The Roar
The Roar

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Are we a nation of fair weather fans?

Australia's Ryan Harris congratulates Peter Siddle. (AAP Image/Ben Macmahon)
Roar Rookie
28th August, 2013
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We all know Australian sport has suffered a sharp decline over recent years. It began back in September 2005 at The Oval with the Poms pinching the Ashes urn after 16 years of cricketing misery.

We may have beaten them 5-0 the next year but doubts were already emerging. Why wasn’t that legendary Aussie spirit working anymore?

Perhaps Australian sportspeople got complacent, forgot how to maintain the Aussie Spirit, and the English subsequently found the blueprint. It would explain the fruitful rewards the Poms have reaped over the last year or two.

They’re buoyed by so much success at the moment, they’re practically levitating. For once, the English have a genuine reason to refer to their home as “Great Britain” without being tongue in cheek. Although this might have more to do with taking credit for Andy Murray.

When you boil it down, England and Australia’s roles have been reversed and we have now had to come to terms with a humbling reality.

The old custom of barracking for the underdog is a popular one as the pay off if they win is all the more surprising and satisfying.

We see it in the tennis every January; I remember when at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, a semi-packed Telstra Dome went into hysterics when the Tongan Rubgy Sevens team clinched victory against the Sprinkboks in the dying seconds.

It’s a nice touch and you’d think we would be able to afford the same grace to our now current cricket team, but no.

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Most of those who would say they support the baggy green, these days, are just as likely to reprimand or turn off as a result of their perceived struggles.

Of late, the public and media have become experts (if they weren’t already) in drumming up negativity, expressing open ridicule and impatience at their failures, and critiquing every sniff of off-field irregularity.

If not explicitly said, the implied commentary has run along the lines of, ‘since when did we become a bunch of hacks?’

With Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting, the Waugh brothers, and the rest coming out of a phenomenal gene pool, the Australian cricket team got very very lucky.

Now that luck has run out and we have a young team trying to work through ongoing confidence issues, owing to unreasonable historical comparisons and kneejerk selections.

And yet they are still battered from pillar to post for not delivering the goods while we lambast their pastimes in the process.

Only now are we seeing signs of the trough becoming a peak but that won’t be due to outside influence or commentary, it will be despite it.

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The cacophonous negativity towards our current cricketers, among others, has come from public forums and mainstream media alike, the Twittersphere opening up the road for abuse like never before.

This thoughtless coarseness has betrayed a sense of entitlement, a mentality whereby athletes are despatched purely to succeed as a favour to us, the public.

Undoubtedly, the indulgence of winning had become self-serving by 2005 and 16 years of success (with cricket, swimming, tennis, golf, and other sports also feeding into it) had created an unhealthy reliance on winning to define what Australian sport is all about.

Perhaps this is what is really meant at the mention of “Aussie Spirit”: that we can be a good humoured lot when our guys are doing well but when the tide turns, it is apparently alright to accuse athletes of not pulling their weight.

Maybe it isn’t but it sure looked like it at last year’s Olympics, and has again this year at times with the Australian cricket team.

Surely these people have a right to enjoy their occupation like anyone else and the relentless public opinion can’t be helping their confidence.

Whatever you think of Shane Watson, I’m amazed he was still able to knock that century to temporarily silence the critics. Despite the bashing from all sides, he finishes up the Ashes with an average of over 40, even if that’s a little skewed.

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We shouldn’t expect our new crops to be world beaters from day one and sports fans might have to put up with mediocrity for a while before the trough becomes a spike. Believe it or not, it isn’t impossible to support a struggler.

Look at the poor old Melbourne Demons, whose diehards would happily throw a festival in honour of a contested mark on the half backline.

Perhaps ungrateful cricket fans among others should take a leaf out of their book and admire effort and persistence that little bit more. Then our cricketers and other athletes might have some reasons to be cheerful.

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