My International Career

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.

Walking back from the mark I kept my eye on the goals, spinning the ball in my hands as a way of hiding my nervousness. After all, how often do you get to help win an international football match? Setting myself at the top of the mark, I began my run forward, kicked...

No, this wasn't a dream - this actually happened. The scene was a Viennese football park, my country was the Czech Republic, the competition was the Eastern European Championships and the sport was Australian Rules Football. At the time I was working as an on-board guide for Busabout, taking people around Europe, telling them where to go (nicely of course), then moving on the next day to a new group to a new destination. We'd arrived the previous afternoon into Wombats hostel in Vienna to find signs advertising the championship the next day, and as I had the next couple of days off, tentatively made plans with a few of the lads on the bus to wander over and have a look.

Later that night we were celebrating the first Friday of the week down in the hostel's WomBar when a couple of the boys came up to me rather excited. It turned out the Czech team were short a few players and they'd been asked if they wanted to join in, and perhaps I'd like to tag along as well? The Czech captain popped up a couple of seconds later to confirm the invitation - tomorrow we'd be international footballers! Naturally this was cause for celebration, which we did for another hour or so before going to bed at 3am.

The next morning the team assembled at reception for our trip out to the park. It was easy to tell who'd made the trip down specifically for the match and who'd been recruited at 2am - us latecomers were hungover as well. Turns out celebrating with Jaegermeister seven hours before your first match isn't recommended, something that hit home in the first match when two players made emergency trips to the loo with another (me) found with hands on hips after my first run, trying desperately not to join them in the "up-and-under" club.

After I'd settled down.

We unsurprisingly lost that first game but began to come good in our second match against Finland. We were an eclectic bunch - of those that were originally selected there were a few Aussie expats, one Czech bloke and a Czech lass that had actually played international basketball. There was another lad who wasn't Czech but worked in a Prague hostel; with points deducted for every Australian in the team these international players were worth their weight even if they didn't do much on the field. The second match was also where I grazed my leg twice on a bare patch of field; the graze just below and to the left of my knee becoming infected due to the old-fashioned cure of applying alcohol internally.

Two days later this was the same width the whole way down.

On then to our final game. By now we'd blown the cobwebs off and were pretty eager to finish with a win, which given the vagarities of the scoring system could well mean we'd make the final. This was how I found myself, ball in hand, ready to win the game for my adopted country, putting into practise all I'd learnt playing for the mighty Cooma Cats.

One step, two steps, three steps, ball gets released, right foot come through to strike ball towards goals...

Behind.

We ended not with the premiership but the wooden spoon - not surprising really when you consider where and when we'd been recruited. But a fun day out nonetheless and an unlikely addition to the resume: international footballer.

I Said To The Man Trying To Tempt Me, Do Our Athletes Really Need More Money?

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.

Cruising around the world said aliens might have partied in the Bahamas after their men won the 4 x 400m relay; prost-ed the discus success (and subsequent Hulk impersonation) of German Robert Harting; even sharing a haggis and Irn-Bru as Andy Murray finally won a Wimbledon final.

Heading over the Pacific our other-worldly friends would have then come across two neighbours with very different national moods. Had they been watching the rowing with in New Zealand they would have enjoyed the party as they won three gold medals; had they popped straight across the Tasman they might be surprised to find a nation of 23 million people despairing despite winning 13 medals to that point. They're surprised at the how disappointed people are despite the fact that of the countries with more medals, the next smallest population was South Korea with 14 medals and 50 million people. They'd also be confused about the comments that these were Australia's worst games since Montreal in 1976.


Let's rewind then back to Montreal, 1976. For locals these Olympics gave the wonderful present of 30 years worth of debt, while Australia's present wasn't much better. Australian athletes won precisely one silver medal and four bronze; more galling was the fact that Australia's sole silver came from losing the men's gold medal hockey match... to New Zealand. These Olympics were the first time the Kiwis had finished higher on the medal tally than Australia, a feat they repeated with their record-breaking eight gold medals in Los Angeles in 1984.

