Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2017 i Inside Sport

The days of swinging the club nice and smooth are gone. I love the history of the great game of golf and all it stands for, something I’m reminded of every time the Open Championship heads back to the links courses of Britain. There have been many changes in the game since it was invented there in the 1400s. All games should evolve over time and golf certainly has, from its beginnings of feathery balls and hickory clubs. When I was on the US PGA Tour, it was amazing how many players would mention how much further they were hitting it – 20-30m further with this new driver, then months later another 20-30m with this new ball. How could this be? By the end of the year, with all the…

 You lived in Sydney between the ages of three and seven, before moving back to the US. We’re claiming you ... I think I could’ve been a rugby player here. I would’ve embraced that. I want to be claimed by Sydney. I loved it as a kid. I remember going to Balmoral Beach, getting attacked by seagulls while eating fish and chips. Just growing up in this amazing place, I would love to claim Sydney as my own. Scouts raved about your athleticism during the draft process. If you had stayed in Australia, do you think you would have ended up in one of the rugby codes? I might have. I was in love with swimming at the time – I was a huge Ian Thorpe fan; I wanted to…

MAYWEATHER WOULD GO ON TO BEAT PACQUIAO BY UNANIMOUS DECISION … HORN IS SURE THIS FIGHT WILL DELIVER MORE DRAMA. “I THINK OUR FIGHT IS GOING TO BE VERY EXCITING TO WATCH. IT CAN’T NOT BE.” FOR a scheduled 12 rounds on July 2, the boxing world will revolve around Suncorp Stadium, which has never hosted a fight, and the biggest box office bout in Australian history will take place. Jeff Horn, a boxer most of his local mainstream media has never heard of, will meet Manny Pacquiao, who is one of boxing’s few transcendent superstars of the last 25 years. As a pay-per-view fixture, Pacquiao earned $100m against Floyd Mayweather in the highest-grossing sports event of the millennium, and was listed no. 2 on Forbes’ highest earners in 2015…

DEPENDING on where you live and which sport you fancy, the greatest coach in history might be volleyball’s Hirofumi Daimatsu, soccer’s Alex Ferguson, basketball’s Phil Jackson or hockey’s Anatoly Tarasov. But there is little question in the minds of many – particularly Americans – that Vince Lombardi was the greatest football coach who ever lived. Square-jawed and gap-toothed, with dark half-framed glasses and a buzz cut, Lombardi wasn’t slick or elegant. On the sidelines he liked to wear suits with white shirts, a skinny tie and a brown Borsalino hat. He looked like a fire hydrant dressed for a job interview. During his time in Green Bay, Lombardi dragged his team from the bottom of the NFL to the top, winning five championships in seven seasons. The only reason the…

DRESS LIKE NOVAK The Novak Djokovic Capsule is a line of performance products that infuses functionality with style. The pieces are perfect for players who, like Novak Djokovic, pay attention to all details of the game. All items are engineered from materials handpicked for their quality and performance, with every detail geared towards comfort. Ergonomic stitching prevents chafing, while the cut brings about ease of movement. Djokovic’s signature is printed on the left sleeve, and the classic Lacoste Polo has been reinvented with contrasting colours and graphics, emanating a relaxed and quintessential French style. Novak Djokovic sports polo (pictured) RRP $149.00. Range is now available in all Lacoste boutiques and at lacoste.com.au. HOT SHOTS The X-Pro2 is an award-winning, rangefinder-style camera from Fujifilm’s premium X Series range. Meanwhile, 20 Fujinon…

On the occasion of Arsenal’s visit to Australia, we can’t help but revisit Hornby’s seminal book, which raised the fan experience (and we’re not talking about the corporate buzzword here) to an art form. Many have followed in Hornby’s wake, trying to adapt his ruminations on his Arsenal fandom to their own passions. Nothing quite matches; Hornby exhibits an uncommon understanding (to be seen again in High Fidelity) for how his football obsessiveness helped shape his world view. Fever Pitch is now regarded as a cultural touchstone, a sign of the explosion of middle-class interest in English football. The irony was that the modest Gunners of Hornby’s book became an avatar of the Premier League era, with its multinational teams under its French manager, playing in their gleaming stadium. Hornby…

Rival coaches understand enough about Craig Bellamy to know he’s not in fear of evolution. Some people still get nervous when the words salary cap and Melbourne Storm are used in the same sentence. No need to be here – this isn’t a column looking back at the dark days of Melbourne’s past. I’m looking forward, and actually looking forward to looking forward ... The Melbourne Storm are rugby league’s benchmark; have been for some time. It’s said there is no greater endorsement than that of your peers, and in quiet conversations around the game, rivals speak in awe of the Storm set-up. Of their execution, of their success. They are the model many have tried to imitate. But there’s a difference between innovators and imitators. In this race, the…

25% HITTING THE JACKPOT The NBA’s anti-tanking measure, the draft lottery, puts the 14 non-playoff teams into a draw to determine the first three picks. The team with the worst record – or in this year’s case, Boston, which traded for Brooklyn’s pick back in 2013 – has a 25 percent chance at the top pick. In the current system, the longest shot to land no.1 was the 1.7 percent (ninth-worst) in 2008 and ’14. HAPPY 19TH! Minimum age a player must reach in their draft year. If that player has attended a US high school, he must also be one year removed from it, thus giving rise to the “one-and-done” rule, where top-flight prospects spend what amounts to a gap year in college ball. Or in the case of…

