By Adam Cooper
December 26th 2009 @ 12:18am
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Steven Smith who?
It’s fair enough Pakistan don’t know much about Steven Smith, but the MCG could be about to get one big surprise packet on Boxing Day.
Smith, 20, a baby-faced legspinner from NSW, could make his Test debut on Saturday if Australian offspinner Nathan Hauritz is ruled out on Saturday because of a groin injury.
Australia are hopeful [...]
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![It’s becoming almost ridiculous now. Refresh your page on any football news site on the net and another Australian player is heading off to north Asia. Sasho Petrovski, Mark Bridge and even that great flop John Aloisi are all rumoured to be mulling over offers to go to the Chinese Super League.
Before you know [...] Jesse Fink: The A-League’s bleeding of players must stop](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/a-league-th2.jpg)
![After it had already been proven that some of rugby league’s stars needed to be treated like babies, did Brett Seymour really have to prove that they also need to wear nappies?
In week when all league fans should be raving about the fact that both games on Friday night where thrillers and decided by [...] Steve Kaless: Perhaps we should all just give up the booze!](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/give-up-the-booze-setaimata-sa-roosters-th.jpg)
![We’ve all heard about the radical knee surgery performed on Port Adelaide midfielder David Rodan’s injured cruciate ligament. But to get a more informed look on the topic, I thought I’d get in touch with Port Adelaide club doctor Mark Fisher.
Fisher was present for Rodan’s Ligament Augmentation and Reconstruction System (LARS) procedure which took place [...] Ben Somerford: Inside word on David Rodan’s radical knee surgery](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/david-rodan-international-rules-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)
![In the final moments of the 2003 Rugby World Cup final, the match, which had see-sawed for almost 100 minutes, was finally decided by an ice-cold Jonny Wilkinson field goal.
In that moment, Wilkinson entered rugby mythology as the architect of an England triumph.
In 1991, David Campese sliced across field and darted inside John Kirwan to [...] Andrew Logan: We must keep Cooper if we want to win the Cup](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/reds-quade-cooper-th.jpg)
![Australian boss Pim Verbeek yesterday named his squad for the ‘must-not-lose’ AFC Asian Cup qualifier against Indonesia in Brisbane on March 3, with the 25-man squad consisting of 21 local-based players along with four from abroad. So has he got it right?
The Socceroos‘ qualification for next year’s Asian Cup in Qatar hinges on a result [...] Ben Somerford: Has Verbeek got it right for Indonesia?](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ogre-verbeek-th.jpg)
![At the end of the Year 2000, Sydney looked at its reflection with a cocksure grin and felt with some justification that it held a reputation as one of the world’s great sporting cities.
The Olympics had been an absolute triumph and the Harbour city no doubt felt keen to tackle Melbourne for the crown of [...] Steve Kaless: Sydney is no longer one of the great sporting cities](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/nrl.jpg)
![February has proved to be a fabulous month for cricket in all forms. We had a spine-tingling Test in Kolkata, followed by a nail-biting One-day International at Jaipur, and a landmark double century by the evergreen Sachin Tendulkar in the second ODI in Gwalior on Wednesday.
On 21 February, New Zealand defeated Australia by 2 runs [...] Kersi Meher-Homji: Tendulkar stakes his claim as best batsman in all forms](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ipl-dog-sachin-tendulkar-th.jpg)
![They may have taken centre stage at Surfers Paradise by default, but it was still a significant moment for the V8 Supercars. Should they convince the Queensland government to retain the event as a V8 Supercar-only weekend, it will be another significant development for the series.
The V8 Supercar calendar has slowly transformed [...] Adrian Musolino: V8 Supercars entering their own crucial phase](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/V8-Supercars-crucial.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)
![Another Dragons game on the box, so another date with my nemesis. If rugby league is all about rivalries, well, as they say, “it doesn’t get any bigger.”
I’ll cut to chase. What is the story with the Saints fan who holds up the “GST, Great St George Team” sign?
Fair dinkum, it is driving me mad.
The [...] Steve Kaless: The biggest question in Rugby League](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/maths-suggests-soward-young-st-george-th.jpg)
![So South Africa has become the first team to defeat Australia in three successive bilateral ODI series’. Pity the poor West Indies. Their many Tri-Series successes in Australia seemingly do not count in this context.
On top of this comes the news that, at least until the present series concludes, Australia has (deservedly) slipped to third [...] Greg Russell: Decline of Australian cricket due to many factors](http://www.theroar.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/decline-oz-cricket-andrew-symonds-th.jpg)



