Great article! Some excellent points in there.
Agree with you about Allianz and ANZ, It is disappointing that Allianz which appeared OK is being razed and rebuilt whilst ANZ, our showpiece Grand Final, Bledisloe, Major Event home is being left in the same compromised way. Sigh

I agree JW, tried to spark up some debate and mimic a madcap Lewis fanboy, Looking at his career he has been fairly evenly matched with Alonso, Button and Rosberg – three world champions. Arguably he got the better of all three but not by very much.
He has been blessed with a brilliant car and a complete Botas of a teammate for the last few years.
Bottas, (adjective) consistently close to meeting or matching a benchmark without ever threatening to exceed it. See also Barrichello, Webber.

I believe Ayrton Senna maintained that Jim Clark (or Terry Fullerton!) was the benchmark for outstanding racing drivers. Most observers of Clark agree. Aiden Milward did a lovely tribute to him that captures the essence of the man and the quality of his driving.

Gday HR – You’re spot on, I was being a bit of a smart alec – trying to mimic the madcap Lewis fans out there. He’s a gun, but good luck and timing he had a plenty!

And again.
Lewis has spent nearly 14 years in the sport with a race winning car each and every single year. Somehow, the FIA has sat on its hands and done nothing to slow down the Mercedes despite having done this to each and every dominant car for the past 30 years. If ever there was an example of a driver falling on his feet each and every single time some minor misfortune comes his way – it is Lewis.
Think about the Alonso penalty in 2007, Glock being 600m short of making his strategy work in 2008, Massa being released with his fuel line on, Massa breaking down with 2 laps to go in Hungary, I could go on….
And the suffocating British F1 media fawning all over him all the time. ERGH.

Great article mate, hope you get some banter!

Well no-one has bitten yet so I’ll go twice.
Are you kidding? Lewis is the best driver we have ever seen in F1. He has overcome more hurdles and challenges then any other driver in the history of the sport.
He instantly made Alonso look like an amateur and were it not for that gravel trap in China he would already have 7 world titles and be well on the way to 7 more.
He took Mercedes from a nothing team and has made them into the best team the sport has ever seen. I can’t believe you are so shortsighted and blinded to disrespect him like that!

Indeed
1st – NFL – USA – 330 Million People to draw from, 8 Home Games per team
2nd – IPL – India – 1,326 Million! 7 Home games each
3rd – Bundesliga – Germany – 80 Million 17 Home games
4th – EPL – UK – 66 Million 19 home games
5th – AFL – Australia – 25 Million or Melbourne 4 Million 11 Home Games
Wow!

Hi Mark – I often wondered why League crowds were so poor until I realised I had it backwards. League crowds are fine and it is then AFL crowds that are ridiculous!
Other sports have larger crowds (100,000+ for lots of SEC College Football matchups) but for a medium city like Melbourne to get 3x 50-90,000 crowds every week for a 20+ week season. Wow.
I would argue that the AFL crowd sizes are the biggest in world sport – when you factor in how many home games each team plays, the size of the market and the number of teams.

You are right Spruce – 9,136 for the Round 24 game at the SCG – Urgh How depressing!
But yes, if they are playing at the SCG then the Swans can’t be packing the ground at the same time. We’ll call this a half-truth!!!
Although the Tigers did draw 19,491 for their traditional last round loss to finish 9th at Leichhardt against the Sharks.
I was part of the 71K in 2010 – quite a game! Tough Loss but good to see the Dragons finally get that premiership a week later.

Gday Mark – I’m glad you enjoy watching and supporting AFL.
Small correction – The NRL draws much larger TV audiences in Sydney then the AFL and has done so since TV was invented.
Although you are right about Rugby League in England being less popular than Football(Soccer). I believe that the English AFL competition is also less popular than Football, but I could be mistaken because I am not aware of any AFL competitions anywhere in the world other than here in Australia.
Also, can you point me to a date where there was a sunny afternoon and a Tigers-Dragons game with under 10,000 fans while the Swans nearly sold out the SCG?

Regardless, I’m glad you enjoy watching and supporting AFL. Keep up the good work.

So no Alan Jones and Sam Newman? Is that it?? Or should we look harder.
Andrew Johns caused a kerfuffle by upsetting Timana Tahu with racist remarks about the Qld team, does he need to go?
What about Eddie McGuire, wasn’t very supportive of Adam Goodes was he?
Does Erin Molan need to go to for her joke about Islander player names?

Alternate idea. Instead of trying to silence voices we don’t like, let people express their bad opinions. If they actually are bad opinions – they will get shown up and look embarrassing.

Mitchell is entitled to make comments about the anthem or flag and the press are entitled to make comments about him breaking COVID restrictions and getting used to playing fullback.

All the word is now firmly that it will Sainz.
Which I find difficult to fathom since he is fast enough to hold his own and beat Verstappen so there is little reason to think he won’t match Leclerc….
Would Carlos sign a number 2 driver contract? Ferrari have always had a number 1 and a number 2.
Would he sign it thinking he could usurp Charles from within? Does he have the temperament to stay cool in a number 2 role Kimi or Valteri style? Even Webber and Rubens eventually lost patience and they are not exactly hot heads.

I hope it is Grosjean so everyone’s head explodes!

“In the interests of full disclosure, I too consider myself to be left leaning.”
Aimon my friend! It sounds to me like you are about to take the red pill. Good Luck

I have a massive issue with people criticising the Sport if they aren’t invested in it. I don’t really care about AFL but I don’t criticise it (anymore) since I really am not a stakeholder in the game in any way.
Fitz, Carlton, Wilcox etc – If League died their lives would not change in the slightest. Kent, Weidler, Rothfield – If League died they would be hurting as much as any fan.

