By Julian Guyer
November 5th 2009 @ 2:37am
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World Cup winning duo to face Wallabies
Jonny Wilkinson and Steve Thompson were re-united in an England team for the first time since the 2003 World Cup final win over Australia after being named in Saturday’s side to play the Wallabies.
Injury-hit England’s starting team for this weekend’s match at Twickenham boasted just four survivors in backs Ugo Monye and Danny Care, together [...]
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![The AFL’s umpiring department claim they made just 6 mistakes from 10,000 scoring shots last year, yet in the sport’s showcase event, the Grand Final, there was a glaring error for Tom Hawkins’ 2nd quarter ‘goal’. It begs the question does the AFL need video replays?
You often hear people say, “this or that could one [...] Ben Somerford: Grand Final gaffe shows AFL needs to improve umpire accuracy](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/grand-final-afl-umpire-accuracy-th.jpg)
![It turns out that Michael Phelps, the man who captured eight incredible gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, can also smoke a bong. Wow, amazing! Thankyou News of the World. I feel so much better about myself now that I know an Olympic champion is on the wacky tobaccy.
Great for Phelps isn’t it? [...] Benjamin Conkey: Why do athletes have to be good role models?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/phelps-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)
![I understand Phil Gould’s suggestion that extreme measures may be necessary to ban players from drinking alcohol. But what about the copious amount of alcohol advertising and sponsorship in the game?
Surely this would need to be banned as well.
When Brett Stewart returns to league and eventually wins his first man-of-the match award, it is [...] Benjamin Conkey: Ban alcohol advertising in rugby league first](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ban-alcohol-ads-brett-stewart-th.jpg)
![If there’s one thing which characterizes Australian rugby at the moment, it’s frustration. Just about everyone you speak to is frustrated and angry, frustrated and worried, or just frustrated and sad.
After fourteen years of professionalism, rugby lovers outside the professional sphere are feeling their game slip away from them.
Where once they felt a part of [...] Andrew Logan: It’s time for the launch of Rugby Australia](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/next-five-things-john-oneill-th.jpg)
![As we try to cope with post-Ashes depression, let us select the best Australian and England cricket XIs based on their Ashes performances over the years in England. Call it a stimulus package after a lost weekend in rugby and cricket.
By using certain criteria and qualifications (aggregates in runs scored/wickets taken/dismissals made in Ashes [...] Kersi Meher-Homji: Ponting the only current player among Ashes titans](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ponting-only-current-player-th.jpg)
![Expansion hasn’t been the golden ticket to significantly better crowd figures with a below 10,000 average crowd for the last round highlighting the complexities of drawing punters at this time of the year. But rather than being the ticket to better crowds, expansion is partly the reason for the deplorable crowds in Brisbane.
Brisbane came into [...] Adrian Musolino: FFA needs to reconsider expansion plans for 2010/11](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ffa-needs-reconsider-th.jpg)
![Enough is enough. It’s time for the FFA and Melbourne Heart chief executive Scott Munn and chairman Peter Sidwell to bite the bullet, ignore the competition to name the club being run in the Herald Sun, and keep the working title of Melbourne’s second A-League franchise.
In case you haven’t been following the saga [...] Adrian Musolino: The Melbourne Heart name saga rolls on](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/how-important-names-colours-schip-a-league-th.jpg)
![While it’s a historic agreement, the AFL’s free agency model is also very complicated and has overlooked its most important function. It still fails to allow big name players to move freely between clubs.
For such a professional sport I would have thought a more professional outcome would have been achieved. How hard is it for [...] Justin Rodski: Restricted free agency in the AFL is a cop out](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/afl-demetriou-rudd-th.jpg)
![The prognosis about the death of Test cricket is exaggerated and premature. But the passion for a five-day game is losing its spectator appeal in competition with the shorter three or eight hour versions.
Still, The Ashes draws big crowds and so do Test series’ involving Australia, India and South Africa. It’s the way tours [...] Kersi Meher-Homji: From can’t wait to ho-hum: is Test cricket dying?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/from-cant-wait-test-cricket-dying-th.jpg)
![On Monday night I took a call from a coach working in Asia asking me where I thought some job opportunities might be coming up in the A-League. He was credentialled, capable and was genuinely interested in checking out what was going on in Australia.
I quickly did some mental maths and the tabulations weren’t encouraging.
Apart [...] Jesse Fink: The A-League needs less stability, more circus](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/john-kosmina-a-league-circus-th.jpg)



