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Roar Rookie
Joined March 2012
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Suffers from spontaneous karaoke syndrome, inexplicable Cowboys supporter, random golf swings/cricket shots, bad puns & attention deficit disor hey there's a bear!
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You don’t get many jumping on the North Queensland Cowboys bandwagon. A provincial town with a large transient population, Townsville’s somewhere you pass through on a holiday, possibly stopping in to watch your favourite team beat the hapless locals.
It is beautiful really. You, YouTube, a glass of scotch and more batting highlights than you can poke a stick at.
That Australia will lose the first Test against India, let’s be honest, wasn’t completely unexpected.
Those in the know fell hard for Mitchell Johnson. Dennis Lillee was the first.
The Australian squad for the First Test against South Africa was named earlier this week without too many shocks.
Nathan Lyon’s a pretty laidback character. A groundsman first picked for South Australia after doing well in the nets, Lyon impressed in the Twenty20 Big Bash and for Australia A before going on to take a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket.
Yesterday in part one, I previewed the prospects of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia in the upcoming Sheffield Shield season. Here are the previews for the final three states.
Aah, spring. The weather’s warming up and the footy seasons are coming to a close. Time then for willow fanciers around the country to stock up the fridge, make sure the couch is still comfy and get ready for the upcoming cricket season.
I can’t recall ever being an only child. It’s not surprising. I was just over two years old when Matt became the first of many siblings in February 1983.
It was late in the game. I had the ball in my hands, about 30 metres out from the goals, just off to the right. Kick this for the country and we were back in the game and a chance of making the final; miss and we may as well head back home.
Imagine aliens had decided to tour the world in the last couple of weeks. Starting in London and catching some of the Olympic events, they then head over the Atlantic only to find they have to wait ages before they can catch up on the highlights.
Want to know how to silence Johnathan Thurston, Matt Bowen, Matt Scott, James Tamou et al? Fly them south of the Tweed.
It has been a pretty hectic couple of weeks in rugby league. In fact, it’s been pretty hectic since the State of Origin decider.
Before this weekend, I had an idea in advance of what I’d be writing about. The luck of the draw had meant the North Queensland Cowboys – a team guaranteed to have at least two of their best players in State of Origin – would play the New Zealand Warriors, last year’s losing grand finalists.
Last week I wrote about how the Brisbane Broncos were both the Cowboys’ great rival and their bogey team.
Great rivalries make great sporting contests. Think Lakers v Celtics, Manchester United v City, everyone else v Collingwood.
A funny thing happened Friday night. Ended up at the pub when supposed to be elsewhere – but that wasn’t it. Found out a mate of mine knew one of the bouncers from work – but that wasn’t it either.
I went to my first ever sporting event at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) the other week. A struggling Melbourne Demons hosted a rebuilding St Kilda in what promised to be kind of dull.
I can still remember sitting down to watch the North Queensland Cowboys on Channel 9 for the first time. It was a Sunday game in 2004 against the Wests Tigers at Campbelltown.
It’S not often I try and convert the masses to the wonders of rugby league. For one, someone has to want to be converted and those who don’t follow rugby league tend do so for a reason.
It was always going to be a tough start with games against the Bulldogs, Storm, Knights and Warriors (away) – but what’s been concerning is that ball control has been absolute rubbish in the last two games. Something as simple as keeping hod of the ball could well see some big wins.
WIZ: Cowboys are the NRL's slowest starters
The alternative argument you could use is that by coming in at number 3 with not very many on the board, you’re more likely to see what a batsman like Quiney’s really made of. Come in at 4-down for a few hundred, and there’s a lot less pressure on them and subsequently the runs only show they can make them, not that they can make them in a Testing (pun intended) situation.
Of the two other debutante #3s, Khawaja was making starts but couldn’t quite go on with them, while Marsh seemingly flourished with a century on debut and 60-odd in the first innings in Cape Town before hurting his back. That he failed so spectacularly last summer against India isn’t because he’d played his admittedly short Test career at number 3.
