Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i Inside Sport

WE HAVE a trope we resort to on our rugby league podcast Dead In Goal, the “robot ref”. We’re talking more than a bunker, a VAR, TIO, DRS or whatever three letters you care to string together. A genuine, non-human, rule-enforcer that wouldn’t make mistakes, feel any pressure, just apply the rulebook like running an operating system. And we guess that robot ref would call offside on every single play-the-ball, so league fans would still have a reason to complain. There is nothing so tedious in sporting discussions as bitching about the officiating. Ref-blaming proceeds from the assumption that our sports should be called perfectly, when the reality is each game is an exercise in randomness, and we can only hope the difficult decisions don’t occur at critical moments. The…

“I’ve got no doubt that the Storm and Roosters’ energy levels have lifted because they can see what’s coming.” Be in no doubt whatsoever that finals football is the reason we all play. When club squads come together in late October/early November the previous year, the goal that drives us is to be still alive come September. It’s the ultimate carrot. Remembering back as a player, there was a period post-Origin, let’s say two to four matches, where you’d slowly disconnect from interstate football and rediscover your club mojo. Almost out of nowhere, the weather starts to get a little warmer and finals football becomes the focus again. It’s like a fresh start, and there’s certainly an uplift in enthusiasm. The intensity in games rises because players are super-keen to…

YES WE (STILL) CAN POLITICS IN THE AGE OF OBAMA, TWITTER AND TRUMP BY DAN PFEIFFER, HARDIE GRANT, $29.99 If you can’t get enough of the ongoing drama that is American presidency, this book is an entertaining insight from a top Obama White House staffer-turned-podcaster. The critique of the current state of politics is sharp, if not surprising; the stories that reveal the personal side of Barack Obama shine through. One thing that’s notable: Obama really was a big sports fan, and his fandom was an escape from the pressures of his office. BREW A BATCH A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO HOME-BREWED BEER BY CHRISTOPHER SIDWA, MURDOCH BOOKS, $39.99 We’ve all thought it. Sitting there on the balcony after three or four servings of our favourite drop we’ve picked up from…

Footy changes come September. It becomes a more contested game, not as free-flowing and fast. It’s about who’s going to maintain their pressure. Back in 2008, the question was whether anyone could beat a Geelong side that was reigning premiers and had lost only once all season. The Hawthorn side, which I had retired from the year before, would meet the Cats in the grand final. You would think we put a lot of detail into studying Geelong. But all coach Alastair Clarkson did was draw a shark up on the whiteboard and said: “Geelong are a shark. How do you kill a shark? You push it backwards, the gills fill up and you kill it.” He said they were such an aggressive team when you come forward, and if…

Last serve It’s back to New York for the final Slam of the tennis year. This US Open (Aug 27-Sep 10) will be the first to have all four of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray in the draw since 2015, which probably means someone like John Isner is going to sneak in and win it. On the women’s side, it appears set up for Serena Williams to cap her comeback, although Flushing Meadows has been the site of some weird results for her ever since her last US title in 2014. Whatever happens for these venerable champions, they’ll have to do it with haste – new this year is a 25-second serve clock, because tennis is just too slow, no? Players will get a warning on the first violation, docked…

JEREMY McGOVERN WEST COAST EAGLES McGovern’s significance to the Eagles was highlighted when he signed a five-year contract extension with the team in July, with the agreed terms reportedly earning him more than $1 million per year. The lofty price tag was required because the 196cm McGovern would have been the hottest of free agents in the off-season. An All-Australian defender in 2016 and 2017, McGovern’s elite marking ability comes to the fore in contested play. The 26-year-old is also a leading intercept marker, a mobile player with a match-winning mix of brain and brawn. Much like Alex Rance at Richmond, his presence – and prescience – changes the way opponents have to deliver the ball inside their own 50. TOBY NANKERVIS RICHMOND The 199cm Nankervis (pictured above, left) may…

“To be able to jump into these chairs, wheel around and smash into other people is pretty exciting.” Four players on the field at any one time, which is a regulation basketball court, with “try” zones at either end. What are some of the other basic features of wheelchair rugby? There’s a shot clock; you have 40 seconds from the time you inbound the ball to score at the other end. This has sped up the sport, resulting in really high-intensity games. As well, you have 12 seconds to get out of your backcourt; similar to basketball. You can pass back and forward. Scoring is like a touchdown; you’ve got to cross that line to score. Our game is a combination of a lot of different sports, but I think…

1 The world’s fastest man heads ... to Gosford. To play football. It could be a good novel, but apparently Usain Bolt really will try to make it with the Central Coast Mariners. This is probably not what the A-League had hoped would be drawing attention as it enters its 14th season. But tell us you’re not a little intrigued ... 2 Somewhere out there, John Isner is probably playing tennis. Already the owner of the longest match in history, his 70-68 fifth-set epic in 2010 against Nicolas Mahut, the American played the longest Grand Slam semi against Kevin Anderson at Wimbledon over six and a half hours. After the 26-24 deciding set, there was never a better case to be made for the All England to change its mind…

