Wallaby captain George Gregan will miss the ACT Brumbies’ final Super 14 round-robin match after being suspended on Monday for a dangerous tackle. Gregan was suspended following a hearing by a three-man Sanzar panel for his tackle on Otago Highlanders winger Richard Kahui in Saturday’s 28-26 Brumbies’ loss at Canberra Stadium.
The church bells of Beaconsfield, a small town in north Tasmania, have not rung since the end of World War II. But on Saturday night the bellringers were preparing to go to work again as two mates who have been buried alive for 12 days almost a kilometre deep after the collapse of the town’s goldmine on 25 April were being dug free of their nightmare.
They’ve been trapped in a tiny cage nearly a kilometre underground for 10 days, but two Australian gold miners still haven’t lost their sense of humour. ”They call where they are a two-star hotel — they’re the two stars,” said Matthew Gill, manager of the century-old Beaconsfield Gold Mine.
Paramedics and psychologists were on Thursday counselling two Australian miners buried alive for nine days as rescuers inched towards them, drilling through tonnes of rock. With the method and speed of the rescue attempt limited by fears of a new rockfall, the medics were available 24 hours a day at one end of a narrow pipe which is the only link the men have to the outside world.
Five-times champions Canterbury Crusaders are facing a Super 14 acid test against South Africa’s Northern Bulls on Friday in an encounter they must win to keep their title hopes on track. Buffeted by last weekend’s upset defeat to the Western Stormers, the champion New Zealand province suddenly find themselves with their season on the line.
Australian pace bowler Glenn McGrath intends not to heed the advice of his skipper Ricky Ponting and make his cricket comeback in the Champions Trophy one-day tournament in India in October. McGrath, the most successful Test fast bowler with 542 wickets, has not played a game of cricket since his wife Jane was rediagnosed with cancer on February 3.
International housewife superstar Dame Edna Everage issued a tongue-in-cheek rebuttal on Thursday of a claim her alter ego and creator punched a photographer. Australian actor Barry Humphries, who has played the purple-haired character since the 1950s, hit out at a freelance celebrity photographer in Sydney on Wednesday.
Australia have been counting down the days for a rematch with New Zealand after their ignominious 24-0 wipeout in last November’s Tri-Nations rugby league final. The chance to atone for their worst international defeat to the Kiwis comes at Brisbane’s Lang Park Friday in the annual Anzac Test match between rugby league’s two top teams.
The ACT Brumbies overwhelmed the Queensland Reds 36-0 on Saturday in Canberra, Australia, all but clinching a semifinal berth in rugby’s Super 14 competition. All Blacks hooker Andrew Hore scored three tries for the Wellington Hurricanes’ 35-10 win over the Waikato Chiefs in Wellington, New Zealand.
Cricket Australia on Friday opened a state-of-the-art facility that its Test team will use as a base while fine-tuning plans to regain the Ashes from England. The new Centre of Excellence in Brisbane includes a video analysis room, a top-class gymnasium and integrated sports science facilities.
Australian cricketer Shane Warne may be called to give evidence in the trial of a taxi driver charged with the murder of a teenage passenger, the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court heard on Wednesday. Rajbinder Singh Shahi (28) is charged with murdering 17-year-old Xavier Salmon by running him down with his taxi after a dispute in December last year.
A hugely destructive cyclone described as a ”perfect” storm bore down on Monday on the isolated northern Australian city of Darwin, devastated by a killer cyclone in 1974. Packing winds of up to 350kph, Tropical Cyclone Monica was moving relentlessly towards Darwin as it turned towards the coast from the Arafura Sea, the government’s weather bureau said.
The ACT Brumbies consolidated their semifinal play-off chances in rugby’s Super 14 competition on Saturday, beating the third-place Wellington Hurricanes 21-16. The win left the Brumbies with 32 points in fourth place, two behind the Hurricanes. The Canterbury Crusaders lead the competition with 42 points.
The Western Force led for most of the match and had a late try disallowed to draw with the first-place Canterbury Crusaders 23-23 in a Super 14 rugby match on Friday. Playing the final home game of their inaugural season before 30 000 spectators at Subiaco Oval, the Force had a try by Haig Sare disallowed with three minutes left.
South Africa’s Stormers scored three tries in three minutes in the second half on Friday to beat the Queensland Reds 24-20 in a Super 14 rugby match. Rodney Blake and Drew Mitchell scored first-half tries as the Reds led 13-3 at half-time, but the Stormers’ second-half burst of 21 points put the visitors ahead for good.
Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting has labelled the increasingly hectic international Test schedule ”unacceptable” and has demanded more recovery time between matches. Ponting’s side completed a 2-0 series clean sweep against Bangladesh on Thursday but only after the Test minnows came close to a shock win in the first match against an out-of-sorts Australia.
