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With our Commonwealth Games wrestler Hassene Fkiri and cyclist Shane Perkins flipping off judges left and right, Libby Trickett has weighed into the argument declaring that a good old fashioned dummy spit is “un-Australian”.
Hang on just a tic. This is a proud Australian tradition we’re talking about here, Ms Trickett.
Losing it when it’s all just so wretchedly unfair has a special place in Australian sport.
League
Our coaches have always been happy to blame everyone else bar themselves. Usually, it’s the refs who cop it sweet, rather than, of course, the coaches’ rubbish tactics or team selections.
Ricky Stuart cost himself a job during the last Rugby League World Cup when he gave a serve to referee Ashley Klein during the after-game interviews following Australia’s loss. Just to prove it wasn’t just the heat of the moment getting to a deranged Sticky, the next morning in the hotel when he had a chance meeting with Klein, he was reported to have fired off “You’re the c— that cost us the World Cup” before being dragged off.
He resigned a week later, and was fined $20,000.
Motorsport
One of the best blowups was Tony Longhurst punching on with his team-mate Paul Morris during 1994’s Bathurst Touring Car race. Longhurst looked to finally overtake Morris before clipping his left front and breaking Morris’ steering arm – both sensationally crashing out.
Despite appearing at fault, Longhurst took exception to Morris’ constant blocking, and perhaps ignoring Morris’ helmet, leaped out and dished out three haymakers to the head.
Darryl Eastlake in fine form hollering away just makes it better.
AFL
A a classic from the 80s was Fabulous Phil Carman’s head-butt on a boundary line umpire (after already whacking St Kilda’s Garry Sidebottom) earning him a 20 week suspension. Carman didn’t learn, later in life head-butting an umpire while Captain/Coach of an ACT districts side.
More recently, Barry Hall’s neat right to West Coast’s Brent Staker was a fine example of Australian prowess in dummy spits – although perhaps this was more of a mere Big Bad Mind Explosion.
Cricket
Our cricketers have been blowing up for years: a certain Dennis Lillee took exception to his aluminium bat being banned and hurled it in disgust. Incidentally, sales of aluminium bats sky-rocketed until they were banned too.
Our cricketers are also tremendous sledgers, although they haven’t always made the opposition lie down in fear; none more memorable than Glenn McGrath’s backfiring taunts to young West Indian Ramnaresh Sarwan in 2003.
McGrath, who’d seen Sarwan manage to dig out a couple of sharper ones, made a rather (tasteless?) enquiry:
“How does Brian Lara’s c— taste?”
Sarwan replied: “I don’t know. Ask your wife.”
McGrath took exception, belting out: “If you ever f—ing mention my wife again, I’ll f—ing rip your f—ing throat out!”.
Football
While internationally Eric Cantona and Zinedine Zidane dominate this category, we still have plenty of local madness to enjoy.
John Kosmina was a perennial bad sport in the A-League, his tirade against the referees a well-remembered favourite for somehow causing Adelaide United’s defeat at the hands of Melbourne Victory in the Grand Final 6-0 in 2007.
Possible the biggest dummy spit from Kosmina was targeted at Kevin Muscat, who smashed over Kosmina when fetching the ball from the sideline. Kosmina’s deathgrip on his throat is legendary.
Tennis
Australian tennis has had a whale of a time with Damir Dokic, father of Jelena, spouting all sorts of nonsense, including claiming the Aus Open draw was fixed against her and threatening all sorts of gibberish.
However, his rants took a worse turn when Jelena broke off contact with him, leaving Damir no choice but to apparently threaten the Australian Embassy in Serbia with a grenade attack, giving Serbia no choice but to jail him for 15 months.
In brighter news, youngster Bernard Tomic also has a firey father figure. John Tomic hauled him off court in an “unfair” game against Marinko Matosevic, after aggravation from foot faults not being called. John Tomic has gone on to abuse well known coach Roger Rasheed, and threatened to take Bernard out of Australia.
Share your favourite dummy spits in our comments section.
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