By Laine Clark
November 26th 2009 @ 2:34am
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Ponting looking forward to lively Gabba deck
The juicy Gabba deck has always been a favourite of the Australian cricket team. But after looking at results around the world, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting is relishing the Brisbane ground just that little bit more ahead of the first Test against the West Indies starting on Thursday.
As he prepared to defend Australia’s 20-year unbeaten [...]
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![Flicking through the latest football news filtering through the wires last night, I came across the following headlines to the same Australian Associated Press story: A-League is ‘boring’, Rudan and ‘Boring’ A-league lacks character, Rudan.
Opening it, I was expecting to read Mark Rudan’s take on how the A-League was failing to live up to on-field [...] Tony Tannous: Is the A-League boring? No, just the headlines](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/is-a-league-boring-rudan-ognenovski-costa-th.jpg)
![They say Formula 1 is a sport between 2pm and 4pm on a Sunday afternoon, the rest of the time it’s just business. The race-fixing saga involving the Renault team has simply confirmed that even the racing isn’t sacred and has been corrupted.
The ins and outs of the events that unfolded last season [...] Adrian Musolino: Is Formula 1 rotten to its very core?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/is-formula-1-rotten.jpg)
![There was jubilation this week as I flipped over the newspaper to find the words “troubled footballer”, “nightclub” and “urinate” co-located in a sentence! It was the perfect opportunity to bust out a team that a couple of mates and myself have selected and re-selected many times over the years.
With its genesis in some [...] Andrew Jones: The Nitespots XI, part one](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/craig_gower-photo-th.jpg)
![In the wake of Paul Roos’s comments on the AFL’s decision to allow Gold Coast to keep their summer acquisitions confidential, Port Adelaide midfielder Travis Boak’s ‘supposed flirtation’ with Gold Coast highlights the inevitable results for out of contract players under such a policy.
Last week, newspaper reports linked Boak with a move to the AFL’s [...] Ben Somerford: AFL must be transparent on Gold Coast recruitment](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/AFL-clubs-think-outside-square-karmichael-hunt-broncos-th.jpg)
![It’s a time when NRL fans should only be filled with an overwhelming sense of anticipation for the first round of the season proper but once again off-field dramas are taking centre stage.
Instead of column inches being filled by the build up of what should be a cracker of a match between the Dragons [...] Gabriel Knowles: Punish indiscretions with comp points](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/punish-indiscretions-brett-stewart-th.jpg)
![The most important consideration in selecting a rugby side, and this is the view of Alan Jones, who was an excellent selector, is to get the shape of the side right.
Rugby is a team game and the good selector tries to mix and match the talents of his players so that the entity of the [...] Spiro Zavos: Selecting the ‘real’ World Rugby XV of the decade](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Why-Stirling-Mortlock-lost-Wallaby-captaincy-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)
![One of the highlights of Sydney Tests is the dinner hosted by The Australian Cricket Media Association (ACMA) to present the Australian Cricketer of the Year Award at Sydney Football Stadium.
This year’s winner was Shane Watson. Brad Haddin was the winner last year and Mitchell Johnson the previous summer. As this was a Silver Jubilee [...] Kersi Meher-Homji: Watson named Australia’s best by the media](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/australian-cricket-watson-th.jpg)
![The pieces of the jigsaw seem to falling into their perfect positions, and each day it seems more likely that Geelong’s Gary Ablett Jr will move to the AFL’s new Gold Coast team. Consider this: his father, Gary Ablett Sr, one of the greatest players of all time, has moved to the Gold Coast.
His brother, [...] Luke D'Anello: Gary Ablett Jr looks to be heading to a warmer place](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/gary-ablett-th.jpg)
![A storm of driving wind and rain hit Wellington a couple days ago and fieldsmen at the Basin Reserve for the New Zealand-Australia Test can expect stinging hands if they are unfortunate enough to have to catch a hot chance.
I was chatting to an old cricket hand who said to me that both teams would [...] Spiro Zavos: Kiwi cricket in disarray as Aussies move in for the kill](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/new-zealand-vettori-th.jpg)
![The depth and breadth of our sporting landscape never ceases to amaze me. On Saturday alone you could have watched Ashes cricket, NRL, AFL, A-League, Tri-Nations, V8 Supercars and the like on the box. With codes undertaking one of the most aggressive expansion phases in Australian sporting history, can this be sustained?
It is a fascinating [...] Adrian Musolino: Is Australia’s sporting landscape too overcrowded?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/is-australias-overcrowded-th.jpg)
![Queensland rugby going broke. Melbourne struggling to find players. The ARU hemming and hawing over requests for the Force to bring in replacements for their staggering injury toll. The Waratahs losing ugly.
And all four provinces out of the five on the Super 14 table.
It seems that there’s nothing but bad news in rugby at the [...] Andrew Logan: Winning grassroots gold at Mudgee Rugby Festival](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mudgee-rugby-th.jpg)