Since Will Genia's been back, he's been one of the best halfbacks in the game ... When the Wallabies have had success, it's when he's run. The Wallabies wouldn’t be pleased to lose the Ireland series 2-1, but it was great they played the no.2 team in the world ahead of the Rugby Championship. As disappointing as that result was, there were some real positives in blooding some players. Taniela Tupou was outstanding in that series, coming off the bench in the front row. He’s only a young man and is only going to get better, but he looks like the sort of player who is going to make that step up on the bigger stages. That all bodes well for the Rugby Championship – but it’s another step again…

THIS will be the first NFL season in which betting is legal across the United States, so Americans can now look forward to their football games being slathered with bookie ads. Chats about gambling sure beats having arguments about what players should do during the national anthem, and that issue is not going away. But whatever the pigskin discourse, one thing doesn’t change with the world’s richest sports league – the money keeps rolling in, with NFL revenue having swollen beyond $19b, or roughly what the Premier League and NBA make combined. New England Patriots $7 Yep, them again. Last season wasn’t the happiest of campaigns for the NFL’s most dependable contender, even as the Pats seemed to be marching to a championship repeat. The ongoing tension between coach Bill…

"The first opportunity we had, really, to win a flag, we did it. And that's not normally the case ... you had to have a couple of prelims first before you're ready." FROM A KID who was written off as an AFL prospect, unchosen in the 2000 draft, Sam Mitchell now stands as the high example that star footballers aren’t just the sum of their physical gifts. Mitchell was a cornerstone of Hawthorn’s dynasty over the last decade, a four-time premiership player, the winning captain in ’08, a 329-gamer and, after some revision, the 2012 Brownlow medallist. As his coach at the Hawks Alastair Clarkson noted, Mitchell was one of the game’s great brains, adept at finding the football and perfectly comfortable on either foot. With such football nous, it…

He’s tall. A fool would think that’s all. Mason Cox is unprecedented. He was, self-admittedly, not “elite”; no Stynes or Kennelly. They’d at least competed at the top level of something before they arrived, even if it was a native game ferociously sustained by provincial followers, barely known to the rest of the world. At least in that way, Gaelic football was like Australian rules. And even then they made rookie mistakes. Jim Stynes, the Irish folk-tale, made the most infamous error in AFL/VFL history. Sometimes Mason Cox threatens to surpass it as his shiny, smooth new abilities transform into just enough bristly rope when met with an unfamiliar challenge. Then he’s irresistible to those who want to fashion the noose. But no adventurer was ever paralysed for fear of…

Marika Koroibete is a quiet man upon first meeting; he seems almost embarrassed to be doing an interview. It’s taken five months to get a sit-down with him via the Melbourne Rebels because he’s too shy. But we get there. This is all ironic because there’s nothing silent about his football. Koroibete runs like he’s getting chased by a greyhound; but he’s much more than swerving pace and fast-twitch muscle fibre. The Fijian hits like a freight train, too. Poor Conor Murray never saw it coming. The little Ireland no.9 was too busy watching the ball as it came down to Earth from Bernard Foley’s kick in the first Test this year. He barely had time to look up when oomph – Koroibete hit him in the guts with a…

LEATHER SOUL A HALF-BACK FLANKER’S RHYTHM & BLUES BY BOB MURPHY, NERO, $39.99 Martin Flanagan, the foremost of all scribes writing about Australian rules, noted that Bob Murphy would write a book like no other footballer. The Bulldog stalwart hinted at it for years with his newspaper columns, revealing a sense of perspective that few other players have, and fewer still could put into words. Murphy was that rarity – a sportsman who could straddle the practitioner/observer divide and produce sportswriting with a distinctive voice. That voice, as the reader will learn, is itself the product of an offbeat mind. Flanagan identifies it as the ample dose of Irish in Murphy: lyrical, folksy, an independent thinker. There’s a temptation to view Bob as the patron saint of AFL hipsters –…

“SOMETIMES I’LL TURN TO THE POST, CLOSE MY EYES AND SHOOT. IT TAKES AWAY THE VISUAL DISTRACTIONS.” WITH STEPH WOOD The still-new Super Netball league, from day one, has proven a pressure-cooker environment for coaches and players alike; the intensity seeming to boil at a higher temperature week in, week out. It must be nerve-wracking hell out there ... Well, for most of the players, at least. Goal attack for the Sunshine Coast Lightning, Steph Wood, a regular starter on Australia’s elite domestic stage since 2015, thrives on the pressure. Eats it for breakfast. Loves it. At 175cm, Wood is certainly not one of the tallest GAs around – her lanky shooting team-mate Caitlin Bassett has that department covered at the Lightning – so the Sunshine Coast local has to…