By Jim Morton
July 14th 2009 @ 1:26am
View The Roar's top rugby league writers.
NRL Tipping now live on The Roar. Join now.
Love new art, fashion, music? Check out Aussie site which unearths all things cool and creative.
Join Australia’s community for solo & micro business at FlyingSolo.com.au
Related coverage
Titans happy living underneath the radar
Skipper Scott Prince claimed Gold Coast were happy to fly under the radar but warned they had plenty of improvement left after underlining their NRL finals credentials by overcoming a gritty Parramatta on Monday night.
The Titans jumped to equal second on the table and set up a big stage clash at Suncorp Stadium on Friday [...]
This article is over 2000 days old and has been trimmed.
Get Australia's best NRL opinion emailed daily.
Like this content? Buzz it up!
Free Email updates:
Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport or that author. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it. We value privacy. More...


![The AFL’s NAB Cup pre-season competition may provide nothing more than a chance to blow out the cobwebs for some teams, but for others it means more.
There may be no premiership points on the line, the best players may be taking a break, and the crowds may be small, but the competition is far from [...] Luke D'Anello: NAB Cup worth plenty to North Melbourne Kangaroos](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/north-melbourne-th.jpg)
![Australian boss Pim Verbeek yesterday named his squad for the ‘must-not-lose’ AFC Asian Cup qualifier against Indonesia in Brisbane on March 3, with the 25-man squad consisting of 21 local-based players along with four from abroad. So has he got it right?
The Socceroos‘ qualification for next year’s Asian Cup in Qatar hinges on a result [...] Ben Somerford: Has Verbeek got it right for Indonesia?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ogre-verbeek-th.jpg)
![It’s a hotly contested Top 5 this week as we take a look at sportspeople who have lost the plot during their careers to such an extent that they’ve landed themselves in jail. There are many unworthy candidates, so I’ve stuck to one per sport. I welcome your additions and suggestions.
1. Greg Bird (c)
Demonstrated [...] Andrew Jones: The Top 5 Jailbirds In Sport](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/top-5-jailbirds-greg-bird-th.jpg)
![I can’t decide whether Oman coach Claude Le Roy looks like Tom Petty or an aged Joni Mitchell, but there’s no doubting he’s one mightily pissed off dude. And for good reason. Not the fact his valiant Omanis fell victim to another one of Tim Cahill’s get-out-of-jail goals, but because Socceroos team manager Gary Moretti [...] Jesse Fink: Moretti’s truculence jeopardises Australia’s standing in Asia](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Moretti-truculence-jeopardises-Australia-standing-Asia.jpg)
![At the end of their first season as an A-League club, we cannot say with any great certainty that Gold Coast United is a sustainable franchise. It was a tumultuous debut season of off-field debacles that blighted on-field achievement, culminating in penalty shootout heartache and another deplorable crowd figure.
On the park, Gold Coast were exactly [...] Adrian Musolino: Gold Coast United: from the sublime to the ridiculous](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/a-league-may-hit-rock-bottom-coast-crowds-th.jpg)
![I’ve always thought that Channel Nine sports presenter Ken Sutcliffe would be a good bloke to share a beer with. Thirty years of covering everything from the America’s Cup to Wimbledon means he’s probably got plenty of tales to tell.
Admittedly my rationale isn’t based on the most scientific of premises.
One year for [...] Mike Tuckerman: A-League excites despite media indifference](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/a-league-excites-carlos-hernandez-th.jpg)
![Bugger this. Time to deal with the big issues. Is it just me or has there been an explosion of photos of sportsmen in cafes over the last few years?
It seems weird that every Saturday I find myself in a café staring at a photo of an athlete in café. It’s like one of those [...] Steve Kaless: Why are sportsmen always photographed in cafes?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/willie-mason-th.jpg)
![Pick one of the egg-shaped ball sports. A player has a kick for goal after the siren. If he makes it, they win, if he misses they lose. He misses and all and sundry do their best to say that the loss had nothing to do with this one kick.
There were plenty of opportunities [...] David Wiseman: Crunch plays separate the great from the good](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/crunchplays-tiger-woods-th.jpg)
![Sunday marked the 20th anniversary for Sachin Tendulkar’s glittering Test career. As a 16 year-old tousle-haired rookie, he took on the might of Pakistani quickies Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in the Karachi Test which commenced on 15 November 1989.
He did not set the field on fire as he scored only 15 runs but managed [...] Kersi Meher-Homji: Sachin Tendulkar: the greatest of them all](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/sachin-tendulkar-greatest-th.jpg)
![Am I the only person writing on Test cricket these days? After seven One-Day Internationals in England, the ICC Champions Trophy starts the South Africa today, then the Airtel Champions Twenty20 in India starts on October 8, followed by more Fifty50 ODIs between Australia and India in India.
Test matches will recommence in November.
But [...] Kersi Meher-Homji: Short history of foreign-born Australian Test cricketers](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ipl-mutant-symonds-th.jpg)
![With his fourth NRL Grand Final in a row coming up on Sunday, and another championship ring likely, the question has to be asked: Is Craig Bellamy our best coach in any Australian rugby code right now? The answer, in my opinion, is not yet.
He is undoubtedly the finest rugby league coach of his generation.
In [...] Spiro Zavos: Is Craig Bellamy our best coach, league or union?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/is-craig-bellamy-th.jpg)
![Ricky Ponting did an interview before the Ashes series for the BBC. It covered the usual subjects such as player form, predictions, what the Ashes means etc and near the end of the conversation, Ponting was asked what he thought about the England team’s over the top celebrations following their 2005 series victory.
Ponting didn’t rise [...] Alec Swann: Ponting shouldn’t take the fall for Ashes defeat](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ashes-loss-th.jpg)