In my opinion, the caring Leftists you cite in this article (Fitz, Carlton, Wilcox) love to mock and denigrate as much as any right wing shock jock, they just have different targets. It is not the principle, it’s the side.

You have hit the nail on the head, Ferrari hasn’t tried to employ equal drivers since, well since never as far as I can remember! The only time they have had two equal drivers has been when the number 2 has burst forward and surprised them, think Mansell with Prost or Massa with Raikkonen.
Not sure about Giovanazzi since he is still quite inexperienced, but I definitely imagine a driver the calibre of Hulkenberg or Bottas in the seat. Maybe Danny Ric gets the seat if they don’t rate him and see him as a number 2 for Charles?
I would like the see Grosjean get the seat since he is very very fast and it would cause everyone’s heads to explode.
Kudos on the fast quality article Jawad!

Great article Tim. There is a lot to be said for the honest hardworking toilers who never get the headlines.
I give you Bryce Gibbs.
Won a premiership as a pup in 05 and in his career since became the gritty centre of a Tigers pack that was really delivering in 2010/2011. He just made tackles, took hit ups and drove the whole team forward while Benji, Robbie, Ellis and co did the razzle dazzle.
The Tigers have not made the finals since he retired. It’s not a coincidence.

Futurama never gets old!

Joe you make some excellent points in this article. It is all well and good to rely on the rivers of money that will come from the next TV deal but the moment that streaming finally draws enough blood from the networks, that it all over.

Maybe expansion needs to come from interested parties who develop a viable business plan for paying their own way through corporate support/ licensed venues etc and bids for a place. As opposed to the NRL pointing to spots on the map and declaring new frontiers.

I personally think that some of the teams in non traditional areas will be the first to go the moment dollars get tight. In all sports, not just NRL.

That is an incredibly impressive effort, you’re right – previous years there were a few duff calls in there but this time you nailed it. Hope you won some $$ from it!

I must insist that you rethink your comment about the bulk of the teams outside the 8 being absolutely hopeless, The Tigers beat the Premiers, Storm twice, Dragons and Rabbitohs. That is five wins against the top teams. Hopeless at times but red hot at others.

Agree that this is a beat up and agree that this hurts the Tele and agree that the readers disagree with the editorial line.

However, there is no way that this can be seen as hurting the brand.

Reports

The Tele has 300,000 odd more physical newspapers sold each and every week then the Herald.
It is Waaaayy behind smh.com.au online impressions but both News and Fairfax know that 1 newspaper sold = 10+ online impressions. Especially in terms of advertising $$
The News subscription model is much much tighter then Fairfax with less access for casual readers instead having less subscribers with more access paying more $$.
Fairfax has just been sold to Nine who are getting rid of the name and have hinted at removing the publication of Mon to Fri papers.

So yeah, I agree that this is a cynical and nasty editorial line from the Tele but in no way can it be seen as hurting them financially. If anything, it has boosted readers as they pile on to abuse Buzz, Kent and the crew.
Rupert doesn’t care that much about League, he cares about readers. If we all read tripey sensational Mad Monday Beat Ups, then tripey sensational Mad Monday beat ups we shall have!

Wow, I didn’t know about that – Alonso in the Red Bull……

Of course, at the time, we would have laughed uproariously at the idea of Alonso choosing Red Bull over Ferrari.

Strange times.

I meant of course at the start, the two titles he fought for with Ferrari!

If, if if.
If only McLaren and Honda had got it together.
If only he had jagged one of those titles he fought for when with McLaren.
If only he had fought Hamilton ON the track in 07 and not undermined his team OFF the track.

On the one hand, he could have won no championships at all, as Anon has pointed out.

On the other hand, he lost in 2007 after a ridiculous decision by an angry Max Mosley to punish McLaren in Hungary and he TWICE got the last race of the season with a shot while driving for Ferrari.
So could have won 5?!

His career will be a perfect example of being in the right place at the wrong time.
Looking back, 2007 destroyed him, just as surely as his action began the long slow destruction of McLaren. When he took the nuclear option and dobbed his team into the FIA he planted the idea in the heads of every team on the grid that Fernando was more trouble then he was worth. And sadly, he will finish his F1 career with ‘only’ two titles, despite being one of the elite drivers for the past decade and a half.

F1 is much much poorer without him.

My mind returns to 2011 when Lewis leaves McLaren for Mercedes. I laughed, a lot and told my boss that he would never win a Grand Prix.
It remains my poorest prediction ever.
Yet soon after, Fernando Alonso leaves Ferrari for McLaren which will later turn out to be the worst decision by a major driver since Villenueve bailed on Williams for BAR.

What will this mean for Daniel? He will either win the Championship for Renault or never win again.

WOW – Just when you think things are fairly standard – BANG – it all goes Pete Tong!

This is the right decision, there can be little doubt that Red Bull are throwing themselves behind Max and there can only be one number 1. It is nice to try and have two aces, but there can only be one. It never never never works!

Lewis and Seb are jealously guarding their turf, so where else does Daniel go? Good decision. Better to be driving a Renault then a Honda.

Gday Michael
I haven’t checked in with you this year, extremely busy with family (3 kids!!) and work (left IT to become a teacher!!)
Have really enjoyed reading your pieces in The Roar, your writing is crisp and concise while still expressing your spirit and opinion. A treat to read!
Hope you are well and enjoying this very exciting season. Mark Young

Here you go buddy!