Thanks for your article Phil, nice to have a true expert’s thoughts…

Cycling and F1 actually have a lot in common in this area.

F1 now trades on its prestige more than anything else. F1’s base is Western Europe, with Brazil and Japan. Australia has a history with F1 dating back to the 50s also. However, the insane costs involved have forced F1 into the middle, central and far east. There are no Gulf, Chinese or Korean based teams or drivers. Only India has shown growth in terms of teams and drivers, but they only got their first race last year.

There is a real feeling that it is only a matter of time before even the “big, traditional” races come under threat. Germany, supplier of the most drivers, can barely afford to host one race, when it used to host two. With Spain’s economy in the toilet, it is only a matter of time before their second race ends up in Russia, or some other cashed up “frontier” country.

Cycling is going the same way. how long will it be before Milan-San Remo, Terranio-Adriattico is demoted to allow for a race in India, or the UAE, or whoever stumps up the cash. How long before we have a fourth grand tour, in China, or Inda, or the Middle East?

You guys do know that chemical or artificial performance enhanching is almost as old as cycling itself dont you?

Look at old photos of guys chain smoking their way around the grand tours, because they thought it opened the lungs up. Stories of guys taking amphetamines in the 50s.

Riding one of these tours destroys your body. The sheer number of calories burned per day is staggering (4000 to 9000 calories, depending on stage, average male intake is 1800 per day, a Big Mac is 480). Every little advantage will get you over the line

From where I sit, the problem isn’t what banned stuff they are taking, its the stuff that isn’t banned. Was anybody that used EPO prior to 1990 (when WADA banned it) a cheat? It may not have been kosher, but it wasn’t against the rules…

I think the thing that people don’t realise about Cadel Evans, is the fact that he struggled for a long time in an era where practices were questionable at best, then as the “old guard” start to move on, he is there or there abouts.

The elephant in the room is the fact that Cadel only won because Contador wrecked himself in the Giro in a vain attempt to win all-three tours in a year and his crash early on in le Tour.

A fully fit Contador smashes all before him – like Lance.

Oh and FYI, Simon Gerrans isn’t GEC’s main man. That honour goes to Matt Goss, the first Aussie to win Milan-San Remo, and would have been the Cyclist of the Year if Cadel hadn’t ruined everything for him! 😛

I think it just represents a wider mis-understanding of how professional cycling actually works. There is so much more to it than the TDF, and I would question how many people even knew that TDU was a ProTour event, or that there was a ProTour…

The reason that track cycling has a history in this country is that the AIS pumps money into it, and it gets results. The AIS has its funding modelled on Olympic Gold Medals (OGM), setting up a system that is going to build great climbers is fantastic for a TDF winner, but isn’t going to return the same number of medallists at the olympics.

As for the cyclist hate, mate, spare me. I get bagged by my own family, ask anybody that doesn’t ride what they actually think of cyclists. The hate is there alright, it just takes a Magda or a Warnie for it to boil over.

Had a chuckle about that myself… 🙂

I think you have all missed the elephant in the room people…

The Age ran an article that pointed some fairly serious fingers at the FFA and the way the spent their money regarding the world cup bid (long before the bid was finalised). the FFA were later completely cleared by the Aus Government of any wrong doing, and subsequently sued Fairfax, resulting in the pulled sponsorship from the Victory and something of an agenda against football ever since.

Its a shame, because I quite enjoy his books…

Journalistic justification and Herald Sun in the same sentence? youre having a larf mate!

Hmmmm, is that the same les murray that had to retract a fairly lengthy section of a book published regarding Lucas Neill and Pim Verbeek during the 2010WC? the same Craig Foster that practically racially abused the new victory coach, and the same Zelic that pundits for FoxSports?

Firstly, there is a hell of a lot of politics in cycling… GreenEDGE is heavily affiliated with the AIS, which focuses mainly on track cycling (which equates nicely to Olympic Gold medals), this then creates spriters. Cadel coming from a MTB background really upset the apple cart. GreenEDGE will focus on stage wins and one day classics, their rider lineup makes that pretty obvious.

BMC have put together one of the strongest sides ever, and Cadel is the main man. He’s never going to walk away from that, especailly to an envionment to be surrounded by people who would be happy to see him fail.

The Socceroos analogy is a brilliant one, and expectations and “Tall Poppy Syndrome” will be the undoing of GreenEDGE in terms of popularity. People simply don’t understand the way cycling works… Cadel had never won a stage before last year’s tour, and he only led the tour after the penultimate stage!

Finally, and most sadly, Warnie’s (and Magda’s before him) rant only exposes the fact that there really isn’t an acceptance of cycling in this country. Everybody in the land will get up and watch Cadel on the podium, but how many watched him win the night before? How many are prepared to actually give it a go? The 5:30 starts before work everyday? Everybody can stick the boot into the latte sipping, leg shaven, lycra monkeys, but does anybody actually know why they wear it? or why they shave their legs? It sounds extreme, but its true.

Melbourne is the sporting capital of the world, but really, they only love a winner. Most of the cycling hate seems to come from there. But when Melbourne’s own Cadel Evens, who is actually from Kathrine in the NT and lives nowhere near Melbourne when he’s in the country, wins the tour, lets have a parade and celebrate one of the state’s icons. But hey, everybody loves a winner right?

Cadel won his first ever stage in the 2011 TDF, and only wore the yellow jersey on the last day…

It will be interesting to see how the track world champs go at easter (bleeding that i cant go!), the rumours are that it is going to be a stronger field that what we could see at the olympics!