Batting Quiney at 3 was a cruel mistake
Let’s not forget that Hughes’ first two centuries came in only his second Test – against South Africa. The man has three Test centuries before he’s hit 23; let’s let him work through this new technique then see if it’s all that. Hughes has a certain something the best of the rest don’t – let’s not make a Graham Hick out of him and try and develop his skills while wearing the Baggy Green!
Hughes is not Phil of himself, he just needs another chance
I can only speak from my alma mater’s point of view, but up at Toowoomba Grammar School we had Martin Love & Wade Seccombe come through the GPS ranks – while they weren’t world-beaters they were pretty handy for Queensland at the very least. Current Western Australian coach Lachlan Stevens was also a TGS boy who made the First XI for four consecutive years.
Ricky on fire, but it's Bird kicking down the selectors' door
Having read through 90+ comments the one thing those calling for the game to be held in Queensland are forgetting: Manly finished higher up the ladder than NQ. Yep, you might get more to a game at Lang Park than the SFS, but in the end Manly earned that right to have a game in Sydney. Whether or not it should be at Brookvale is a different concept; having kept up with some of the retweets from the Cowboys’ Twitter feed where people are travelling 1000+km to watch last weekend’s game it does seem a bit strange that Manly fans apparently can’t make it over the bridge. Not knowing Sydney, is public transport included in a game ticket and do they put on a lot of extra services for SFS games back to the various home locales? That to me would help get punters to the game given the Friday night timeslot.
The other option is, as someone said earlier, to compare the match-ups. Thurston/Morgan vs Cherry-Evans/Foran; Scott/Tamou/Hall vs Williams/Watmough/Stewart G; Bowen vs Stewart B. Let’s not forget that the Cowboys led 8-0 at halftime in the semi last year – anyone expecting a repeat of that full-time score is in for a shock.
How to sell the Sea Eagles vs Cowboys match
I can see the merits in Scott’s argument; for me personally I agree with the others that say that a win in Sydney was important in the context of the Cowboys’ season. Yep, if Thurston (or Bowen, let’s be honest) had a season-ending injury then we’d be sitting here muttering about Neil Henry and the CEO and the like. But, who’s to say that had they not played, and the Cowboys get flogged – what kind of finals warm-up is that?
When you’ve got the chance to break and hoodoo and keep momentum going into the finals (and of those four wins, two were in New South Wales), you need to take that chance with both hands.
Thurston and Bowen should have been rested
Actually, that’s kind of the point behind the article. Fact is the Cowboys didn’t defend well enough nor hold on to the ball well enough – the main reason behind highlighting that one play though is that from there the Warriors dominated proceedings.
I’ve acknowledged the Warriors were good enough to dominate from there and merely called for a quick trip to the video ref to check for strips/dropped balls so this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Yes, I’m a Cowboys fan but how that is “misinformation and non-objective biased view” when I’ve acknowledged the better team won is beyond me.
“Now all this is not to say that the Cowboys would have won had the correct call been made. The Warriors showed great composure and patience to keep the Cowboys defending their line. In the end, though, they were too good on the day. But a Cowboys scrum 30m out might well have seen a different story.”
Another week, another NRL refereeing error
The problem is stalker that where you’re born can often have absolutely no impact on where you grew up and who you identify with.
To use a league example Peter Sterling was born in Toowoomba, QLD but grew up in Wagga Wagga NSW. He identifies as a Blue; ironically he also supports a place of birth rule, which would have meant a Lewis/Sterling combo in Origin.
Another example is Billy Moore (he of the “QUEENSLANDER” fame). A more passionate Queenslander you obviously couldn’t find, yet he was born in Tenterfield, NSW as that hospital was closer being closer to his home town of Wallangarra than Stanthorpe’s.
Who someone identifies with is a complex mixture of heritage, birthplace, childhood and personal inspiration – suggesting one override the others will only lead to further complaints.
