By Julian Guyer
November 16th 2009 @ 5:38am
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Johnson relieved after England just pip Pumas
England manager Martin Johnson admitted he was thankful after seeing his side struggle to beat Argentina 16-9 in a low-grade encounter here at Twickenham on Saturday.
Matt Banahan’s try 10 minutes from the finish, the only time England crossed the Pumas’ line, could not disguise how the hosts rarely threatened in attack, kicked poorly, repeatedly knocked [...]
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![There is an odd peace about the final day before the season begins. Your team is undefeated, you’re buoyed by the talk of the toughest preseason ever and heartened by that young player you’ve admired for a while getting a start while the big new signing claims he is loving it and is raring to [...] Steve Kaless: New season is here, with the same complaints](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bulldogs-eels-th.jpg)
![I never used to like our national anthem. There was always something so bland about it, even when the best singers tried to put a unique rendition together.
But when the Australian national anthem was belted out via Sydney’s Olympic stadium PA in November, 2005, 80,000 fans changed my opinion of Advance Australia Fair.
I’d never [...] Benjamin Conkey: My favourite sporting anthems](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/sporting-anthems-socceroos-greece-th.jpg)
![In mid-October, I wrote a piece regarding the A-League’s need to better market itself. Here is an example of one area in which the league and teams can drastically improve on.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have transformed how we communicate and interact with one another. It also presents businesses, including sporting [...] Adrian Musolino: The A-League failing to engage with fans online](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/a-league-failing-online-fans-th.jpg)
![“Be Afridi, Very Afridi”, read a poster at Lord’s during the World Twenty20 final on Sunday. And the in-form Sri Lankans understood its full demonic meaning as Pakistan’s dynamic all-rounder Shahid Afridi slammed 54 not out, leading Pakistan to an easy eight wicket win to lift the Trophy.
He was the Man of the Final [...] Kersi Meher-Homji: Why are rule changes always unfair to bowlers?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/why-rule-changes-unfair-bowlers-th.jpg)
![The new interpretation of the breakdown laws promises to rewind Super Rugby back to the days when tries were the norm, rather than the exception. It’s exciting stuff, despite the risk that the pendulum will swing back too far and we’ll get a return to the bad old days of basketball scores.
Remember the 2004 final?
Brumbies [...] Andrew Logan: Super 14 is bursting with excitement machines](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/super-bulls-dynasty-th.jpg)
![The Sports Minister, Kate Ellis, who famously did not know the difference between rugby league and rugby union, is floating the proposition that successful athletes should pay back part of their expenses incurred training at the Austalian Institute of Sports and other similar institutions.
The Minister, in the great tradition of the Rudd Government’s penchant for [...] Spiro Zavos: Should successful athletes pay back their AIS costs?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/should-successful-athlete-pay-back-th.jpg)
![Rudyard Kipling wrote memorably about ‘the muddied oafs’ of rugby football and the ‘flannelled fools’ of cricket. The cricket part of the description sums up the behaviour of Shane Watson and Sulieman Benn in the Perth Test between Australia and the West Indies.
I have played and watched cricket for more decades than I care [...] Spiro Zavos: Shane Watson and Sulieman Benn are modern ‘flannelled fools’](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/australian-cricket-watson-th.jpg)
![For all the talk of sporting codes needing to ‘change their culture’ in the wake of numerous sex scandals, there is one easy change they can make, something blatantly obvious, one of the final remnants of the sexist sporting age. The cheerleaders, grid girls, whatever you want to call them have to go. [...] Adrian Musolino: Remove the cheerleaders from sport](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/remove-cheerleaders-th.jpg)
![Football fans in Australia shouldn’t be alarmed by the absence of Australians from the first round of nominations for the AFC player of the year award.
It’s not a case of Australian football being shunned by its confederation. Nor is it due to some mysterious lack of top-class Australian football players.
Instead, it’s because the [...] Davidde Corran: Asian Player of the Year award is a farce](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/asian-champions-league-masato-yamakazi-th.jpg)
![More than two million viewers tuned in to see Jelena Dokic lose to Dinara Safina in her quarter-final. Two million! That’s more than any cricket match could attract. Actually, make that most male sports.
It’s a sign of how far women’s tennis has come.
The fact that women’s Grand Slam tennis rates so well is the main [...] Benjamin Conkey: Women tennis stars need to play best of five-sets](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/maria-sharapova-grunts-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)
![There were many talking points to come out of Wednesday night’s Australia Vs Bahrain WCQ, a major one being the continued and inexplicable international career of Brett Holman, which I have attended to in my Friday column for The World Game. It deserves a blog on its own.
Another is Scott McDonald, who couldn’t hit [...] Jesse Fink: What’s really holding “soccer” back?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/whats-holding-soccer-back-th.jpg)



