By Steve Jancetic
July 20th 2009 @ 7:41am
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Fittler rules out future with Roosters
Axed Sydney Roosters coach Brad Fittler has ruled out any future involvement with the club beyond this season.
Fittler was on Saturday told his contract with the Roosters would not be renewed when it expires at the end of the 2009 NRL campaign, with Newcastle’s Brian Smith set to take over at the Bondi-based club on [...]
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![We often assume media interest is a barometer of a sports’ popularity. If it’s not at the forefront of priorities for newspaper editors and newsroom producers, then it must not be important and entertaining enough to warrant sufficient media and public interest.
But that logic, in my mind, is flawed.
Rather, it’s the media that is dictating [...] Adrian Musolino: The media dictates the popularity of sports in Australia](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/lleyton-hewitt-th.jpg)
![As we draw closer to the start of season 2010, we look at the big questions being asked in the AFL, including the most important of them all.
Does Geelong need to win this year’s premiership to be rated with the best sides of all time?
They do. Three in four years will put the Cats right [...] Luke D'Anello: The big questions this season, Part Two](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/premiership-geelong-cats-paul-chapman-th.jpg)
![The 2010 Australia-Pakistan Test at the SCG will be rated as one of the most incredible matches in the long history of cricket. All those doomsayers predicting the end of Test cricket have been exposed. Test cricket, put simply, can often be – and in this case was – the greatest game of all.
Australia was [...] Spiro Zavos: Test cricket’s demise has been greatly exaggerated](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ponting-only-current-player-th.jpg)
![“Not again.” Two words I’ve muttered twice today thanks to a couple different articles. The first was in regards to a blog on The World Game from Jesse Fink. As well as being a fellow columnist on The Roar, Fink regularly gave me his time on my former SBS Radio program and is a writer [...] Davidde Corran: By pushing expansion, FFA have their priorities wrong](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/by-pushing-expansion-FFA-cullina-th.jpg)
![The most important part of any season is getting into a position to play finals, and hopefully grab that double chance. During my time at Hawthorn, we were very fortunate to play in thirteen consecutive finals series (1982-94), including seven straight Grand Finals (1983-89).
Usually a month out from September you would know that you’re [...] Robert DiPierdomenico: In finals footy, the players must do everything right](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/in-finals-footy-hawthorn-th.jpg)
![Don’t bother shutting the gate, Gold Coast United have already bolted. What’s interesting about Gold Coast’s form so far is that two of their three wins have come away from home. Of course, they’ve only played at home once so far. But elsewhere home teams are struggling to chalk up wins.
Of the fifteen games [...] Mike Tuckerman: Home form no advantage in A-League](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/home-form-tahj-minniecon-th.jpg)
![George Plimpton, the author of Paper Lion, a wonderful Walter Mittyish book on gridiron, once noted that “the smaller the ball, the better the sports writing.” He was talking specifically about the rich literature on golf.
From Wodehouse to Updike, there have been numerous classic works of fiction on golf.
Golf journalism, too, from Bobby [...] Spiro Zavos: The master Peter Thomson on the Masters](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/master-peter-thomson-th.jpg)
![On Saturday, La Gazzetta dello Sport declared it the greatest derby in the world and the game hadn’t even happened yet. The pink sport daily had “analysed” all of Europe’s other derbies and decided none had as many titles between them, as big attendances or successful teams as the Derby Della Madonnina.
La Gazzetta’s liberal criteria [...] Davidde Corran: Is this the greatest derby in world sports?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/serie-a-th.jpg)
![In the end, Sevens Rugby became an Olympic sport with the ease of a great ocean liner easing down the slipway on its launching.
All the lobbying, the setting up of special tournaments, the creation of a Women’s Sevens Rugby World Cup and the co-opting of former rugby great players to push the case ended triumphantly [...] Spiro Zavos: Gold, gold, gold! It’s Olympic gold for world rugby](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/gold-olympic-world-rugby-james-oconnor-th.jpg)
![Yesterday’s news that the Western Bulldogs will be seeking two home games at Basin Reserve in the New Zealand city of Wellington, possibly as early as next year, is a positive for the game.
I touched on the topic of teams expanding beyond their existing support bases earlier in the week, and this is a great [...] Michael DiFabrizio: The Western Bulldogs in Wellington is a great idea](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/western-bulldogs-th.jpg)
![Last year, some friends and I settled in at the Oaks in Neutral Bay preparing to watch a Tri-Nations match over a few lagers. There we sat, the repartee flowing back and forth, and the schooners of sponsors product lubricating the collective tonsils to monumental feats of rugby recall.
Every second story began with “Remember [...] Andrew Logan: Ireland Vs Australia, the greatest moment](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/top-five-sportsmen-david-campese-th.jpg)
![Finally, a tennis great has said what everyone who has suffered through those awful grunting matches between women tennis players thinks: it’s cheating.
Martina Navratilova, arguably the greatest woman tennis player of all with eighteen grand slam singles titles, has told the ITF’s Philippe Chatrier Award dinner that “the grunting has reached an unacceptable level. It [...] Spiro Zavos: Sharapova shut up! Tennis grunting is cheating](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/maria-sharapova-grunts-th.jpg)



