Sally Pearson and Usain Bolt on track for 2012

Jameswm 'Aussie rugby is looking very strong for the next 4-5 years' you write. It didn't look that strong this morning ,17th september 2011. Your scrum looked anything but strong and your Newzland number 10 looked cluless. Yor fijian forward looked out of his depth too. Your Argentian/Australian forwards coach has got a lot of coaching to do hasn't he James?

Jeez Big Al! Like yer intervention mate; it just exudes verbal sophistication and articulacy!

Crikey ! - who is Tom Callaghan ? - sure has one great axe to grind. I seem to recall someone with a different psuedonym but very similar argumentative style and tone a year or so ago - only then it was about rugby or something. . . . even bought up the point about '...Uk universities... ' ??? ha ha!

Betty B I could have simply abused yo as you did in your last reply to me but felt that the comment that you are complaining of would better point up your descent into personal abuse.

Cheap and quite nasty Tom. You should know better.

Jameswm, I promised to reply to the points you made here in a little more depth. Yes, cadel Evans won the TdF this year ( though Cavendish won Green Jersey and who knows how Wiggins would have done if not injured and he and Froome seem well placed in the Vuelta. Yes, England were thrashed 5-0 in the 2007 Ashes. Yes, an Australian unknown did well in the swimming sprints at Shanghai-'The Port McQuarrie Rocket' wasn't it? But these are all minor variations on the theme of Australian decline. Look: between 1999 and 2007 Australia, at; one time or another were rugby League world champions;Rugby Union world cup winners;Cricket world cup holders; number one test team; and fourth in the olympics medal table. In 2011 Australia are no longer Rugby league world champions;they no longer hold the rugby union world cup; they are no longer number one test team; they are no longer cricket one day world champonions; at the last olympics they relinquished fourth place in the medal table to GB. you say that England has not really risen through test ranking in cricket but Australia has fallen.But isn't this just confirming Australian decline ( though in 1999 england were , I believe, ranked 9th in the world; they have recently won back to back Ashes series and have beaten India 4-0) I'm sorry to read that 'you don't pay much attention to how England goes' but that seems to confirm the parochial perspective expressed by most commenators on this site

Betty, I notice that whereas the UK has four universities in the world's top ten and indeed, in Cambridge University the world's number one university, Australia has none. The intellectual level of your last reply has helped me to understand why this is the case.

Tom You're writing dribble. Take a cold shower, I'm sure it's still recoverable. Betty

James Another well reasoned piece. I'll reply to its points in more detail later if I may. But brief initial thoughts are these: Australians often make the argument regarding their limited population and punching above their weight but the population argument is a bit of a red herring, isn't it? Why did Britain do better than Germany and Japan at Beijing olympics give that Germany has 80 million and Japan 100 million to Britain's 60 million? Why did Britain outperform the billion strong Chinese population in athletics just recently? surely it comes down to the importance given in societies to sport. in britain there has been a sporting tradition that winning isn't worth it unless it is achieved against the odds with minimal preparation until recently-classical amateurism-until recently and even now the bulk of sports funding comes from the lottery rather than through direct taxation. The funding, however, as you say, has begun to make a difference, though Australians seem to think that this is 'unfair' ; which is a little odd given the highly significant amounts of money Betty B suggested were invested in Australian sport after debacle at Montreal. You accuse me of gloating but I remember the late 1980s when Australian newspapers screamed 'Six-nil' when Australian teams gained a clutch of victories against English sides or the banners at Upton Park in 2003-when Australia beat an understrength England side-which declared: 'If we beat you tonight, you suck at everything' Its time to take a bit back isn't it James? Ps: I should have mentioned relative performances of Britain and Australia in gymnastics in an earlier comment.

Thanks Nathan Should I have been more emphatic?

Betty, My comments were based on contemporary history. the comment about sinking resources in to sport refers to the 35 years following the Montreal Olympics.the humiliation suffered by Australia there prompted the ramped up investment. It remains true that even before then that focus on sport was more intense in Australia than in the UK because Australia focussed /focusses on sport to achieve a distinctive national identity. it is true that Australia enjoyed some success in sport prior to the period of ramped up investment but before the 1990s never finished above Britain in the Olympic medals table, though I believe that Melbourne in the 1950s was an exception. The Uk has generally had an amateurish and rather casual attitude to sport. But that seems to have changed since the turn of the century and that is now why Britain has surpassed Australia in so many sports. Where did the coaches who resurrected Australian sport come from after i976? Were'nt many of them fromabroad? wasn't one of them disgraced drugs cheat Eckart Arbeit;australian success was never based simply on a whiff of vegamite. Yes, Britain's dramatic lead in cycling has been cut-how could it not have been? but the likes of Pendleton's training regime defers curent success in favour of later success. I think that GB won't repeat its cycling triumph on the scale of Beijing but will at least equal Australia's cycling golds. Betty, I look forward to your reply.