Hey New Zealand, stop stealing our players
Yep. Didn’t say the match was due to be played in Brisbane – but without the Broncos support it could never have been played up in Townsville. The NRL boss David Gallop says as much in this article:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2004-09-13/nrl-confirms-townsville-final/2043508
Ended up being very apt given it was Gordon Tallis’ last game for the Broncos – played in his city of birth.
Beating the Broncos bête noire
True that, but Brisbane in the 70s was the surly adolescent that would stay in its room playing music full blast during solemn family occasions. Little bit different now!
Is Melbourne really Australia's sports capital?
Which is kind of the whole point – if the Storm were average, then no complaints there. BUT, they’re one of the best, which should at least get the curious out there.
I’d be saying the same about Sydney if the Swans were the best and but had very low crowds.
Is Melbourne really Australia's sports capital?
Actually it’s not – if Melbourne had the world’s best tiddliwinks team I would have used that example. They don’t – as far as I know! – so I’ve used rugby league as the example.
Is Melbourne really Australia's sports capital?
@Redb Actually the point I was making was that an AFL game that will largely be forgotten still had a much larger crowd than the NRL’s 1 versus 2. Having followed AFL my whole life I was naturally quite excited to watch a game at the MCG – granted, it wasn’t the greatest match I’ve ever been to,
Seems to me that yep, Melbourne fans are passionate – but within limits. Or to put it another way, I’m a ridiculously massive cricket fan, but if the world’s best baseballers lived to town I’d at least take the chance to go and have a look and try be educated about the game.
@The_Wookie, we had a true great play for the Lions for a number of years in Michael Voss; another one still holding us up in Jonathan Brown. People up here at least know who he is; as, I’d suggest, do Sydneysiders of Adam Goodes. Both the Lions and Swans had much higher attendances during their glory years, in part I’d argue because people there wanted to say greats in action.
Hell, even the NSL Strikers managed to fill Lang Park back in the 90s!
Is Melbourne really Australia's sports capital?
Agreed about Payne there Sam – some uncharacteristic errors despite having plenty of enthusiasm. Thompson at half could be that partner for Thurston Cowboys have been looking for.
Why can't the Cowboys play like that every week?
@Matt F consistently inconsistent’s pretty much it! One of the things that frustrates me is that while they should be a top 4 team without a doubt, there’s just something that holds them back for whatever reason – making it extremely frustrating for us fans!
@Lowdown I don’t think Henry’s the problem – he did very well with limited resources in Canberra before heading back north. The club did well in 2004/05 with a strong forwards leader like Paul Rauhihi leading the way – when Matt Scott comes back it should shore up what’s been a pretty leaky defence from time to time. The opposition tends to score too many too quickly against us.
Expecting the unexpected from the Cowboys
And therein lies part of the problem: nations like Australia are very reluctant to host the Associates (and Affiliates in Afghanistan’s case). There’s no reason we couldn’t host Ireland/Afghanistan et al for games against Australia A during the summer, with a couple of ODI matches against the full side for good measure.
Not that India’s much better – they’re still to host Bangladesh in a Test match!
Sacked Eoin Morgan belongs in Irish cricket
Steve O’Keefe was born in Malaysia for exactly the same reason John McEnroe was born in West Germany – their fathers were serving in the military and were posted there at the time.
Andrew Strauss first played cricket here in Australia before his family eventually settled down in England.
Sacked Eoin Morgan belongs in Irish cricket
Going in with an all-pace attack only works in certain conditions and/or you’re the West Indies 1975-1995. While Australia did do well in the 4th Test in 2009 with four quicks, perhaps the word of caution should come from the Test against India in Perth in 2008. Australia went in with three of the world’s fastest – and wildest – bowlers in that match (Lee, Johnson & Tait) but still lost with Kumble and Sewag taking four wickets in the final innings to help India to an unexpected win.
To use another example, the 1989 Ashes team included Trevor Hohns for five of the six Tests. While he didn’t set the world on fire, he nipped in with handy wickets and gave Australia a different option from Alderman, Lawson & Hughes. Lyon can do that and then some – just have to stick with the man.
Australia needs to bench Nathan Lyon for Ashes success