Jeff Horn is not the first Australian to fight Manny Pacquiao. In fact, remarkably, he will be the fourth. Todd Makelim lost to Pacquiao in the star’s 26th fight, a third-round TKO loss in 1999; Arnel Barotillo lost to Pacquiao in his 30th, a third-round knockout. Only one Australian, though, knows what it is like to put Pacquiao on the canvas, something that sure-fire Hall of Famers such as Floyd Mayweather, Shane Mosley or Oscar De La Hoya cannot boast. That man is Nedal "Skinny" Hussein, the underappreciated Sydney-born fighter who twice fought for a world title. It is a night in Antipolo City, Philippines on the October 14, 2001, that is burnt into Hussein’s memory. “How do you forget?” Hussein says. “Some things I wish I did different, but…

For his new book The Captain Class, author Sam Walker scoured the major sporting competitions of the world to identify the very best teams. His methodology was unsparing: “They achieved bursts of success that were unique to history in some way and needed no qualification.” His final list of 16 teams: COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES 1927-1930 (Australian football/VFL) The famed Machine won four straight flags, including an unbeaten season in 1929. NEW YORK YANKEES 1949-53 (baseball/MLB) Great Yankee teams abound, but the era that bridged DiMaggio to Mantle saw five consecutive World Series wins. HUNGARY 1950-55 (international football) During this span, the Mighty Magyars lost twice in 53 matches, averaging 4.2 goals per game. MONTREAL CANADIENS 1955-60 (ice hockey/NHL) The only team in NHL history to win five straight Stanley Cups. BOSTON…

1 Workplace unrest everywhere you turn! Most notably in cricket, but also in the AFL and NRL as the players and leagues slog through negotiations for new collective bargaining agreements, in Super Rugby as Australian players air grievances about which of their franchises will be cut, and even in the shiny new Super Netball, where a state association move on the board inspired chatter of a breakaway league. Now more than ever, the great Aussie industrial drama is set to play out – or not, as it were – on the sporting field. 2 Slovenian cyclist Luka Pibernik threw his arms to celebrate victory in stage five of the Giro d’Italia ... before realising he had a 6km-long lap of Messina to go. Pibernik eventually finished the stage in 148th…

The Shaw example let park plodders know what is and isn’t acceptable. The umpires are a lightning rod for criticism. They’re the easiest targets for frustrated fans looking to take out their anger, so much so that they have even been copping grief for wearing microphones in order to aid broadcast coverage. But while players might be scrutinised more harshly for things they say on a footy field as a result of umpires being mic’d up, the harsh lessons they learn as a result set a fantastic example at local level. I’ve been playing for Caroline Springs since my retirement from the AFL and one of the things that has stood out to me while playing local footy is the importance of the umpires. They play such a crucial role…

“It’s a reasonable comparison,” reckons Darryl Brohman of the similarity in playing style between Andrew Fifita and Arthur Beetson. “Andrew’s a big bloke, mobile, big motor. It’s relevant. Call him ‘Beetson-esque’. That in itself is a massive honour for him.” Canterbury and media man Graeme Hughes says Fifita has a way go before he’s in Beetson’s class. “To tackle Artie you needed someone to go in good and hard low, and instead of other guys dangling off him high, you needed to be wary of support ball-runners, who used to hang off him outside and inside. “So once he’d sucked three or four blokes in, and saw everyone rushing at him, then he’d push a little pass to a runner off his hip or back on the inside. More often…

 You made a bet with a friend that you could reach the Olympics. What were the stakes, and what was the follow-up conversation like once you’d qualified? The bet, for $5000, was originally about me qualifying for London, but we eventually thought that reaching any Olympics was a good enough feat. There was no real follow-up conversation … just plenty of celebrations! A bunch of us surf life saving types were having a few beers once. There’s a race that everyone wants to do, a five-hour endurance race. And I said, “Bugger that, I’ll try and go to the Olympics.” That was October-ish 2010. The bet, for $5000, was originally about me qualifying for London, but we eventually thought that reaching any Olympics was a good enough feat. I didn’t…

“RUNNING IS ABOUT CREATING BALANCED MOVEMENT: BETWEEN LEFT AND RIGHT, FRONT AND BACK.” Paul MacKinnon was an elite-level hockey player, a member of the indoor national team who played professionally in Europe. But by his own admission, he had to make the most out of modest athletic gifts. It was because of these limitations that MacKinnon developed a deep interest in something as fundamental as how to run better; he’s since turned that into his coaching service, The Balanced Runner, which teaches people on better results and less physical wear-and-tear through more efficient technique. Lending his support to the Run Melbourne event on July 30, Mackinnon gives his advice on running generally and training in the cold in particular – rather curiously, this Canberra boy never got used to freezing…

The popular Fox Sports commentator and long-time league media man has a new book out, Stuff You May Have Missed (New Holland). It’s a unique look at rugby league; a collection of his thoughts, memories, personal experiences and stories from the many great people whose paths he has crossed. We put it to you that a book like this from someone like you is a bit of look inside the typical footy fan’s brain; trying to work out what motivates a passionate NRL person. Would that be fair? One-hundred-percent. I would call it “exploring the mineshafts of my mind”. I’ve been doing the media thing for 30 years, but until I actually sat down and started typing: I was there ... there was this match ... I remember seeing him…