A quintet of Australian shooters find themselves under the spotlight with places in Stacey Marinkovich’s squad limitedLiz Ellis often refers to shooters as the “princesses” of netball; the ponytail-tossing prima donnas who crave the spotlight. While said in jest, there’s some truth in the characterisation by Australia’s most capped netballer. That’s because it takes a particular type of self-assurance and composure to hold the hopes of a team, even a nation, quite literally in your hands.It requires extra-special fortitude, then, for a player to head into a Test series to represent the No 1 side in the world – who won every trophy on offer last year – in the knowledge that their performance may all but determine selection for...
Australia’s best-since-Bradman wants to play a few games before the Ashes but the chance to learn may not be all one wayAt a time when cricketers bounce from one Twenty20 league to the next without much fuss – often halfway through, like cowboy builders yet to finish off the skirting boards – it’s almost reassuring that the idea of a player dropping into the County Championship for “three or four” matches can get plenty of backs up.The player in question is no cowboy, it must be said, rather one Steven Peter Devereux Smith. Yep, Australia’s best-since-Bradman, the master of a thousand idiosyncrasies, has been in talks with Sussex over a short-term deal before the World Test Championship final in June...
The coaching trio have no time to experiment as the race towards this year’s Rugby World Cup enters its final stagesIt used to be said that preparing for the 2023 Rugby World Cup was a gradual process. People liked to paint it as a painstaking four-year project, with an emphasis on steady incremental gains. Then everyone panicked. England, Wales and Australia have new head coaches with blank (ish) sheets of paper and there is an Old Testament feel to what happened just weeks ago.Because, suddenly, the marathon is a flat-out mass sprint. The three unions in question are banking on the ability of, respectively, Steve Borthwick, Warren Gatland and Eddie Jones to accelerate their teams from 0-60 mph quicker than...
After his most successful year on tour, there’s a feeling the Canberra wild child has finally matured enough to win an Australian Open There have been many times in his career when attempting to get a read on Nick Kyrgios has been like taking on Rafael Nadal on clay; a task almost inevitably destined to end in failure. But something has changed in the past 12 months, a year in which he reached his first Grand Slam final at Wimbledon. Kyrgios goes into this year’s Australian Open a changed man.All players mature at different rates, on and off the court, and Kyrgios would probably admit that he has taken longer than most. But on the eve of his home Grand...
The nine-times Australian Open champion shows no sign of a hangover from last year’s controversy and is the player to beatIn the hours after Novak Djokovic was briefly freed from government custody in Melbourne last year, his visa cancellation overturned on procedural grounds, he headed straight for the tennis court to resume his suspended preparation for the Australian Open. His first hitting session was played out behind closed doors at night, but by the time he returned in the day, chaos reigned over Melbourne Park. Fans and journalists alike tried to slip inside Rod Laver Arena, drones whirled overhead just to get an unauthorised glimpse of him in action.Outside of Park Hotel,where he was being detained, Djokovic’s fans congregated to...