competition was won by Stuart John of Bowen Hills, Qld.

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Email your entries for this month’s Freeze Frame comp on page 22 to iscomps@ insidesport.com.au, or check out the website: www.insidesport.com.au. If, however, you are still “analogue”, and resist the march of technology, you can still post your entries the traditional way to Freeze Frame Comp, Inside Sport, PO Box 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590.

For enquiries about this section, please contact Adam Jackson at ajackson@ nextmedia.com.au QUIZ ANSWERS (P 28): 1. Samoa (2009/10) 2. 12 feet 3. 1996 (Atlanta) 4. False (women’s 4x100m freestyle relay) 5. Lance Franklin 6. Jarrod Lyle (2011) 7. 1994 (Lillehammer) 8. Luis Suarez (Barcelona) 9. West Indies 10. Kyrie Irving.

ANSWER TO NEXT: With an empty goal in front of him, a stretching Gascoigne missed the ball, seemingly by millimetres. England had several other chances, but this was the best one. The match went to penalties, and after both sides each converted their first five attempts, English defender Gareth Southgate added his name to the roll of spot-kick infamy by missing. The Germans advanced to the final and won the tournament, their first (and only) since reunification between east and west.

89

I N N OVAT O R

LYDIA LASSILA That Lydia Lassila was the first woman aerial skier to execute a quadruple-twisting triple somersault isn’t the best part. The fact she thought she could pull it off in the first place was the real achievement ...

YDIA LASSILA’S new documentary, The Will To Fly, and her book of the same name are deserving of publicity because Lassila is a sporting hero: an innovative, skilful, smiling, fearless flying tiger of an aerial skier. She is a unique Innovator subject – a pioneer in defeat, which was a victory, because she proved the impossible was a possibility. Lassila is the first woman aerial skier to execute a quadrupletwisting triple somersault. If men had already achieved it, you might ask, is it really an innovation? It is. Because Lassila was the first woman to dare to believe such a manoeuvre was even conceivable for a woman to pull off.

Lassila had stepped out of the shadows of Australia’s greatest Winter Olympian – one of the best-performed ever – Jacqui Cooper, whose pioneering triple-twisting triples were the zenith of women’s aerial skiing. Lassila had won her own gold medal in 2010, in the mists of Vancouver, with the same manoeuvre, landing like a feather and shaking the aerial skiing world.

But this pinnacle of achievement alone – an Olympics gold medal – does not qualify her for this column.

Lassila became a much more judicio athlete than she was in her younger days, when her aerial audacity was breathtaking, renowned.

Two knee reconstructions meant she was compelled to curb that daring and settle for outrageously courageous – with flawless technique, of course.

What made her innovation all the more significant was the fact that, in order to even attempt it, she espoused another unprecedented idea: the notion that victory is not the goal; it is, instead, a m by-product of shooting for a personal Almost any other athlete in the world consider such notions incomprehensi especially with a gold medal within gra Lassila was never just any athlete.

She’d been competing at the Olymp 2002, when she was Lydia Ierodiacono one jump away from the finals, she cr and was eliminated, ripping the cartil left knee, which she’d only just had re journey back was arduous, but no one harder in the gym or on her mind than unflappable, amiable champion.

When she won that gold in Vancouv extravagant, sweet full twists, she w after a year’s sabbatical, had a baby. an impossible ambition: to come back old mother among youngsters and bec

L

90

first woman to pull off a quadruple-twisting triple somersault in competition. Her reason? To take the women’s side of the sport to where it had never been. “To try to match the men.”

She spent her off-season perfecting the manoeuvre, finalising that last twist that would leave her stunning Vancouver feat in the powder.

By doing so, she’d already changed the game, as far as she was concerned. Now she knew she could do it, in the lead-up to the 2014 Sochi Games she vowed she wouldn’t take the safe option unless conditions rendered her attempt impossible. It was her fourth Olympics. She’d achieved gold before. She wanted more.

Having performed her unmatched manoeuvre successfully in training, she was good-naturedly disappointed in the official broadcaster, Channel 10, for capturing vision of her crashing at training, but missing her triple-quad the next day. “That was newsworthy for me,” she said. Actually it was big news. No other competitor could make the same claim.

