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/ 1 September 2006
Australia coach John Connolly will resist the temptation to experiment with a new line-up in the Wallabies’ final Tri-Nations match against South Africa. Neither side can win the series with New Zealand having already wrapped up the title but Connolly said there was still plenty at stake.
Cricket Australia’s umpire selection chairperson is reportedly prepared to offer Darrell Hair a career lifeline if he is dropped from cricket’s elite panel over the Pakistan Test forfeit row. The Sydney Morning Herald said Mel Johnson could offer Hair a place on Cricket Australia’s international panel.
Australia’s Sydney FC said on Thursday that talks are under way with English Championship outfit Sunderland that could see Dwight Yorke reunited with former Manchester United teammate Roy Keane. Yorke (34) is contracted to the A-League champions for another year but the striker has been repeatedly linked to the English club in the lead up to the Australian season.
Australian telecoms giant Telstra said on Thursday it had paid $254-million for a majority stake in Chinese real-estate and home furnishing website SouFun Holdings. Telstra chairperson Sol Trujillo said the site was a market leader in China and would be managed by Sensis, which runs Telstra’s online directories such as the yellow and white pages.
Finding a date for the school prom is often a daunting business for high school students worldwide. Not so for Jordan Avramides from Sydney, Australia. At his formal end-of-year dance, sixteen-year-old Avramides will be walking in with the undisputed belle of the ball on his arm — Miss Universe Australia 2006, Erin McNaught.
A brothel in Australia’s biggest city, Sydney, is tapping into discontent over high petrol prices by offering clients a discount of about 15% a litre, a report said on Wednesday. Madam Kerry’s brothel said that like many other Australian businesses, the sex industry has been hit by a slump triggered by soaring world oil prices and the rise in prices at the pump.
Mat Rogers, Australia’s back-up playmaker, will undergo knee surgery this week and will miss the last 2006 Tri-Nations rugby international in South Africa. Scott Staniforth was drafted in on Monday as cover in Australia’s 25-man squad, which leaves on Friday for Johannesburg to fine tune for the September 9 match.
A pre-Ashes boot camp at which Australia’s top cricketers underwent commando training in a Queensland forest was ”absolute garbage”, Test great Neil Harvey said on Friday. ”Can you imagine [Don] Bradman or [Keith] Miller or [Ray] Lindwall, or any of those blokes going on one of those?” Harvey said, referring to some of his more notable former Australian teammates.
Australia’s top players have swapped traditional white cricket clothing for army greens as they step up their preparations to win back the Ashes in the Queensland bush. Twenty-five players, including captain Ricky Ponting and master leg-spinner Shane Warne, headed out of Brisbane in the early hours of Wednesday morning for a hike in the Beerwah State Forest.
Australia coach John Connolly has left prop Greg Holmes out of a 25-man squad for next month’s Tri-Nations Test in South Africa, the Australian Rugby Union said on Thursday. Holmes will stay at home to rest after starting all eight of the Wallabies’ tests in 2006. His place was taken by Benn Robinson.
A Pakistan-born Australian architect was jailed for 20 years on Wednesday for planning bomb attacks in Sydney, a court official said. Pakistan-born Faheem Khalid Lodhi had planned to detonate home-made bombs in Australia’s largest city as part of a ”holy war”, the New South Wales Supreme Court was told during his trial.
A bomb scare on board a passenger airliner from China to Australia forced the pilot to abort the flight, shaken passengers said on Tuesday. A note warning that a bomb would explode on the China Southern Airlines flight from Guangzhou to Sydney was found less than an hour into the journey, passengers told reporters.
Australia rugby captain George Gregan hinted on Tuesday he would finally be ready to hang up his boots if he leads the Wallabies at the World Cup in France next year. ”To get through to next year’s World Cup, that’ll pretty much do me,” Gregan told Channel Seven when asked about his remaining goals in his record-breaking career.