Tom Rugby is a poor example. Both England and Australia are usually in the world top 4-5, and just where they sit in that top 4 varies from year to year. Like in cricket, Australian rugby suffered from a lot of good players retiring together (in the early 00s), but we then managed our resources poorly for a handful of years. It has taken Deans a few years, but Aussie rugby is looking very, very strong for the next 5 years. In a couple of years I expect us to have the best player in the world in 3-4 forward positions, and ditto for the backs. I can't comment on England as I don't know the players well enough. Like cricket, where we dipped in the early-mid 80s and 20 years later, each time when a group of championsretired together, it can be a cyclical thing. england have been a bogey team for Australia for the past 2 WCS, but then so have France for NZ. Are you suggesting NZ rugby is on the decline? Results in one-off games are less significant. In cricket, it just so happens that England is ranked one and Australia has dropped down. But that has no bearing on other sports, and all is not how it seems. If you look at the ICC rankings for tests, England hasn't really jumped up that high - it's that Australia has dropped. No team has anywhere near the statistical dominance that Australia had for 10 years from the mid-90s to the mid-00s, or ranks anywhere near as high on points. Most would be surprised if Australia wasn't well back on top within 2-3 years. when you win three WCs in a row, without losing a game, there's only one place to go. And you failed to mention what happened in the Ashes series in 2007. You gave a list of other sports, and went back to athletics. As you conceded earlier, Australia is actually stronger in athletics than we have been for many years. As for how strong England is, don't kid yourself that they aren't throwing massive amounts of money around to do well at London 2012. We all know that. I don't have a problem with it, but let's see how they go for 5-10 years after 2012. That will be the test. Swimming wise, an unknown Aussie was almost the face of the recent world champs. I don't pay much attention to how England goes. I also know England has poured huge amounts of money into track cycling, but how do Australia go in road cycling? Ever heard of Cadel Evans? He won the world road championship a year or two ago too. If anything, it's a case of England maybe eventuially starting to be where it should be, in terms of population. Australia continues to punch way above its weight. Honestly - something that happened in a boxing fight n 2005 has any relevance? That's really clutching at straws. I realise you're mainly up for a stir, but it's rich for a country with 4-5 times as many people to start gloating about barely beating us on Olympic medal tables.

Relative decline is such a weaselly term; I don't think we've had a particular absolute sporting decline, rather I think the UK is simply starting to come into its own. And good luck to you guys.

backup here Tom. 'Australia has always sunk a disproportinate level of resources into sport to gain ...' you said. Obviously not up on your history Tom boy. Yes, we have set the standard for resourcing sports and yes many countries have followed our lead. This started after the Montreal Olympics I believe, but it has definitely not been 'always'. Go check some of the results pre the modern era of resourcing sports, you'll find Australians did pretty well (look at the first modern Olympics and others, tennis, swimming, squash ++). Now seeing your UK argument - well I can only refer you to cycling. And I do admit you have lured some of our better coaches, administrators and organisers to help you out in London 2012, so I wish you well.

jameswm, A judicious and thoughtfull comment if I may say so. I take your point about australia being in better shape in athletics than in the recent past. I suppose what has impressed me over the last decade is Australia's relative decline in relation to Britain across a range of sports such as rugby union, cricket, womens hockey, rowing, boxing , Athletics, swimming, etc. Recent rowing, athletics, and swimming medals tables seem to suggest this. Cook cup rugby union games in June 2010 and November of the same year- and defeats of Australia in the World cup final in Sydney 2003 and quarter final at Marseilles in 2007- makes the case too, as do Ashes series of 2005, 2009, and 2011; and the consecutive defeats in three days by the female 'hockey roos' by England might be mentioned too, along with Ricky Hatton's destruction of Kosta Tzsu in 2005. This relative decline seems to be structural rather than cylical and arguably has been under way since 2000 when the UK recovered from the lamentable performance at the Atlanta olympics -one gold medal- to win 11 at Sydney, 9 at Athens, and 19 at Beijing,placing GB above Australia in the medal table and fourth overall. But leaving the British-Australianbalance of sporting powr aside for a moment I believe that New Zealand took Australia's rugby league world championship away relatively recently and India ensured that they would no longer remain one day cricket world champions.

Betty, Betty, Betty! You going to say it in a moment aren't you? you know what I mean.Australia only finished behind Britain on the last two World Athletics medals tables,world rowing championship tables, and most recent world swimming medal table because it has only 22 million people to the UKs 60 million. But if that was the case Britain should not have surpassed the likes of China, Germany, Japan and Brazil which have far larger populations, or France and Italy whose populations are equal to the UKs. Australia has always sunk a disproportionate level of resources into sport to gain some kind of distinctive identity internationally. Now that Britain has begun to take sport funding more seriously the balance of sporting power between Australia and the Uk has swung further in Britain's favour.

Tom If there has been a decline in Australian sport over the last decade, athletics is not part of it. With Pearson, Watt, Deakes, Lapierre, Hooker, Samuels, Tallant and Rawlinson (when fit) all ranked in the world top 5, we're better than we have been for many years. And we have some prodigious young talent coming through, with Jake Stein (decathlon), Steve Solomon (400), Nick Hough (hurdles), Josh Clarke (100) and others, all ranked in the top handful (or no.1) in the world for their age. As for the general sport decline, cricket has gone down but only in the last 2-3 years. That's a cyclical thing caused by several all time champions (Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist etc) retiring at the same time. Swimming dipped a bit when Thorpe and Hackett retired and Leisel took it less seriously, but I think we could be strong by next year. Soccer is as good as ever, ditto cycling. Rugby is becoming strong again, and it's tough playing 60% of your tests against the All Blacks and Boks. So I don't know about a noticeable decline in sporting prowess, other than cricket which is specific to that sport.

No excuses Tom - just the facts. We have 4 or 5 who are throwing further, jumping higher or longer, when fit. But yes, we lack depth. I think it's more a population thing.

Ah Knackers! You sound so bitter. Does your bitterness reflect the decline in Australian sporting prowess over the last decade? talk of 'ring ins' smacks a little of pots calling kettles black don't you think?

maybe your American ring in will win . Now go away