Making the finals was no cakewalk. Bedevilled by that unconvincing knee, she’d failed in her first “ ”

her landing was a little unsteady as she clunked down on her right leg, possibly to protect her left.

Everyone was cutting her a little slack – after all, she was a comebacking mum. But she didn’t want the safety net of excuses. Technically, Lassila could pull off most standard moves to perfection, and she’d have been easily in contention for another gold with more conventional brilliance.

Her lack of interest in doing so was surprising.

“I’ve made a decision that no matter what, I want to compete to my potential and push the boundaries of the sport,” she said at the time.

“Does the format encourage it? Probably not, but it doesn’t matter ... I don’t think winning the Olympics with double somersaults would be as satisfying for me.”

For her final jump, she announced she was going for the big one. The speed looked right. Her three seconds in the air after launching vertically off the kicker as though she’d been shot out of a streamer cannon seemed like an hour. She fluttered with perfection with one, two, three and four twists, spinning beautifully on her head-to-toe axis while executing three perfect somersaults, legs straight, feet in perfect alignment. As she arced toward her landing on the steep, snow-powdered downslope, she’d done the hard work, and it looked as though the landing would be right. She landed flat. For a moment, it didn’t look as though her feet had slightly overshot ... until she slammed onto her back. The gold was gone. Her bronze was bittersweet. Her routine might have matched the men, but her character was peerless. Today, she celebrates a bronze medal that was pure gold to “’

Lydia Lassila practises before Freestyle Aerials qualification at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

LOVE GOLF? JUST IN ROS E’S GUID E TO WIN NING GOL F

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BR AIN FOOD

THE WILL TO FLY

BY LYDIA LASSILA, SLATTERY MEDIA, $29.95

SHOE DOG

A M EMO I R BY TH E C R EATO R O F N I KE

BY PHIL KNIGHT, SIMON & SCHUSTER, $35

For a man who has created a brand to rival Apple or Microsoft, Nike founder Phil Knight remains an enigma. When he shows up at sporting events, usually fronted by a star adorned in swooshes, it’s always off to the side, darkly clad, desperately trying to be non-descript.

Plenty has been written about Nike, which comes with the territory of being so ubiquitous. The company has weathered shifts in fashion and recreational culture, the ups and downs of celebrity endorsement and that persistent bout of bad press over Third World working conditions. And yet, more than a halfcentury after Knight imported his first Japanese-made sneaker, Nike remains pre-eminent in its category and a heavyweight influence on sport.

One of the enduring impressions of Nike, best articulated by author Donald Katz in his book Just Do It, is how its corporate culture is infused by a sporting competitiveness. It borders on the hackneyed to say that Knight with co-founder Bill Bowerman, his legendary athletics coach at the University of Oregon, instilled this ethos, and outside observers have often wondered at how cult-like Nike can be. What Knight does in Shoe Dog is not try to recount the history of Nike, but tell a story of being present at the creation. Framing his narrative from his first tentative steps in 1962 to 1980, Knight leaves out a lot: signing a kid named Jordan, the first ad campaigns by Wieden and Kennedy, the sweatshop scandals and the tragic death of his son are dealt with only in epilogue.

But taking his cue from Nike athlete Andre Agassi in his celebrated memoir, Knight goes to some internal places in Shoe Dog (Agassi’s collaborator, JR Moehringer, also advised on this book). It’s a fascinating look into that enigmatic mind – a shy personality that admires bold ones, a voracious mind for consuming foreign exotica (it’s remarkable how much Nike was shaped by its Japanese connection), and a true believer in physical culture. And a guy who just likes shoes.

– Jeff Centenera ★ ★ ★ ★

94

An Olympic champion in aerial skiing, Lydia Lassila is a study in athletic excellence. Reading this autobiography, which is companion to a documentary feature film, you become convinced of how single-minded one has to be to go for gold – Lassila’s recurring tales of overcoming gruesome injuries, crashes and competitive disappointments (often because the weather at the ski jump wasn’t right) to make it to four Olympic Games and stand on the podium twice, including winning it all in Vancouver in 2010, speak to a different kind of innate motivation. Not bad for someone who began with a passion for an entirely different sport, as the young gymnast became part of the nation’s winter sport initiative to transition athletic talent.

