New Zealand, with one eye on the grand prize of next year’s rugby World Cup, are switching game plans to keep rival teams off the scent, assistant coach Wayne Smith said in Brisbane on Thursday. The All Blacks take on the Wallabies on Saturday, but rugby’s top-rated team is keen not to show too much in the countdown to the World Cup in France.
Prop Rodney Blake returns from an ankle injury for his third Test in the only Australian change announced on Wednesday to its team for the Tri-Nations rugby match against New Zealand. Blake, who will make his hometown debut at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium on Saturday, replaces Guy Shepherdson. Blake missed Australia’s 49-0 victory over South Africa 10 days ago.
Australia cricket captain Ricky Ponting wants a showdown with the same England team that won the Ashes last year when the two squads meet again in November. In an interview on Tuesday, Ponting said Australia are preparing for the five-Test series in expectation that England will field their strongest team.
New Zealand coach Graham Henry said on Tuesday he had called up his ”A” team for Saturday’s Tri-Nations clash against Australia, taking no chances against the All Blacks’ resurgent arch-rivals. Henry named a squad virtually unchanged from the one that thrashed Australia 32-12 earlier this month.
Wendell Sailor’s troubled rugby career took a turn for the worse on Friday. The Australian Rugby Union said Test winger Sailor had been suspended for two years after testing positive for cocaine and that his contract had been terminated. Sailor’s contract was due to expire at the end of 2007.
Australia’s second-most capped Test prop forward Bill Young on Thursday announced his retirement from rugby. Young (32), who made 46 international appearances after making his Test debut against France in Paris in 2000, has been troubled by a chronic neck injury this year.
Australian rugby’s most-experienced prop Bill Young said on Tuesday a neck injury will probably force him to quit the game, according to a media report. ”At this stage, it’s probably highly unlikely I’ll play again,” 31-year-old Young told the Canberra Times newspaper.
Australia’s second Bledisloe Cup match against New Zealand in Brisbane later this month sold out on Monday, with officials hoping for a record crowd at Lang Park. The last 1 500 tickets for the July 29 Tri-Nations clash were snapped up less than an hour after they went on sale on Monday morning.
Referee Paul Honiss hit back at Jake White on Sunday after the Springbok’s coach laid part of the blame for South Africa’s 49-0 Tri-Nations rugby loss to Australia at the feet of the New Zealand official. White said Honiss had allowed the Wallabies to ”get away with murder” in Saturday’s Suncorp Stadium match in which the Boks slumped to their heaviest loss to Australia.
Australia recorded their biggest win over South Africa in 85 years with a 49-0 demolition in the second round of the Tri-Nations at Lang Park on Saturday. The Wallabies rebounded from last week’s 32-12 loss to New Zealand to produce their best performance of the season, scoring six unanswered tries to chalk up their highest total.
Hailed as a hero only a month ago, John Connolly now confronts the downside of coaching Australia. Connolly takes the Wallabies into Saturday’s Tri Nations rugby Test at Suncorp Stadium with many questioning his game plan, tactics and selections. The long-serving Queensland coach was seen to have turned around Australia’s fortunes last month.
Declining oil reserves and soaring prices could see desperate nations overturning a ban on drilling in the last untouched frontier — Antarctica, an oil expert told a scientific conference on Thursday. Pressure to exploit the pristine, icy continent could become irresistible, said Ali Bakhtiari, a former senior adviser for the National Iranian Oil Company.
South Africa are determined to prove their scrummaging dominance this weekend against an Australian side desperate to erase the memories of last week’s Tri-Nations drubbing by the All Blacks. The Springboks’ touring party has been weakened by injuries but still boasts a monster pack.
Australia flanker George Smith has reacted angrily to suggestions South African players are offering each other rewards for pulling out his dreadlocks during their Tri-Nations clash this weekend. The Sydney Morning Herald asked Smith about Joe van Niekerk’s comments that a colleague offered ” to the man who came off the field with one of Smith’s dreadlocks” during a 2004 Test.
Cool bottled water in three delicious flavours — beef, chicken and bacon. Not tempted? Your dog will be. An Australian man has taken pooch-pampering to the next level with the launch of Aqua Dog. With one canine for every five Australians, the country has one of the world’s highest dog ownership rates and a pet food industry worth Aus$1,2-billion a year.
South Africa coach Jake White compared the pressure on his team to that faced by soccer superpower Brazil on Wednesday as he named two debutants for the Tri-Nations clash against Australia this weekend. Uncertainty over White’s future overshadowed the team announcement for Saturday’s match.