Lucky win agains Newcastle? Sorry you lost me from that point onwards… I think that the goal Newcastle scored was against the run of play!

Actually, I think you’ll find that the majority of the board have actually been around since day one, certainly Di Pietro has, he has just stepped up to Chaiman.

Billy Celeski hasn’t been the same player he was since his knee injury. He was another who didn’t exactly set Etihad Stadium alight on the weekend.

Got it in one.

I’ve been saying this pretty much since he came back. I loved him at the Glory and was totally bemused when Merrick moved him into a more defensive position, but what an inspired move.

In the game against Perth at AAMI early last season, I think Jacob Burns got him with a 50-50 and he jarred the knee. He was annoymous after that, and has conceded all the 40-60s let alone 50-50s. It is heartbreaking, because he was my favourite Victory player…

While I think Cernak could do a job there, I think he would be wasted… He will be good cover for Harry, Archie and Marco…

My thoughts exactly Brett. Gambling like drugs and alcohol and prostitution, whilst looked down upon by many have been around as long as we have, and people have always found a way to engage in them.

By restricting the types of gambling avaliable, you’re only going to put more power into the hands of shady underworld figures, which is exactly the opposite of what we’re trying to do!

Perth came flying out of the blocks last year, and fell in a MASSIVE heap… I think they would be far better off flying under the radar this year. Dominating at home and pinching cheeky points away…

They always do don’t they?!

Never once, anywhere in the article have I said that Gallop likened the Storm fans to terrorists. The whole issue is about passionate support, and given some of the visceral – and very personal – attacks I’ve recieved for this article, he is talking about YOU.

I have tried to give a passionate, and reasonable view of the event. I stand by every word (except the single spelling mistake, which isn’t actually a spelling mistake, rather an incorrect choice of word). I think that the comment belittles victims of terror and undermines our efforts to combat it. I think that it is horribly ill advised, and if the CEO of any company, or a politician had made a similar comment, resignations would have been demanded. Agree or disagree, that is how I feel.

The second half of the article was an analysis of the percieved injustices that Storm fans feel. Yes, I am a Storm fan, I grew up in Melbourne (although I don’t live there now), but to migrant parents and have no interest in AFL. It gives me a unique prisim through which to view the way the NRL has expanded, as a 13yo boy, I was the target audience. My experience of going through that time, while having the AFL’s expansion constantly thrust in my face growing up is how I have formed my view. Could the NRL have done more? Yes, in my opinion they could. The only expansion since the Storm has been a safe bet return to the Gold Coast, however if the NRL is serious about expansion into frontier territories, then the issues I’ve mentioned need to be addressed. I’m not going to be bitter that a Perth team got something that the Storm didn’t, it shows that progress is being made, thats all that fans in Melbourne, and I would wager NRL fans generally want.

To address some of the other criticisms:

The current TV deal was negotiated during Gallops time as CEO, why didn’t he make demands regarding at least State of Origin and Finals matches? I don’t think it is a big ask. NRL/SoO actually rates very well when shown live in Melbourne, and the fact that the Storm are constantly amongst the highest rating teams on Fox would tend to back this up.

I am quite happy to admit that I am a Storm fan, but frankly, in the last 12 months that has been something of an occupational hazard. I don’t apprecaite the vitriol and personal attacks that I’ve seen and experienced here and on other forums. Frankly it isn’t worth it. It is disheartening to have your opinion dismissed without even actually reading the article, which appears to have happened here. Whilst I’m not a journalist, I know a thing or two about writing, and I’ve tried to leave my biases to the side as much as possible, however this is an opinion site, and my experiences will influence my writing.

Finally to Boydy, taking the titles of three of my previous articles (I’ve had 18 published on this site) and dumping them out of context is simply lazy, and only highlights that it is you that has the agenda against me.

“Are Melbourne Storm the NRL’s Barcelona?” was an article to discuss the fact that players seem to be able to move in and out of the Storm side interchangably, regardless as to whether or not they were washed up has beens, untried teenagers or big money superstars.

“What’s the future of NRL salary cap auditing?” was an article written by a fan who felt betrayed by both his club for cheating the system and the NRL’s auditors for failing to detect it for five years, and looking for ways for the NRL to ensure that nobody has to experience the heartache of having some of the most memorable events of your life (attending the 2007 Grand Final) be absolutely meaningless.

“Inglis has nobody to blame but himself”, I think that this article is the one that I’ve written that treads closest to the line, however given the context of the Storm’s efforts to keep him and the wrangling over the unpaid legal bills, I think that my opinion was reasonable. If the the story was about another player leaving another club, I would have the same view of it.

I would be sueing the NRL for failing to in their duty of care, and looking into criminal charges agains the four manly players who joined in…

the NRL needs to make a stand… show them that not only is fighting unacceptable, but anything more than 1v1 is absolutely NOT going to be tolerated…

I think they should introduce a “3rd man in” rule, similar to ice-hockey whereby the first person to join a 1v1 fight is delt the harshest penalty. not only is is safer, but you’d stop any team trying to use mob-violence bullying as an intimidation tactic, in a high intensity, contact sport such as rugby league, it is only a matter of time before this tactic gets somebody paralised, brain damaged or worse, killed…

22 weeks for Brett Stewart… Its the same as Danny Williams got for king hitting Mark O’Neill, and Brett Stewart had a lot more time to think about what he was doing…

Here Here!

Not that the NRL cares… they’ve done nothing to promote the game outside of Sydney and Brisbane (where the game promotes itself, and they don’t need to do anything anyway), so what do they care? Actually they’re probably happy that they’ve pleased the “rose tinted glasses, bring back the glory days of the biff” crowd…