Aerial skiing proved fruitful, as Australia produced something of a golden age: not only Lassila, but Alisa Camplin, Jacqui Cooper and Kirstie Marshall. Where Lassila’s 2010 gold might be thought of as a high point (pardon the pun), it was her 2014 campaign in Sochi that proved more intriguing. She didn’t win, but she was aiming at something greater than mere results – landing the quad twisting triple somersault, the first time a woman had done it, was once again proof of the goals that motivated her.

– JC ★ ★ ★

MANLY SEA EAGLES: THE TEAM THEY LOVE TO BEAT

BY RAY CHESTERTON, NEW HOLLAND, $29.99

If you’re from a sports-loving family and were bought up on the eastern seaboard (anywhere from Eden upwards), you were likely told as a youngster to “hate Manly”. If you’ve ever wanted to find out why, you’ll do so through The Team They Love To Beat. Like all passionately disliked teams, success has a lot to do with Manly’s ill rep. Ray Chesterton, one of Sydney’s most respected journalists, pays tribute to the northern beaches club’s countless heroes, from the legendary Malcolm Reilly, Bob Fulton, Fatty Vautin and Steve Menzies, to the “Moose that Roared”, Rex Mossop, and veteran coach Des Hasler. There’s a well-delivered story about them all which removes the maroon veil to reveal just another skilful larrikin footballer, coach or administrator, who proudly represented just another team ... just like yours. Perhaps the greatest explanation for the hate, though, can be attributed to former Western Suburbs Magpies coach, now journalist Roy Masters, who is quoted in Chesterton’s chapter titled “Silvertails and Fibros” thus: “They [Manly] had all the money, they had all the players and we had all the rejects. They think they’re better than us. Not better footballers, but better people.” Footy really has little to do with it then; it’s a class-war we’re fighting here ...

– James Smith ★ ★ ★ ★

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ as good as it gets ★★★ worth considering

★ ★ ★ ★ a keeper

★★ ho-hum

★ in the bin

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME THE INFOGRAPHIC BOOK OF FOOTBALL

BY JOHN ANDREWS AND DANIEL NYARI, AURUM PRESS, $39.99

FEDEGRAPH ICA

A G R AP H IC B IOG R AP HY O F TH E G E N I US O F ROG E R F E D E R E R

BY MARK HODGKINSON, AURUM PRESS, $39.99

Among his other great qualities , Roger Federer has been a terrific muse. The artfulness of his tennis famously moved the likes of literary giants David Foster Wallace and JM Coetzee, who distilled Federer into a kind of ideal, the athletic aesthete. The point of Federer is the inherent beauty of how he plays; to reduce the 17-time Grand Slam-title winner to what he’s won, or the spin rate of his forehand, or his record on various surfaces, is almost gauche. But this bio puts these strands together, presenting the Federer story in prose and data. Author Mark Hodgkinson, who wrote a previous book about the match-winning skills and techniques of the tennis elite, goes in for a detailed look at the components of Federer.

It’s not to demystify – Federer’s greatness is built on a complete game almost without weakness.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter is devoted to the rivalry with Rafa Nadal, who not only provides a stylistic counterpoint, but served to push Federer to unthinkably higher levels.

– JC ★ ★ ★ ★

Beautiful game, beautifully done. This book is a different take on the football annual, assembling facts, stats and comparisons into a pop-arty tableau. The work of illustrator Daniel Nyari, a Romanian-born, New York-based football obsessive who takes his inspiration from old cigarette cards, gives the various player portraits a geometric feel, offering a representational edge to these world-famous faces (the hair he puts on Colombian great Carlos Valderrama is high art). Ranging across club and country in its survey, it’s the trivial that stands out – Lionel Messi signed to Barca at 13 on a restaurant napkin, and such. Kevin Muscat even makes it to an unfortunate list of luminaries, his disciplinary-record 123 yellow and 12 red cards over his playing career earning him selection to the book’s seven deadly sinners, alongside the likes of Luis Suarez.