Clearly, Australia had to do something. The country that had given the world Olympic champions like Shane Gould, Dawn Fraser and Betty Cuthbert now found itself out of the top-ten position it had held since the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. The poor performance in Montreal followed two reports in the mid 1970s, leading to increased sports funding from the Federal Government and the establishment of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 1981.

It took a little while for the AIS to start producing gold medallists - the first was the women's hockey team in Seoul in 1988 - but by the time of the Sydney Olympics AIS athletes won 32 out of Australia's 58 medals, including eight golds (out of 16). The rest of the world suddenly began to take notice, including the British, who managed to entice a number of Australian coaches halfway across the world in an effort to win more golds on home soil. As British Olympic Association chair Colin Moynihan said in this article:

“They have provided through their institute some remarkable coaches which we’ve been fortunate enough to benefit from across a number of sports.”

He's not the only one that thinks this way. On Channel 9 former Olympic champion Linford Christie said pretty much the same thing, suggesting it's not that Australia's standards that have fallen; rather that everyone else has caught up. Factor that with the score of countries that have just or will soon celebrate their 21st birthdays and the money many resource-rich countries are splashing around, then Australia's performances are still above-average on a per-capita basis.

That's not to say questions shouldn't be asked. Many Australian athletes are funded through government grants, and we as taxpayers have the right to ask whether our money is being spent wisely. But for all of Australia's golds that ended up silver or bronze, we learnt to properly celebrate the achievements of people like Tom Slingsby, Anna Meares and Sally Pearson with genuine joy rather than a "ho-hum, another gold". And as Richard Hinds said in this column:

"Seeing Australian athletes who have not reached their goals, or those imposed upon them, tempering their natural devastation with dignity and good humour. Surely, that is a far better reflection of a great sporting nation than any dollars-for-gold medal table."

"... Don't allow the pompous blazers, and the publicity hungry politicians to obscure your view. Home and away, Australia is a great sporting nation and — on balance — a nation of great sports. These Olympics did absolutely nothing to change that."

When you win more medals than countries twice your population, 16 silvers and 12 bronzes should be a cause for celebration, not for complaint.

Supporting North Queensland: Rounds 22 & 23

THIS blog is a little late; well, a week late anyway. I would have got around to writing about the North Queensland Cowboys' match against Manly last weekend, if not for the enfolding spectacle that was the 2012 Olympics.

It's kind of apt though that the Olympics were on, for the Cowboys seemed to channel the Australian Olympic team; or at least the swimmers. The premiers had put the Cowboys to the sword in their semi-final clash last year after the Cowboys were up 8-0 at halftime; this time around it was Manly leading 6-0 at the main break. Local hopes went up when Kane Linnett took advantage of a bouncing ball to score, only for Jamie Lyon to edge Manly ahead with a penalty goal. As hard as the Cowboys tried, they couldn't quite crack the Manly line again, leaving them narrow silver medallists in this two-team event they were favourites to win.

Another week passes, and Australia starts winning some gold again. First up Tom Slingsby breaks through for Australia's second gold of the games before another five follow suit for a a veritable goldrush. Likewise, when Matty Bowen scores early in the Cowboys' round 23 game against the New Zealand Warriors, the floodgates opened. Ash Graham scored twice and Antonio Winterstein once to leave them up 22-0 after 20 minutes.

The Warriors scored in the 38th minute to give them a slight chance if they had their heads back on after the break. Linnett put paid to that with a 44th minute try before Gavin Cooper and Brent Tate crossed; Aaron Payne soon after for his first try of the season; and finally Ashley Graham with his third for the night to keep him just one try behind the Bulldogs' Ben Barba for the title of season's leading try-scorer.

So three rounds to go and the Cowboys four points ahead of 9th with the third-best for-and-against of the competition. The three are against St George-Illawarra away, Newcastle at home before the Sharks away. Win all three and the Cowboys are a chance of a top-four spot with the double-chance that entails; lose any and a tough run to the grand final looms.

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 6 (Linnett try, Thurston 1/1 goal) lost to Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 8

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 52 (Graham 3, Bowen, Winterstein, Linnett, Cooper, Tate, Payne tries; Thurston 8/9 goals) defeated New Zealand Warriors 12