Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Inside Sport

“He got very good – I couldn’t get him out in the end.” BEFORE the recent one-day international series in South Africa, Australian captain Steve Smith admitted he had stayed away from cricket activity during his much-discussed rest break. The only time he picked up a bat was to face his dad’s bowling. It was the first time in eight years, or the first time since he became the world’s top-ranked Test batsman and Australian captain, that Smith had completed a nets session with his father, Peter. These moments were the foundation of Smith younger’s cricketing development, as he emerged as a prodigy at Sutherland District CC. The origins of that unconventional style of his at the crease can in part be traced back to Peter’s jack-of-all-trades bowling, as well…

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"NBL players 'get it'. They need to sell their sport ... Last season, we dragged them out of warm-ups!" How could you possibly pick a season highlight? Maybe it was the Cairns inbound, aimed at Torrey Craig mid-court, who athletically jumped, caught the ball and shot successfully, all in one motion, with less than a second left in the first quarter. The Taipans eventually beat New Zealand ... by three! Maybe it was the Adelaide inbound, stolen by Townsville, who then had Nick Kay dunk his way to an unforgettable comeback win. The battling underdogs had come from 15 points down with four minutes to play. Remarkable! What about Illawarra? The run-and-gun scoring specialists topped 100 points – again – to beat Perth in a semi-final game in Wollongong. When…

The 2016-17 NBA season is upon us, and yet again we’re fixating on a newly formed super-team and how it will lay waste to the rest of the league. But no matter how good the Golden State Warriors might be, piling atop their record-breaking season last year with the addition of superstar Kevin Durant, history shows that an NBA championship is always hard work. Just ask LeBron James – really, just ask him if he’s ready to lay down and cede his hard-earned title with the Cleveland Cavaliers to someone else ... Golden State Warriors $1.75 At season’s outset, it’s hard to see how the Warriors will fail. Previous super-teams have needed time to gel (LeBron’s Miami from 2010-14) or never gelled at all (remember the Kobe-Dwight-Nash Lakers?). But this…

The Canberra Raiders’ best season since the club from the nation’s capital won its last premiership in 1994 bought the memories flooding back for one of its absolute legends, Laurie Daley. Back before the Brumbies stampeded through town, Daley and the Green Machine were “simply the best”. Between 1987 and ‘94 they appeared in five grand finals, claiming three titles. A centre turned five-eighth, Daley was a key figure in the Raiders’ dominance back then, working with now-Raiders coach Ricky Stuart to orchestrate the most dangerous attack in the Winfield Cup. All told Daley – these days the coach of the NSW State of Origin team and a regular panel member on Fox Sports’ NRL 360 – donned the lime green 244 times before his retirement in 2000. He wore…

AB: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY AB DE VILLIERS, MACMILLAN, $34.99 This book will divide people, not so much for its content as its spirit. For a start, non-Christians will see it as some kind of auto-hagiography, especially after reading the first chapter in which, they’d say, AB spends a lot of time telling us how humble AB is. However, Christians will laud him for the way he boasts on the Lord’s behalf. Many will praise his balanced views on race and the South African government’s “affirmative action” policy, called the Transformation Policy. Others might go for the easy target and note that de Villiers seems a product of privilege – so how would he know prejudice when he sees it? But we get a rounded picture of de Villiers and the…

"Exposed: foreign land, few friends, less of the local language." Bravery in sport. Not in life; that’s a separate issue and way beyond pastimes and hobbies. Consider it in the context of what we enjoy and invest in it and how impressive those we watch are when it comes to ignoring consequences for the betterment of a team, or career. Here’s some stories of bravery, sight unseen from a sport – football – where homesickness is a career-killer and a passport is as necessary as a pair of boots. John Aloisi went to the shops once in Belgium to buy some sugar. He came home with salt. No idea how to speak the language, breakfast didn’t quite taste the same. Nothing did. He was days removed from Adelaide, in a…

“HE’S A CRICKET GENIUS.” – STEVE O’KEEFE ON STEVE SMITH “I DEMAND A DNA TEST OF AB DE VILLIERS. THIS GAME IS ONLY FOR HUMANS.” – AKASH CHOPRA We live in an era blessed by young masters of the batting art. We should appreciate it while it’s here, especially when these wunderkinds come together in a series, as Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson did in September, and Steve Smith and Williamson will in the upcoming one-day series between Australia and New Zealand. Aussie fans, craving such contests, were avidly anticipating Smith and AB de Villiers sharing the stage this summer, before de Villiers sadly withdrew with an elbow injury. We’re just glad they share the same world. After all, fans of every sport are entitled to their own…