– JC ★ ★ ★

MIGHTY FIGHTING HAWKS

THE FULL STORY OF THE FOUR PREMIERSHIPS IN THE CLARKSON ERA

BY MARTIN BLAKE, MICHAEL JOSEPH, $35

This is the revised version of a previously published book about Hawthorn’s latter-day dynasty – a revision made necessary by the Hawks themselves, who tacked on another flag with the completion of the three-peat in 2015. No premiership is ever a cakewalk, but that season had obstacles sufficient enough to derail the Hawks’ operation: off-field incidents involving coach Alastair Clarkson and captain Luke Hodge, two trips to WA during the finals, including a belting at the hands of West Coast. But as author and former Age reporter Martin Blake recounts, this is a club that rebounded from a near-death experience in the late 1990s to become the gold standard for keeping its eye on the grand prize. After getting smashed by the GWS Giants in round six, the murmurs had begun again that Hawthorn’s reign might be done – it’s a measure of respect that Clarkson and company have earned that nobody will declare it too quickly.

– JC ★ ★ ★ ★

VELOCHEF

FOOD FOR TRAINING AND COMPETITION

BY HENRIK ORRE, HARDIE GRANT AND SBS BOOKS, $39.99

Cyclists understand that their sport is allconsuming, a lifestyle as much as a pastime.

That’s why you have such things as cyclingthemed cookbooks, this one produced by the chef of Team Sky and the Norwegian national team, Henrik Orre. Velochef contains superfoodladen recipes for before, during and after the ride, with many of them appealing enough that we’d be tempted to try them during late-night viewings of the Tour de France (the recipe for baking bread in a cast iron pot looks particularly

intriguing). The book provides useful advice for how recreational riders should fuel themselves, noting that the energy-dense stuff can be capably replaced by real food, at a fraction of the cost. Orre also offers an inner-workings look at Team Sky, the powerhouse British cycling outfit that has come to be one of the leading teams at the Grand Tours, classics and other races around the world. Orre worked with Australian star Richie Porte while they were with Sky, and in a vignette about visiting Porte’s Monaco home, makes known the Tasmanian rider is fond of almond butter. It’s all impressive stuff – get it for a foodie-inclined MAMIL who never wants to consume a gel pack again.

– JC ★ ★ ★

95

photo by Mark Kolbe / Getty Images

Who needs skis?

Kye Cornall of New South Wales was footloose and fancy free competing in the menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s jump event of the Australian Barefoot Championships, held this year on Georges River in Sydneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s south-west.

97

BY

JA M ES SM I T H

RETRO-COLOURED GLASSES AUSTRALIAN FOOTY FANS LOVE REMINISCING ABOUT THEIR PARTICULAR CODE’S “GOOD OLE DAYS” OF THE 1970S AND ‘80S ... BUT WERE THEY REALLY THAT GOOD? For man never go retro jersey in slightest hint make us wish machine car b when footy w But better rather happy playing wiz-b days off. Me think you’ve h if the stadium take a look at in retro-land, those watchin Rugby leag rose-coloure enjoying a go men played t like the “sho who have mo endorsement ‘80s blokes t garbologists with their tea itself? Put sim 80-minute tr bath. If you’ve very first Sta match from 19 the scrums w minutes to pa frequent stop (No worries, t home ran all There was quite like a nig Roy Masters’ the Silvertail leaving with a sitting on the Sure, they al Park, but tho If you were Park and fou Carlton to be scoring frenz grab a tinny a Especially wi Jackson, lurki clips around t you missed an “excitement”, o’clock news Aussie rules i There’d be 3 end of the bu next day. And coverage. It Meanwhile, 98

ing this old m ou y. o dium tralia, Fox h it on. mate gh. were the could layer ave an out or cross studwhich it en we ball. If g-time start ne e ‘80s igned him, land m beer ey nd the yingly t ... their rt of tions action

THERE WAS NO SUPER RUGBY YET, OR FOX SPORTS TO WATCH IT ON.

ook of u still ble ay?) re, Tigers, hile in the rt d hit player d t as a ere no gs

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