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Melbourne is cosmopolitan and charming. We went to the National Gallery of Victoria on Tuesday afternoon and saw the splendid exhibition from the Prado.
Tomorrow we are going to see Hedda Gabler at the Melbourne Theatre Company. The Botannical Garden is world class.
It is a pity, though, that this generosity of spirit doesn’t come through in the media.
There is an obsession in the city with the AFL, especially in the media, that reduces a great city to something of a hick town in terms of its local sports obsessions.
On Saturday, Australia plays France in a rugby Test that is going to be watched from the southern-most point of New Zealand to the northern-most point of Britain.
If you watched the local television stations or read the two main newspapers, The Herald Sun and The Age, you’d hardly notice that a very big sports event, in terms of coverage around the world, is going to take place at Etihad Stadium in a few days’ time.
The Age ran a very short piece from Georgina Robinson of the Sydney Morning Herald on Michael Hooper being appointed as the new Wallaby captain. The Herald Sun ran a similarly short piece on Hooper, with an ad for the Fox Sports presentation of the Test.
The piece made the point that Hooper is the fifth captain in Ewen McKenzie’s 13-Test tenure as Wallaby coach, and the fourth-youngest Australian captain.
The Australian‘s Wayne Smith, in a splendidly-researched article, filled in the details that really should have been in the two major Melbourne newspapers if they had any sense of reporting the important sports news.
The youngest Australian captain, Smith noted, was Jimmy Flynn, a centre from Queensland who captained the Wallabies against the All Blacks on the day Germany declared war on Russia, 1 August 1914.
Trevor Allen, another brilliant Wallaby centre, captained the 1947- 48 Wallabies when he was 21 years and 57 days old.
Ken Catchpole was 11 days short of his 22nd birthday when he captained the Wallabies against Fiji in 1961.
Hooper will be 22 years and 227 days old on Saturday when he leads the Wallabies on to Etihad Stadium.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Stephen Moore comes back next year in excellent shape, he will captain the Wallabies into the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament in England.
This is not to slight Hooper. He is establishing himself as the best and certainly the fastest number 7 in world rugby. He scored a terrific try last Saturday, tearing down the flank like a very fast winger. His captaincy, too, seemed to be sure-handed and confident. But he is yet to be tested (as is Moore) by the sort of dire situations that Richie McCaw has endured and then triumphed over many times in recent years, and again last Saturday.
Like Hooper, McCaw was a prodigy as a young player. He was appointed to the captaincy of the All Blacks at a relatively young age, and admits now that he really wasn’t ready for this high honour.
But Hooper is the captain that Ewen McKenzie has and the hope is that he will grow into the job like, say, John Eales did, after some dicey times as a leader who was too reluctant to stand away from his teammates, as a captain must do from time to time.
All this is in the future. Hooper seems to be the best sort of Australian champion. He is gifted with speed and toughness. He was monstered in a tackle by a French forward, retained the ball in the ruck, and was up on his feet and smiling, seemingly undamaged, seconds later. He has a sunny, optimistic personality, which is good in a leader.
He is leading a Wallabies side, too, that is definitely on the up. McKenzie has rightly made minimal changes to the side that was so impressive at Brisbane.
France will have to be much stronger than they were at Brisbane. Some of the French players are playing for their Test futures, this should encourage them to improve on Saturday’s 35 missed tackles. Their attack, too, should pose more questions for the Wallabies.
The Melbourne Test is part of a parade of Tests over the weekend that will effect the current standings of world rugby’s leading sides, and how they may perform at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
The 2015 tournament is to be hosted by England, with the finals played at Twickenham. England are making this famous ground something of a fortress in preparation for a strong showing at the World Cup. And judging on their play in the first Test against the All Blacks, England will go into the tournament near enough as favourites.
Like the Wallabies, they are a team clearly on the up. England won the IRB World Juniors tournament last year, smashed Australia this year in the tournament, and are favourites to win back-to-back championships. So there is a lot of talent coming through.
The England side last weekend was one of their least-experienced sides ever. They came within a few minutes of drawing a Test which they finally lost to some All Blacks brilliance.
Can England maintain this excellence at Dunedin? On the evidence of the Eden Park display, you’d think so. They might not defeat the All Blacks, but this is not going to be one of those Tests where the All Blacks clear out against their opponents.
For the All Blacks, especially many of the old players, this is a test of whether they are still champion players. In their last two Tests, against Ireland last year and England last week, the All Blacks have been in front for a combined total of six minutes, at the end of the game.
There comes a time, and it generally comes quite quickly, when a team that has a habit of winning in the last minutes of its matches starts losing. The All Blacks need a good, solid victory at Dunedin to put their campaign to retain the Webb Ellis trophy back on the track it was on last year when an unbeaten season was achieved. Otherwise the inevitable Peter FitzSimons ‘peaking too soon’ arguments will start flooding in.
Unlike the Australian or England coaches, Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer is looking to the past for future success. He has picked a squad of players of whom many made their name at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The same players failed four years later. But Meyer is keeping his faith in them. Who would be a bright young South African talent with this sort of mentality shown by the national coach?
The Springboks play Wales on Sunday night (AEST) in a Test that has implications for The Rugby Championship and for the Wallabies in the Rugby World Cup.
England, Wales and Australia are all in the same pool, the pool of death. England have the home ground advantage, which will be a significant plus for the side, and the Wallabies look to have the wood on Wales over the last few years. Can Warren Gatland produce some coaching magic to make Wales a contender?
I don’t think so. We saw the best of Wales at the 2011 Rugby World Cup, which all ended in a heap when a tackle by Sam Warburton in the semi-final saw him sent off the field. Wales never recovered its confidence after this incident, and lost to a French side that kept its best performance for the final.
If Wales get a win against the Springboks, or are very competitive, then its a new deal in the poker game of preparation and assumptions for 2015. But Wales need more than a new deal, they need new players and possibly a new coaching staff.
This brings us to the Argentina versus Ireland Test. A new coach, New Zealander Joe Schmidt, is doing wonders with the Irish. They were within seconds of beating the All Blacks last year, they are the current Six Nations champions, and last weekend they defeated the Pumas in Argentina for the first time since the 1970s.
Ireland are in the finals of the IRB Juniors Championship to boot.
They also unveiled a new Test prop with the splendid Irish name of Rodney Ah You, who was born and educated in Christchurch, New Zealand.
But you won’t find out any of this information from the wide world of rugby in the one-eyed Melbourne media. More’s the pity.