“You don’t want to hold emotions in; you have to let them out.” Have you and your new Collingwood Magpies' team-mates had time to sit down and work out a team ethos yet? “It’s all happened way too quickly! I was excited when I saw the squad’s names down on paper, but to see everyone at the launch in person just made it all that more real. Personally, I’ve played with pretty much everyone in the team, in previous years and on various teams, which is really cool. Having played with the girls before, we do hold a lot of the same work ethic and values. I think we’re all wanting to head in the same direction without even talking about it. Getting out there and being able to start…

Spare a thought for the stars of world rugby league. While their club-mates scoot away to the tropics or over to the States on that well-deserved end-of-season trip, the game’s biggest names have to keep going as they prepare for what’s become an “international season” of sorts across October and November. But really, hardened professionals like Sam Burgess wouldn’t have it any other way. The West Yorkshire-born likable giant has just endured his first season back at South Sydney following a brief stint in the 15-man game, which included a gig for England at the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Believe it or not, 2016 was his sixth season in the cardinal and myrtle of the Rabbitohs and he’ll be chomping at the bit to take to the field for the…

FIRST OFF THE TEE BY DON VAN NATTA JR (2003) As coverage of the US presidential election reaches fever pitch this month, here’s a fun tangent – a survey of American presidents and the golf they played. There has been all stripes of hacker in the White House: tragics (Eisenhower), cheats (Clinton and Nixon, of course), the hopeless (Coolidge) and the secretly good (JFK, who didn’t want his skill at the game to be widely known). Van Natta, one of the top investigative reporters in the US, digs for some choice anecdotes (some of them anonymously sourced to Secret Service agents who were there watching on the course). His thesis: with the privacy it affords and its fiendish difficulty, golf is an effective remedy for a highly public figure often…

"I have to see Mt Panorama as just another circuit, the same way I see Phillip Island or Sandown." The often-overlooked, and very much honed, skill that separates race champions from rather equal race drivers is strategy and tactics. They are a crucial element of the current, evolving nature of the sport. It may seem to many that being the quickest out on the track is what will win races and championships, but in fact, a major focus on tactics and strategy in the weeks, months and at times years before the races can largely determine the successful nature of a race team and individual. I’ll take you back to the 2014 Bathurst 1000, the pinnacle of our sport and a race that can only be described as chaotic. A…

On an evening in February this year at the Basin Reserve in Wellington, a beaming and exhausted Adam Voges walked from the field drenched in sweat, having made 176 not out against New Zealand. His runs had placed Australia in a strong position in the Test, but his innings also created history. Voges had surpassed cricket’s two greatest batsmen, Sir Donald Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar, on the same day. He had broken Tendulkar’s cherished record for scoring 497 runs between dismissals, and by the time he was out the following day for 239, the new record would stand at a mammoth 614 runs. But Voges had also managed to do something even more incredible – he lifted himself above Bradman and his fabled average of 99.94. For one night only…

Canberra’s Mark Bourne is among the world’s elite stair-climbers, or in the niche sport’s preferred parlance, “vertical running”. Call it by whatever name – anyone who has run the stairs, whether for training or because the lift’s broken, knows that it’s gut-busting stuff. Bourne, who started in mountain running before making his way along the incline to climbing stairs, is capable of scaling the 1642 steps of Melbourne’s Eureka Tower in less than eight minutes. He’s won races up the Empire State Building in New York, Taipei 101 in Taiwan and Sydney Tower. He also claimed the 2013 title of the Vertical World Circuit, a series of races in skyscrapers across the globe. Ahead of Bourne’s next tilt at the Eureka Climb on November 13, where he’ll be going for…

BREAKFAST also sets up your eating habits for the rest of the day. How often have you skipped brekkie, only to be starving by 10am, so you grab a muffin or pastry with your morning coffee? The bad habits only continue from there as your energy levels plummet and you reach for more sugary, high-carb snacks an hour or two later. Breakfast-eaters not only have a lower BMI, but they also tend to have a healthier overall diet than those who skip it. If you’re a morning exerciser, whether you eat breakfast beforehand depends on how vigorously you work out. If it’s for less than an hour at a low/moderate intensity, you don’t necessarily need to eat breakfast first. In fact, studies show that exercising in a fasted state can…

“The fun has gone out of the game a little bit, which is disappointing.” In what will surely prove to be an AFL Hall of Fame career, former Collingwood premiership star Dane Swan experienced all the highs and lows that come with being an elite footballer. Having reflected upon his career in his new book My Story, Swan didn't find much he would change about it ... except for one big thing. “I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done; it’s made me who I am,” Dane Swan tells Inside Sport. “But, having said that, I think the game changed when social media got huge. All of a sudden everyone had an opinion.” Debuting with Collingwood as a 19-year-old in 2003 , Swan took a number of years to find his…