Wallabies coach John Connolly’s hopes of beefing-up the Australian front row to face South Africa’s monster pack this weekend were dashed on Wednesday when prop Rodney Blake lost a fitness race. Connolly made four changes to the team that played the All Blacks after suffering his first loss since taking over as coach earlier this year, dropping Mat Rogers to allow Matt Giteau to return from injury.
Australia’s much-maligned front row is determined to prove itself against the Springboks in this week’s Tri-Nations clash after being humbled in New Zealand, prop Greg Holmes said on Tuesday. South Africa coach Jake White has already revealed he will be targeting the inexperienced Australian scrum in Brisbane on the weekend.
Springbok coach Jake White said on Monday his side would target the Australian scrum in this week’s Tri-Nations clash, after the Wallabies’ front five was humbled by the mighty All Blacks. New Zealand pummelled the Australian scrum in Christchurch, helping the Kiwis secure a crushing 32-12 victory against the visitors on Saturday.
The Socceroos may have been eliminated from the World Cup by Italy but an Adelaide brewer says fans can console themselves with the fact that an Aussie ale has won a "beer world cup". Coopers Brewery said it won a drink-off organised by British industry magazine <i>Off Licence News</i> involving, where possible, a representative beer from each of the 32 World Cup nations.
At 22, Sam Brett is one of Australia’s most widely read writers. But it’s not her insights into politics, the economy or even sport that have her readers hooked. The pithy columns on Brett’s blog are far more personal, delving instead into the intricacies of sex and relationships in the cyber-age. One day’s talking point will be why men cheat; another’s whether office relationships always end badly.
A local council in Sydney, Australia, will find out on Friday whether playing a tape loop of Barry Manilow’s hits in a car park will get rid of the drag racers who congregate there at the weekend. ”We’re giving the Barry Manilow music a go because it’s been tried elsewhere and been a success,” said a local councillor.
The subject matter was untested, the actors almost naked and the whole movie was to be made in a language spoken by only a tiny group of people — but to film executive Brian Rosen, funding Australia’s latest international film success, Ten Canoes, was a ”no-brainer”.
Passengers running about in the nude and having sex outdoors were common on a cruise-liner where an Australian woman died of an overdose of a date-rape drug. The night manager of the cruise on the Pacific Sky in September 2002, Kathleen Taylor, told the Glebe Coroner’s Court in Sydney that she would often have to separate couples caught engaging in sex acts in public.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was heckled on Monday after being named the most influential Australian of all time by a weekly current affairs magazine. The 75-year-old chairperson and chief executive of News Corporation — one of the world’s biggest media conglomerates — topped a list of 100 notable Australians released by The Bulletin magazine on Monday.
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Wild celebrations erupted across Australia on Friday after the Socceroos secured a vital draw in their do-or-die match against Croatia to reach the last 16 of the World Cup for the first time. Melbourne’s Federation Square had to be closed off after more than 9Â 000 people jammed into the precinct.
A former worker at the Royal Australian Mint who stole thousands of dollars from his employer by hiding Aus$2 coins in his boots was on Wednesday jailed for three years. William Bosia Grzeskowiak (48) admitted to stealing Aus$135 852 (about R719 000) in coins and notes between April last year and February this year.
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The sleep-deprived green and gold army that cheered Australia on through the early hours in their homeland on Monday were disappointed but not dejected at the Socceroos’ battling 2-0 loss to Brazil. While a fairytale win over the world champions did not materialise, Australians consoled themselves with their unfancied team’s gritty display.
An accident at Australia’s only nuclear reactor forced Prime Minister John Howard’s government onto the defensive on Thursday, with political opponents saying the incident highlighted the dangers of nuclear power. Small amounts of radioactive gases escaped from a ruptured pipe at the Lucas Heights facility on the outskirts of Sydney last Thursday.
George Gregan will start on the reserves bench for the first time in 10 years and Stirling Mortlock will captain Australia against England in their second rugby Test on Saturday. Coach John Connolly made three changes on Wednesday for the Telstra Dome Test in Melbourne following Australia’s 34-3 win last Sunday in the first Cook Cup match at Sydney.
Cricket Australia overhauled on Tuesday the way it sells tickets for the much-anticipated Ashes series against England after criticism from fans that the existing system played into the hands of scalpers. Thousands of angry fans missed out when the first batch of tickets went on sale this month and were left fuming as tickets immediately appeared on internet auction sites at vastly inflated prices.
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Pubs stayed open well past their regular closing times on Monday and millions of people tuned in at home on a cold winter’s night as Australia started its World Cup-induced dose of insomnia with a victory. Nobody was complaining about the impending sleepless nights, particularly after Australia beat Japan 3-1.