Former Australia captains Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor defended umpire Darrell Hair’s integrity in the wake of the Pakistan forfeit row on Tuesday, as the local media dubbed him ”the bravest man in cricket”. Waugh said the Australian official correctly awarded the fourth Test to England on Sunday after Pakistan refused to come out after tea.
One of Australia’s great Olympic rowers, Mervyn Wood, passed away on the weekend of August 20 and 21 after a long battle with cancer, the Australian Olympic Committee said on Monday. He was 89. Wood represented Australia at four Olympic Games and won three medals.
Australian police evacuated and searched a Pacific Blue flight from Fiji to Sydney on Thursday after a threat was made against the plane, but nothing suspicious was found on board. Oficials said 102 passengers and seven crew aboard flight DJ 154 were evacuated from the Boeing 737 after it landed at 5.45pm local time at Sydney’s international terminal.
Scientists in Australia have discovered a fossilised ancient relative of the blue whale with a fearsome razor-toothed appearance that has seen it dubbed ”the T. rex of the oceans”. The fossil is the latest in a list of ancient creatures, including the unlikely sounding ”demon duck of doom”, that are reshaping views of Australia’s prehistoric past.
Australian wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist says he is looking at remaining in cricket beyond next year’s World Cup in the Caribbean. Gilchrist, who requires 41 more dismissals to usurp compatriot Ian Healy at the top of the Test wicket-keeping list, had previously indicated that he might quit the game after the March-April World Cup to spend more time with his young family.
Embattled Wallaby skipper George Gregan has hit back at his trenchant media critics, saying the criticism has become personal and petty. Gregan has been under fire from sections of the Australian rugby media and the criticism reached a crescendo during Australia’s ugly 20-18 Tri-Nations’ victory over South Africa last Saturday.
The Springboks are headed home after a winless five-week Australasian tour, looking forward to finishing the Tri-Nations rugby series on an upswing with three home matches at altitude. South Africa’s players were heartbroken to go down to a converted try in the final minutes of their 20-18 loss to Australia in Sydney on Saturday.
Mat Rogers scored out wide with four minutes remaining and Stirling Mortlock converted from the sideline as Australia rallied to edge South Africa 20-18 in Saturday’s Tri-Nations rugby union international. The Australians, 49-0 victors over the South Africans three weeks ago, let a 10-0 half-time lead slip.
An Australian city slicker who recently moved to the continent’s tropical far north has found he is housemates with a 6m python and its 3m mate. James Kinniburgh discovered the amethystine pythons living in the roof of his Cairns house a fortnight ago, Australia’s AAP news agency reported on Saturday.
Coach Jake White is working overtime to get his wounded Springboks in the right frame of mind to pull off a spectacular turnaround in Saturday’s Tri-Nations rugby Test with Australia at Sydney’s Olympic stadium. ”The most important area to address with the players is the mental aspect,” White said on Friday.
South Africa coach Jake White has named lock Johann Muller and winger Akona Ndungane to his team for Saturday’s Tri-Nations match against Australia in Sydney. Muller wins his third cap in place of Albert van der Bergh while fit-again Ndungane comes in for Breyton Paulse in two changes to the starting line-up that lost 35-17 to New Zealand two weeks ago.
Australian pace bowler Glenn McGrath tempted fate on Tuesday when he named England’s stand-in captain Andrew Strauss and batsman Alastair Cook as his batting ”bunnies” (batsmen he intends to dominate) for the upcoming Ashes series. McGrath’s bold claim comes after he predicted a 5-0 whitewash to Australia in the last Ashes series.
Rare, mother-of-pearl coloured clouds caused by extreme weather conditions above Antarctica are a possible indication of global warming, Australian scientists said on Tuesday. Known as nacreous clouds, the spectacular formations showing delicate wisps of colours were photographed in the sky over an Australian meteorological base at Mawson Station on July 25.
South Africa promised on Monday to bounce back from a record 49-0 drubbing by the Wallabies and fight to win this week’s Tri-Nations clash. The Springboks were humiliated two weeks ago when they failed to score against Australia in Brisbane and now sit at the bottom of the table.
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.
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.
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.