By Darren Walton
October 28th 2009 @ 1:15am
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All Blacks inspired by Olympic legend, Peter Snell
Richie McCaw says the All Blacks will be drawing inspiration from Olympic great Sir Peter Snell when they tackle the Wallabies in Saturday’s historic Bledisloe Cup Test at Japan’s National Stadium.
Snell, New Zealand’s most celebrated sportsman, famously won the 800m and 1500m at the venue at the 1964 Tokyo Games, after collecting his first gold [...]
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![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)
![The spate of Twenty20 internationals has got me thinking about the upcoming World Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies. Well, more accurately, it has got me thinking about who to have a bet on, because frankly, that’s all the tournament is good for.
I’m sure it will provide something of a spectacle and it’ll be a [...] Alec Swann: Black Caps to win World Twenty20 tournament](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/new-zealand-cricket-th.jpg)
![The brutal execution of John Howard’s hope to be the Chief Commissioner for a new independent Rugby League Commission by the Labor Left hard man, the Federal MP Anthony Albanese, was totally predictable.
Rugby league, traditionally, has been the Labor Party in NSW and Queensland at play. There is no way the party is going to [...] Spiro Zavos: Why John Howard is out of his league](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/why-john-howard-league-th.jpg)
![The most overheard phrase around the Olympics must surely be “there should be no politics in sport.” What a load of rubbish! There should be more, lots more. It makes it more interesting.
The most exciting part of these year’s Olympic build up is wondering just when the Chinese might roll out the tanks.
Giving the Games [...] Steve Kaless: Why we need more politics in sport](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/olympics-2-th.jpg)
![Despite a season of on-field struggle, A-League cellar-dwellers Adelaide United have managed to retain excellent attendances this campaign with an average home crowd of almost 11,000. So I decided to ask Reds Chief Executive Officer Sam Ciccarello how they’ve done it.
To emphasise the point of their success, throughout this A-League campaign only the populous centres [...] Ben Somerford: Why are bottom-club Adelaide’s crowds so good?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/adelaide-united-th.jpg)
![Quick question, which professional footballer faced court last week with the threat of a custodial sentence? An NRL player? BZZZT! Wycliff Palu of the Waratahs.
The player escaped a jail sentence for being caught driving without licence for the second time but will pay a $1000 fine.
What struck me was the media’s treatment of [...] Steve Kaless: Why NRL players must want to play union](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/why-nrl-want-union-wycliff-palu-naqelevuki-th.jpg)
![Let’s be honest, Brendan Fevola isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and his drunken Brownlow display was inappropriate. But does his behavior really warrant the media coverage it has received not to mention the growing calls for his dismissal from Carlton?
Yes, it was poor from someone with a heavily pregnant wife and an obligation [...] Adrian Musolino: Should idiocy really cost Fevola his job?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/should-idiocy-fevola-th.jpg)
![A recent story in the Sydney Morning Herald referred to a new development in cricket bats, with about a quarter of the back of it flattened and rolled so that a batsman, especially in Twenty-20 cricket, could use both sides of it as a switch hitter.
If the development is a success, it will represent the [...] Spiro Zavos: Double-bladed bats have the wood on tradition](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/double-handed-bats.jpg)
![Meatloaf sang that “two out of three ain’t bad”. The big man would probably have made a handy prop, and of the Storm he could have sang, “two out of four is damn impressive”.
Four straight grand finals and two premierships to boot, the Storm’s display looked like it came from a side that was used [...] Steve Kaless: Clinical Storm derail the Hayne train](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/its-storm-eels-jeff-lima-th.jpg)
![The doomsayers are preparing the obituary. Tennis in this country is dying – as evidenced by the mammoth drop in television ratings for the Australian Open that shows a 40 per cent decrease in viewers from last year.
The magnitude of such a drop cannot be ignored. And there must be an underlying fault somewhere to [...] Adrian Musolino: Channel 7 has stifled this year’s Australian Open](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/federer-courier-seven-th.jpg)
![As the winter football codes launch into their seasons, Australia leaves behind what many are bemoaning as a forgettable summer of sport. A summer that Sport & Style labelled as the ‘Summer of dud’ .
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![The Western Bulldogs have been making all the right noises in pre-season, with solid wins over Brisbane and Hawthorn taking them to the NAB Cup semi-finals, in an ominous sign for the season proper. So after consecutive preliminary losses, are the Dogs ready to take the next step?
Indeed, this is the question everybody down at [...] Ben Somerford: Will 2010 finally be the Year of the Bulldog?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/western-bulldogs-th.jpg)




ohtani's jacket said | October 28th 2009 @ 1:53am | Report comment
Got a chance to have a bit of an up close look at some of the All Blacks today. It’s all a bit surreal having All Blacks show up in your town.