Twin brothers from Russia were due to set off from Western Australia on Friday in a bid to cross the Indian Ocean in a rowboat, Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio reported. Alexander and Sergey Sinelnik (31) hope to be the first to row the 7 400km from Australia to South Africa.
It’s make-or-break time for defending champions ACT Brumbies in their return home for the showdown with shaky front-runners New South Wales Waratahs on Saturday. The Brumbies have slumped to fifth spot with five matches left to next month’s playoffs after losing their last three games on the road.
Adam Gilchrist says the 2007 World Cup will likely be his last cricket series for Australia. The 33-year-old Gilchrist, the world’s premier wicketkeeper-batsman, told Inside Cricket magazine that he won’t be playing for Australia in three years’ time, domestic media reported on Tuesday.
Perth capped an impressive week of recruiting on Friday with the appointment of former Wallaby prop Ben Darwin assistant forwards coach of the new Super 14 franchise. Darwin is currently head coach of Sydney club Northern Districts and will remain as such until the end of the Tooheys New Cup before relocating to Perth in October.
The Perth Super 14 franchise received its first public knockback on Thursday when in-form fullback Peter Hewat rejected a lucrative offer in favour of re-signing with New South Wales (NSW). Perth have snared two high-profile Wallabies this week in NSW hooker Brenan Cannon and Queensland lock Nathan Sharpe.
Wallaby hooker Brendan Cannon became the first player to join Perth’s Super 14 team on Tuesday, signing a two-year contract with the new franchise. The announcement of Cannon’s defection from the Super 12-leading New South Wales (NSW) Waratahs prompted an angry tirade from NSW coach Ewan McKenzie.
Put it this way: those who have a love life are likely to live longer than those who don’t. That’s the conclusion Australian academic Prof Marc Cohen came to after reading through the literature on the link between love and longevity. ”Having love in your life will improve your chances of living a long life,” Cohen said.
The Canterbury Crusaders restored the Super 12 rugby status quo with an ominous victory to burst the unbeaten five-match bubble of the New South Wales Waratahs this weekend. The Auckland Blues smacked ACT Brumbies 17-0, while the Otago Highlanders ground out a 23-16 win over Queensland Reds.
As Indonesians struggled to recover from the second deadly earthquake to strike them in three months, an Australian expert warned on Friday that the country faces the prospect of a ”super volcano” eruption that would dwarf all previous catastrophes. The world’s biggest super volcano is Lake Toba, on Indonesia’s island of Sumatra.
New South Wales Waratahs vice-captain Phil Waugh believes his unbeaten side must play mistake-free rugby if it wants to halt the high-scoring Crusaders juggernaut in Saturday’s Super 12 rugby blockbuster at Aussie Stadium. The Waratahs lead the ladder with an immaculate record of five wins from as many fixtures.
New South Wales fullback Mat Rogers was on Tuesday ruled out of next weekend’s crunch match against Canterbury, handing his in-form understudy Peter Hewat a chance to impress selectors. Rogers has failed to recover from a groin injury sustained in South Africa two weeks ago.
The New South Wales Waratahs may be unbeaten after a month’s Super 12 rugby but the Canterbury Crusaders are the favourites with bookmakers to win their sixth southern-hemisphere provincial crown. The Waratahs have another chance to give their title claims more credibility against South Africa’s Northern Bulls in Sydney on Saturday.
An Australian magazine has offered to pay $1,25-million to anybody who can prove that there is a Tasmanian tiger still alive in the wilderness. The last Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is believed to have died in a Hobart zoo in 1936 but since then almost 4 000 sightings of the animal have been reported.
They may be odds-on favourites with the bookies, but history is against the ACT Brumbies overcoming the Sharks in Saturday’s Super 12 match in South Africa. The Brumbies named a strengthened line-up, including gifted fullback Mark Gerard and Wallaby forwards Owen Finegan, Radike Samo and Jeremy Paul, to start against the Sharks at Durban’s Absa Stadium.
Wildlife authorities in Australia were hunting on Friday for a saltwater crocodile after police found the ferocious reptile in a home and released it near a popular swimming hole, thinking it was a relatively harmless freshwater croc, national radio reported. A woman called police after finding the crocodile taped up in her laundry.
New South Wales emerged from a ”difficult week” and made light of the absence of controversial lock Justin Harrison with a 25-10 win over the Stormers at Aussie Stadium on Saturday. The Super 12-leading Waratahs made it four wins from as many starts, though they failed to pick up a bonus point for the first time this season.
