Zurbo on Roebuck

I just got back from wood cutting all morning and heard the news. Terrible news. Peter Roebuck has passed away. I don’t know the whys and whens and wheres and don’t care. It is cricket’s loss and our loss as a people, that Peter is gone. Roebuck was the best commentator and journalist I knew [Read more]

Australia at 6s and 7s on 11/11/11

  by Andrew Gigacz After the day 2 shenanigans of this Test, the third day was almost certainly going to be an anti-climax. How do you top – or should that be how do you “bottom”? – a session and a half in which 18 wickets fall for 68 runs (from SA being 1/49 to [Read more]

A Wasted Opportunity

What a total embarrassment for Australian cricket last night in Cape Town. The soft underbelly of modern-day Australian batting has again been exposed. In 2005 it was bad umpiring and a substitute fieldsman, in 2009 we apparently batted well except for a few sessions. Last summer we supposedly picked the wrong blokes from our bottomless [Read more]

Crio’s Racing: The Sandown Saturday After, 2011

Hmmm….the Saturday after “Final Day”. Tough to convince anyone that there’s still races on, let alone Sandown’s “Classic” meeting, strewn with highly competitive Group and Listed races. It’s a particularly hard sell to punters who copped a pounding last week and there will be little solace that the bookies who roll down Dandy Rd in [Read more]

Discussion: Australian Open Golf

A low scoring first day. The traditional Daly circus. Pretty much the expected first day as a strong field contests the Oz Open. There’s much to discuss apart from Tiger. Your thoughts folks?  

Day 2: Believe it if you saw it.

In normal circumstances, I would have started proceedings by talking about Michael Clarke’s wonderful batting performance: an innings which, hopefully, will not define his captaincy, but will be a portent of the maturity he is beginning to show. Upon coming to the crease with his team precariously positioned at 3-40, the new skipper played possibly [Read more]

Grand Finals Pt.5. Netball.

The piece first appeared in the fantastic www.scoreboardpressure.com If you haven’t seen the sight do so! It is a ripper! All photos (my old teammate!) Brad Trotter. It was a big day. Grand Finals always are. I was standing under the grandstand with Trots and few rusty old Otway salts when Rocket saddled up. “I [Read more]

Coaching appointments

Now that the coaching dust has settled and all clubs have made their choices for 2012 I thought it would be an opportune time to see whether history tells us anything about the wisdom of going for a brand new coach (Adelaide, Collingwood, Melbourne, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs) or someone who has been ‘in the [Read more]

Clarke’s counter-punching saves the day

  It didn’t have the feel of the first morning of an Ashes series. But it should have. It seems obvious these two competitors should play five-Test series, home and away, every couple of years. Or at least three and three if neither home broadcaster will give up their summer income. But it was a [Read more]

Dawn and those mad Sainters

by Yvette Wroby There’s no shortage of crazies at the St.Kilda Football Club.  This was proven when 1000+ Saints fans and members rocked up to the St.Kilda Beach front at 5 am Tuesday 8th November for an advertising shoot for 2012 Membership Drive.  At 6.30 am, another group was waiting at Frankston beach, and at [Read more]

Farewell Smokin’ Joe

  by Damian O’Donnell The headline says “When the mountain came to Muhammad”. It was 1971 in Madison Square Garden. There’s Joe being lead to the corner by the referee. There is no discernable look on his face; it’s fixed in a deadly glaze. He’s returning to the corner like a bloke strolling home from [Read more]

South Africa v Shane Warne

  by Matthew O’Connor Unfortunately for South Africa, its return to the Test Cricket fold in 1993 coincided with the rise and rise of Liz Hurley’s fiancée. But more of that later. To a 27yo Test Cricket following nut, the return of South Africa was a gift to be savoured. A whole box of new [Read more]

In A-League of its Own 5 (2011/12)

  Tom’s weekly outlook on the A-League Before their draw with Melbourne Victory at the weekend, it would have been very difficult to dispute Brisbane’s stronghold on the A-League. But the team who many fancied pre-season to take out the title, Melbourne Victory, somehow managed to get a point from what was an absolute epic [Read more]

Larceny, Labour Day and Lakeside

  by Mic Rees Victorian Premier Cricket’s Country Round, traditionally played in early January, was brought forward to the final weekend in October this season with the North Victorian town of Numurkah hosting the clash between Casey-South Melbourne and Footscray Edgewater Cricket clubs. Casey-South Melbourne spinner Clive Rose’s figures of 5/43 included a hat trick [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Benji back to form in half-baked victory

 by Will Evans My childhood recollections of seeing my heroes in black and white play at Wembley aren’t great.  The Kiwis approached the first Test of the 1993 away series against Great Britain with confidence after pushing Australia earlier in the year and drawing a home series with the Lions one-all the previous season.  But, [Read more]

First Test preview

  The footy and racing are over and it’s time to turn attention to some real Test cricket coming back from South Africa. And what a mini-series it is in prospect, with the ramifications for both teams being huge. We were entitled to feel pretty happy with the performance under our new skipper in Sri Lanka, [Read more]

GWS Poaching

I’ve seen it happen before, we all have. Weeks and weeks of speculation, concern, hope. From Round 1 to Grand Final Day, the interest in the matter does not falter. Whether you be a number one draft pick, or an absolute champion of the game, the spotlight does not miss you. The media focuses on [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – That’s More Like It

International rugby league got a shot in the arm when Australia played its way into the Four Nations final with a hard-fought 36 – 20 win over England at Wembley Stadium last night. The very competitive Poms pushed the Australians for all but the last 10 minutes, and so next weekend’s New Zealand v England [Read more]

Broken Bat

Photos by Peter Argent This is Adelaide District Cricket Club opening batsman Anthony Jennings during the round three SACA district A grade game against Glenelg at Glandore (Revolution Reserve) on Saturday, November 5 .

Crio’s Q: Cricket Corruption

Is the conviction and jailing of the Pakistani cricketers a positive or a negative? Is it a confident statement of intent or confirmation of rampant corruption? There’s been months of Moody scuttlebutt on the grapevine, for example, with the disclaimer that “they can’t rub him out because it would cripple the Industry.” How’s a bloke [Read more]