Australia’s inspirational playmaker Stephen Larkham was ruled out of rugby for four to six weeks on Tuesday in a dent to the ACT Brumbies Super 14 hopes and the Wallabies’ Test preparations. The five-eighth said a scan had revealed he had suffered a grade two hamstring tear in the Brumbies’ loss to the Waratahs last Saturday.
Wallabies lock Hugh McMeniman will miss Australia’s midyear rugby internationals, including the Tri-Nations series against New Zealand and South Africa, because of a shoulder injury. McMeniman (22) said on Wednesday he will undergo surgery to repair the injury and related nerve damage, and will not be available for international selection.
Australia on Tuesday rushed Nathan Bracken and Daniel Cullen into their squad for the second Test in Bangladesh as the world champions faced an embarrassing loss against the sport’s minnows. Cricket Australia announced that left-arm paceman Bracken and uncapped spinner Cullen would join the team ahead of the second Test on concerns that injuries would force changes in the present team.
Australian opener Justin Langer on Thursday dismissed fears a concussion suffered in South Africa could end his Test career, likening the injury to a ”massive hangover”. Langer arrived back in Perth to rest after being concussed by a Makhaya Ntini screamer at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg.
The long-time chairperson of Australia’s national cricket selectors, Trevor Hohns, announced his resignation on Tuesday after coming under increasing criticism over a series of controversial team choices. Cricket Australia said Hohns was quitting after a decade as chairperson of the selectors’ panel to devote more time to his business interests.
Cheetahs scrumhalf Falie Oelschig was suspended for one week on Monday after being found guilty of striking during the South African side’s Super 14 loss to the New South Wales Waratahs, the Australian Rugby Union announced. Oelschig faced the judicial committee of Sanzar, the body that oversees the Super 14 tournament, in Sydney.
Spain’s Fernando Alonso won the Australian Grand Prix in a dominating drive in Melbourne on Sunday as the Renault world drivers’ champion led for all but a couple of laps. McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen was behind him 1,8 seconds off the pace with Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher third a further 22,9 seconds back.
Jenson Button earned his third career formula-one pole position on Saturday after recording the fastest time in qualifying for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix. It was the first pole since last year’s Canadian Grand Prix for the Honda driver, who is yet to win a race in more than 100 grands prix.
A late try by Stormers flanker Luke Watson denied Western Force their first Super 14 rugby win by the narrowest of margins in Perth on Friday. The South Africans were trailing 25-21 with just four minutes left when Watson crashed over to give them a 26-25 win over the luckless newcomers. The relief for the visitors was as palpable as the disappointment for the Force.
New South Wales Waratahs fullback Peter Hewat scored a try among 21 points on Friday as the Waratahs beat South Africa’s Cheetahs 26-3 to consolidate their lead in the Super 14. Hewat kept a perfect kicking record for the second match in a row, landing two conversions and four penalties to take his individual points tally for the season to 132.
Australia on Friday warned of a possible terrorist attack against Western interests in Indonesia this weekend, in an updated travel advisory issued by the Foreign Affairs Department in Canberra. The advisory urged Australians against travelling to Indonesia, including the resort island of Bali, ”due to the very high threat of terrorist attack”.
A severe tropical cyclone packing winds of up to 250kph slammed into a major oil and mining region of western Australia on Thursday but missed the area’s main population centres. Cyclone Glenda hit land about 4pm local time in cattle-grazing territory in the Pilbara region about 200km south-west of the massive oil- and ore-shipping centre of Karratha.
A severe tropical cyclone packing winds of up to 235kph battered a major oil and mining region of Western Australia on Thursday, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents and the lock-down of key industries. Emergency officials said torrential rains and a storm sea surge of up to 10m driven by Cyclone Glenda would bring widespread flooding to the region.
Marine scientists from around the world met in Australia on Wednesday to set up a digital sensor network that can monitor endangered coral reefs around the globe. The meeting in the northeastern city of Townsville is due to launch a pilot monitoring system that will cover 400km of the nearby Great Barrier Reef, organisers said.
Michael Schumacher said on Wednesday he is confident he can improve on his disappointing formula-one campaign of last year, thanks to his new, improved Ferrari. The seven-times world champion is hoping to bounce back at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.
The Cairns Group of agricultural exporting nations warned on Wednesday of "dangerous" consequences if major trading blocs do not agree to significant cuts in tariffs and farm subsidies by an April deadline in world trade talks. "It would be dangerous to assume that the significant moves that are required by major members can be left until the eleventh hour. They cannot," the group said.