Ruairidh MacDonald's Roar Profile

This article is another contribution to the annual state-of-the-game hand-wringing festival, so if you’re over that already, I totally understand and you’re free to go.

AFL

2020

Why it's time to ditch percentage from the AFL ladder

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

Why it's time to ditch percentage from the AFL ladder

AFL

2020

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

A stylish XI versus an awkward XI

With all this imposed indoors time, I’ve been conjuring up any number of imaginary XIs, and here’s my latest idle idea: beautiful versus ugly. Graceful and elegant versus awkward and clunky.

Cricket

2020

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

A stylish XI versus an awkward XI

Cricket

2020

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

World Test match: North versus South

Despite the complete lack of cricket to watch, I’ve found this period of time to be quite conducive to random pondering and what ifs.

Cricket

2020

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

World Test match: North versus South

Cricket

2020

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

Which country is the world's best at sport?

Every time the Olympics come around, or perhaps at any moment for our sport-mad brains, we wonder which country is the best at sport.

Other Sports

2020

Which country is the world's best at sport?

Ruairidh MacDonald

Roar Rookie

Which country is the world's best at sport?

Other Sports

2020

It’s ironic, but with all these bizarre ideas CA is actually the only cricketing body treating t20s as their originally were intended to be: pure irrelevant entertainment. Does anyone else remember the very first t20s, with the players joking around and having a laugh? We’re coming back round to that, only now it’s the administrators doing the joking around

There could be some very weird diamond ducks in the Big Bash with huge rule tweak

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That was hilarious. Thanks for the article!

'Every game I left two tickets for Ferris Bueller': Australian cricket's underrated comedy genius

Actually Siddle didn’t execute it as he planned. I remember him saying afterwards that he was aiming for the top of off! Not a bad mistake though

My top ten Ashes dismissals: Part 1

Seems overall a good XI, agree on dropping Starc, not as sure about Harris over Pucovski.
If they’re going to keep picking Head, he should be swapped with Green. Green has a better defence, starts slower, and could do with the extra rest if we want him bowling. Head barely has a defence but likes to start quicker, which would be better suited at 6

It's on: England players agree to Ashes tour after CA calm COVID restriction fears

I think Broad and Anderson

Fresh setback puts Stokes in doubt for the Ashes

Sep

Thumbs down from me too for the strange inclusion of gambling odds. Doesn’t add anything to the discussion.

But is the roar a site of professional journalism?

The six men who could replace JL for the Ashes if player unrest becomes full-blown mutiny

Why does a line need to be drawn?

For the sake of argument, what constitutes a sport?

On the one hand, I agree with some of your rules (1, sort of 4, 5).
One the other hand, it makes me ask: why bother? And I don’t mean it personally, because I’ve also drawn up my own set of rules (no subjectivity, only human powered, technology can’t make a significant difference, must involve some fatigue/exertion), I mean it in relation to the general thought-exercise.
Why bother trying to create such strict, theoretical delineations for things if it’s just talk, if nothing depends on it? There’s a whole bunch of things: some things are more similar to these things than those things, what’s the point of creating a set of rules just to let us say these things are “things” but those things aren’t “things”?
Is it to say that your set of “things” is better than all the other non-“things”? I think that’s subconsciously I did when I created my rules, what about you?

Oh damn, didn’t know that. Oh well, still a cracking team without him.

Who will wear the baggy green with so many Test stars on T20 World Cup duty?

Great first article! I agree with most of your side, although I’d put Green above Head – Green’s got a better defensive technique and scores slower.

I also like the idea of Maddinson instead of Carey, so maybe Head could even go below him.

I feel this is a good opportunity to give Mitch Swepson a cap. Swap him with a pacer (not sure which one, I agree with finally rewarding Neser). We’ve already got Green to help out with some overs, Swepson definitely deserves it, it gives Paine some experience captaining two spinners and means that whenever Lyon retires his replacement isn’t starting completely cold

Apart from the great writing, great photo too! He really looks like he wants to cause some pain. Bit of Clockwork Orange in him even
My biggest surprise from your story was how he wanted to stop the game when a bit of chirp came back at him. Seems like more of that fragility that ran through the whole Steve Waugh tough guy mentality – turns out to be quite a whiny, one-sided version of “toughness”

BRETT GEEVES: 'The day I truly believed Justin Langer was going to kill me'

