Andrew Symonds was actually born in the UK, and his heritage is from the Caribbean, however the bloke is about as Aussie as you can come – not too many poms are into their pig hunting as much as Roy is.

I heard the head of the ACB on ABC radio’s Grandstand program on Saturday saying that while they were playing in Darwin, they were recruiting indigenous playesr for the AIS and they got a utefull of them.

The young indigenous Aussies are the wellspring of our future sports stars according to some of the codes’ administrators.
Might be a good thing to get them out of poverty, like the Afro American ghettoes?

how many Aboriginals have played cricket for Australia? Apart from Gillespie I don’t know if any have.

I also thought Thompson was half Papuan and Pakeha – although many Pakeha have some Maori ancestry, and vice versa.

One thing about Karembeu is that I read that he refused to sing la marseillaise, some sort of protest about the way the French treated some of the indigeonous New Caledonians.

Probably the second most famous futboler of Pacific descent would be Tim Cahill.

There are a few other indigenous footballers like Jade North, Travis Dodd, Harry WIlliams, David WIlliams, Charles Perkins, Fred Agius and many others over the years.

The other codes like cricket, AFL and NRL have their greater share of indigenous athletes. There is a very keen competition among the major codes to try to recruit the best young indigenous sportsmen for their game.

I never knew Archie thompson was of Maori descent. Did he have a choice of playing for New Zealand or Australia?

The Socceroos should incorporate more indigenous players in their side. Australia lacks a lot of flair for me in attack. They do not have that one player that can take the game by the scruff of the neck and dominate. Until they find that player, they will always be competitive, yet will remain as a second tier football nation.

The most famous Pacific Islands footballer is Cristian Karembeau, who was from New Caledonia and signed up by the French. He went on to win a FIFA World Cup with France in 1998 as well as a European Champions League medal with Real Madrid in 2000.

Indigenous people make excellent athletes and sportsmen, no matter what code.

It would be interesting to see a Maori play football. They are naturally gifted athletes (in Rugby anyway) and some of the Maori guys that i play with have nice potential.

I expect that he, and players like Culina, start pulling their finger out and finding some attacking fervour.

Graciously,
The Bear

Im not sure about the IRB, but a few years ago the Welsh RU said they could only perform it before the national anthems, the ABs got ticked off, and ended up doing it in their dressing room.

Aside from NZ, I know that Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and Madagascar do a pre-game ritual dance before they start.

~~~~~~~~
KB

I think FIFA has issued a rule that pre-game rituals etc are banned.

I guess that would be a major impediment to the haka or any other dances performed by Islanders.

Also I dont think there are too many Maori or Polynesians in the All Whites, and traditionally these were the guys that lead the haka…before Buck Shelford came along and basically said guys, if you want to do the haka, you may as well do it right…anything less is almost like an insult, and before this happened, the haka was almost laughable.

On youtube there is footage of Zinedine Zidane doing a haka…lets just say it wasn’t as intimidating as the Pacific teams doing it.

I like Spira as an understudy. Give him an extra year and he will challenge Moore of Neil for one of the Central defenders spots..

~~~~~~~
KB

dasilva,
Its hard to tell whether Kennedy or Maarten Stekelenburg actually touched the ball or the player first. There was definite contact with Kennedy’s right leg and I was holding my breath hoping he wasn’t injured.
Stekelenburg was definitely the last player, so it was up to the referee’s interpretation as to whether he made illegal contact or not. Should be automatic red card at that point.

Craig Moore wants to play for the Socceroos again.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24299717-10389,00.html

Will we see the old Neill & Moore back line pairing that did so well at Germany 06?
Is Craig still up to it? He’ll be 34 by the time the next FIFA WC starts in SA.
Is he better than Coyne, Beauchamp, North or Spiranovic?

What’s the official rule in that matter. Is simply denying a goal scoring opportunity a red card or the player has to be in possession of the ball for the red card for the last man to apply.

Anyone knows any referrees

Different referees would have interpreted the goalkeeper send off in different ways but the referee was well within the rules sending him off.
Often playing against 10 or even 9 men doesn’t give the big advantage it should.

Holman played well and will probably start against the Uzbeks, but he still hasn’t got that touch in front of goal. He should have converted one of his chances and needs a bit more confidence in scoring.

Kennedy did well and hopefully we now have a striker who can score goals no matter the circumstances. His scoring average per game for Australia is a lot better than most strikers, including Dukes.

BTW New Zealand beat New Caledonia 3-1 in New Caledonia to sew up top spot in the Oceania Qualifiers and will face off against the fifth placed Asian team. They now have a 4 point lead over New Caledonia who only have one game left to play against New Zealand in NZ.

Fingers crossed both Australia and New Zealand both make it to the FIFA WC Finals!

At least they have consistently been in World Cups let alone winning it once. Australia consider qualifying for the damn thing a success. You can’t compare mate. In recent team tournaments for england – 2003 rugby world cup champions, 2007 rugby world cup finalists, 2005 ashes series, quarter finalists in 2006 world cup.

Australia – finalists in 2003 rugby world cup, quarter finalists in 2007 rugby world cup, last 16 of Football world cup in germany, ashes triumph in 2006/07.

Yeh, I think England has a case in team sports my friend. A big call? whatever mate.

In a few years England will be lucky to have 11 players even playing in it’s own home league first division

Qatar thrash the Uzbeks 3-0. Maybe the Uzbeks are overated and we should beat them confortably or maybe they come at us as a wounded tiger and fight for their lives in a do or die clash. If Uzbeks lose the first two match they can pretty much give up top 2 positions.

What a fantastic match. The first half was the most impressive performance by the soccerroos since the world cup and you could argue that we outplayed the dutch when it was 11 vs 11. Dutch may edge us in possession but we created the much better chances and if it wasn’t for Holman we should have been winning at half time. Honestly that performance in the first half put Arnie to shame for that dour olyroos performance.

We did go off the rails in the second half and we played quite poorly. The passing was off and Lucas Neill had a shocker gaving away the ball on number of times as well as giving away the first goal and we were lucky not to have conceded a goal but we scrape a victory in the second half.

+ve – Emerton, culina, Valeri, Schwarzer (awesome save against Kuyt)
So-so – Kewell, Wilkshire, Kennedy, Holman
-ve – Neill, Carney

The red card was a correct decision. He was the last man. Either no foul or a penalty and a send off. The only reason why someone could argue he should stay on the pitch is because it was a friendly and the referee should be lenient. However to the laws of the game it was a correct decision.