Rob's Blog

Last night the Australian Soccer team, the Socceroos, took on the Greek national team in a friendly. It is unbelievable the hype that surrounded this game - I can’t imagine how it can get much bigger for the World Cup games next month. It is not surprising the interest in this game - the promoters found the right opponents for Australia in Greece as Melbourne has one of the highest populations of Greeks outside of Greece itself. I couldn’t get tickets to the match as I was a bit slow - they all sold out in a couple of hours, and had to watch on TV. Australia played quality football, beating Greece 1-0 - indicating that they deserve to be at the World Cup. The game was played at the home of Cricket and AFL - the MCG. These other sporting codes must be concerned about the interest in soccer/football. After the World Cup undoubtedly more and more people will be playing and watching the game, which has to impact of the figures of the other codes. I am happy watching any sport played at an elite level, though I am particularly happy to watch Australia playing and winning.

Related Pages: soccer, Football World Cup, Australia at the WC

It is hyped as the biggest fight in Australia’s history (Anthony ‘The Man’ Mundine v Danny Green ‘Green Machine’), and for a pacifist and non-boxing fan like myself to be following it, the interest in this fight has crossed to the mainstream sports fan and deserves it’s hype. Everyone has an opinion on who they think will win, and they are either old rugby league fans and fans of Mundine, or those who are against Mundine based on his comments about 9/11 made a couple of years ago. Like myself, many of them don’t know anything about the boxers’ respective abilities and chances of winning. It is all about who they want to win, not who they think can win. I am going for Mundine, as I think he was unnecessarily crucified after his anti-US comments and deserves another go at being our champion boxer. Although I believe that our sportsmen should act as good role models, I think it is unfair that a boxer, who may have damaged a few brain cells along the way, cannot freely voice their opinion on world events, even though the majority of us do not agree with him. As they say in sports, let his actions do the talking - lets enjoy him as a sports person and entertainer, and may the best ‘Man’ win. [postscript: Mundine won]

Related Pages: boxing

Last year my wife and I travelled through India for a couple of months. The locals everywhere were very friendly, especially the kids, who always wanted to chat. As soon as we mentioned we were from Australia, the conversation always turned to cricket. To amuse ourselves, we started to ask everyone we talked to who was their favourite Australian cricket player. We got some surprising answers. The winner of the poll was Adam Gilchrist, a result we could not argue with. Not far behind was Ricky Ponting and Brett Lee, and the Waugh brothers Steve and Mark. Greg Chappell often got a mention too as he was the current coach of the Indian cricket team.

Related Pages: cricket pages

I have moved around Australia quite a few times over the last 20 years, spending time in Perth, Darwin, and Canberra, finally making it back to Melbourne, the home of my birth. In my attempts to stay healthy with a small amount of aerobic fitness, I sometimes venture out onto the roads and parks for a jog (I do it too slowly to call it a run!). In Perth there were some great spots along the river in Nedlands, and around Lake Monger, and the weather was usually pleasant to hot. Darwin was always hot but you can get used to that. Canberra was a challenge. I started running each morning before work, and I lasted until one morning the temperature dropped below zero. That was too much for me and I had to find other methods of keeping fit. Now in Melbourne I am finding the same problem, but I reckon it is even harder than in Canberra. The cold air and wind are not very appealing. I am sure there are many reading this that have to put up with much colder weather than we get here in Australia. I am very impressed with how people cope with the extremes of weather from other parts of the world. They say we are the lucky country and for me it is the weather that makes it so. No matter how lucky I am to have such a mild climate, mild is not enough for me to use my usual methods to keep fit.

Related Pages: fitness

I think the right decision has been made for the disputed AFL game between St Kilda and Fremantle last weekend. Freo were eventually awarded the points, even though the rules have always been that the game is over only when the umpire hears the siren and signals the end of the game. If it takes a few seconds for the sound of the siren to register with the umpire before he blows time, and during this time a team scores, then that score has always counted. There has been many instances of this in the past, usually as a ball is kicked in the dying seconds of a game. In this case the siren blower was in error and did not continue to blow the siren until the umpire signals the end of the game. The game went on, and Fremantle scored a behind to put them in front. Everyone who knows the full story should acknowledge that Fremantle deserved to win and rightly the powers that be agreed. Too many times we look to the rules and regulations to decide on right and wrong - maybe we should be doing what we think is right, even if the rules don’t always agree with what we think. My opinion has nothing to do with the fact that I was once a Fremantle supporter!

Related Pages: Australian Rules Football