Much as I love Gilly, the issue isn’t how the information is being communicated, it’s the content of the information itself. If the players are that unhappy with him, that’s the issue.
And what a slimy weasely little out they gave themselves, “great success…when all players were available”. I wonder if the Indians gave themselves that excuse before the Gabba

'Incredible job': CA backs Langer as coach faces accusations that he's causing player unrest

I certainly do, on a not-too-messy google spreadsheet. Interested in having a peak under the hood? 😁

Here we are then! I used 2020 or 2021 estimates, depending on what was available, of GDP per capita, and divided that by number of points. This produced a ‘cost per point’ measure, which is basically how much it cost each country to ‘produce’ a point – i.e. an Olympic finalist.
This is the top 16 (because Aus came 16th), median and bottom 10:
1. China – $18 USD per point
2. Ethiopia – $35
3. Russia – $36
4. Kenya – $38
5. USA – $49
6. Uganda – $55
7. Ukraine – $57
8. Brazil – $59
9. Japan -$60
10. GB – $63
11. Cuba – $78
12. Jamaica – $78
13. India – $81
14. Italy – $85
15. Uzbekistan – $86
16. Australia – $96
Median – $435 (Greece)
115. Kuwait – $4,335
116. Montenegro – $5,339
117. Mauritius – $5,508
118. Cyprus – $5,649
119. Panama – $6,078
120. British Virgin Islands – $6,840
121. Uruguay – $7,598
122. Bermuda – $8,180
123. Trinidad and Tobago – $8,628
124. Singapore – $14,075

I agree of course, it would be silly to say that the Olympics is the comprehensive measure of a nation’s sporting ability. Measuring that would be really interesting, and I’m not even sure where’d you start

You’re right of course, the Olympics do disproportionately favour individual sports, and especially those with several events. But that’s an issue with the Olympics themselves, not any attempt to measure them.
More broadly though, some might argue that’s how the Olympics should be – for a lot of those team sports the Olympics isn’t the pinnacle of their sport, and that originally the Olympics was really meant to be just for individual athletes.

What’s the best place to watch highlights and live stuff? Struggling to find a reliable website

'F--- yeah!' McKeown's live TV f-bomb after thrilling, emotional gold medal win

Jul

Bit of a late reply, missed this article.

I agree that the modern, contemporary Olympics are a rort and a commercial fiesta, but I don’t think it’ll be so easy to do away with it as you suggest. Obviously all those fatcats are a major barrier, but another one are the athletes themselves.

For lots of athletes the Olympics is still the pinnacle, an almost sacred event which they’ll never let go. I know it depends on the sport, but at least for sports like athletics they’ll fight tooth and nail for it. I remember just a few years ago the elite athletics community were outraged when a state-level athlete dared to get an aspirational tattoo of the Olympic rings, which should supposedly be reserved only for those who have actually competed there. You’d be fighting against a community like that

‘World is rejecting them’: Have the Olympics run their race?

Nice to see more articles about running! Thanks for writing this

Ellie Pashley's marathon effort for her first Olympic Games

Athletics

Jun

Ok fair enough, I’d forgotten the exact numbers. Am I right in thinking that the current limit for pace bowlers is 10 and for spinners it’s 15?

Cricket’s debatable statistics: The team strength effect

May

But the laws weren’t changed to accommodate him. They tested Murali, found a certain degree of flexion, but then tested heaps of other ‘normal’ bowlers and found that practically everyone had a roughly similar amount. So their choice was to either ban most international bowlers, or change the rules. They took the sensible option and changed the rules.

If he helps take them to the final or even win it, do you think he’d be forgiven by all the SA followers for the way he left the national team?

The numbers that prove AB de Villiers is a genius

Apr

I think instead playing at a variety of locations would develop greater flexibility and adaptability in our players, which we need our current players to be far more than we need them to be specialists at one or two grounds.
I really like all the author’s ideas, and think the ambitions are realistic

Five ideas to revive crowd numbers in the Marsh Cup and Sheffield Shield

What’s a Merton machine when it’s at home?

Who are the T20 World Cup contenders?

I consider myself a cricket nuffy but not so much with the TV stuff, so let me know if this left-field idea is too silly…but what about ABC or SBS? They’re obviously both FTA and I assume without all the bad blood of the other guys. I still remember fondly SBS covering the 2005 Ashes, that was well done. Is there any chance of something like that happening?

Cricket Australia’s win over Seven and what it means for the game

Mar

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