Thirty guests tucked into a sheep-shaped cake at a 21st birthday party for a merino who may have set a longevity record for his kind in Australia or even the world, news reports said on Saturday. ”We’ve never ever had a sheep as old as George,” said New South Wales farmer Myra Tolhurst.
Australia’s first frog hospital will be forced to close unless a prince charming rides to the rescue with a bundle of cash, the curator of the Cairns, Queensland, clinic said on Friday. ”We’ve run out entirely,” Deborah Pergolotti told Australia’s AAP news agency. ”Everything costs money and most of the frogs we treat cost more than a hundred dollars each to be well enough for release.”
Wallaby lock Justin Harrison said on Thursday he will stand down from the New South Wales Waratahs team until a disciplinary hearing investigates a racial comment he admitted making to a South African player in a Super 12 rugby last weekend. ”I’m still coming to terms with the ramifications of what I said,” Harrison said.
Remorseful Waratahs lock Justin Harrison has said he will comply with any suspension or fine meted out after admitting on Wednesday to racially vilifying a black South African rugby player. The towering second-rower owned up to making a racial slur directed towards Cats winger Chumani Booi in last weekend’s Super 12 match in Johannesburg.
A ”super cyclone” packing winds of more than 300kph was bearing down on Australia’s remote north-west coast on Tuesday after already striking the country twice in the east and north. Cyclone Ingrid was upgraded to a category five — the highest level — early on Tuesday over the Timor Sea.
Clyde Rathbone has questioned the viability of a fifth South African franchise in the expanded Super 14 competition, saying there are not enough quality players in the country to support it. A South African franchise will be selected in the coming months to join Perth as the two new teams in the 2006 Super 14 competition.
A working dog so faithful that he spent almost a week with his dead owner’s body will be put down and buried with his master, animal welfare group RSPCA said on Monday. ”Euthanasing him is the best thing to do,” said RSPCA Queensland spokesperson Michael Beatty.
Wallaby flyhalf Stephen Larkham has had a reality check with his rugby career after he underwent weekend surgery to remove a melanoma behind a knee. The 30-year-old Test star faces an anxious week as he waits to find out whether all the malignant growth has been removed from behind his left knee.
An Australian rugby enthusiast on Friday vowed to fight legal action from McDonald’s objecting to his team having the word ”McBrat” emblazoned on their uniforms. Lawyer Malcolm McBratney said he sponsored the Brisbane Irish rugby union team, which adopted the ”McBrat” tag because they could not fit his full surname on the back of their shorts.
South Africa’s Western Stormers may have their best chance for a prestige away win over the ACT Brumbies by fielding an entire backline of Springboks against the injury-hit Super 12 champions in Canberra on Friday. The Australians have been battling-on without several of their leading Wallabies in the opening weeks of the tournament, but it will get no easier against the Cape Town-based outfit.
Forecasters sounded an alert on Tuesday over a cyclone heading for Australia’s coast with wind gusts up to 290kph, saying that if the storm strikes a town directly it could be more destructive than one that killed 65 people three decades ago. The storm is ”a very serious threat” to coastal and island communities between the Lockhart River and Port Douglas.
Australian Super 12 players are concerned about excessive drinking and gambling among their peers, according to a survey released on Tuesday. The Australian Rugby Union Players’ Association survey of 84 professional players, including 27 Wallabies, found that 51,1% believed one to 10 members of their state squad had a serious drinking problem.
World number two Lleyton Hewitt will lead Australia’s Davis Cup first-round tennis tie against 144th-ranked Austrian Alexander Peya on grass in Sydney on Friday. Australia’s second singles player, Wayne Arthurs, who won his first career ATP Tour final in Arizona last weekend, will take on Austria’s number-one player, Jurgen Melzer, on Friday.
Former world heavyweight champion and convicted rapist Mike Tyson was unlikely to be granted a visa to fight in Australia, a government minister indicated on Wednesday. Australian boxing great Jeff Fenech said on Tuesday the American had signed on to train with him full-time in a bid to relaunch his career in Australia.
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/ 25 February 2005
Mat Rogers inspired New South Wales to a 25-7 win over Waikato, and Auckland opened the 2005 Super 12 series on Friday with a dominating 30-14 win over the Otago Highlanders in Dunedin. Waratahs fullback Rogers, one of Australia’s best attackers, missed most of the previous Super 12 rugby season with an injured ankle.
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/ 22 February 2005
An Australian trout farm announced a Aus$1 000 dollar (R4 600) reward on Monday for the capture of a giant eel baptised "Nessie’s offspring" that has suddenly appeared in breeding ponds and begun eating up the fish. Visitors who have seen the creature said it is about 4m long with a head the size of a football.