Australia's Molly Picklum scores near-perfect wave but falls short in Trestles Pro final
The Australian's 9.6 point wave – the highest women's score all season – in her semi-final defeat of the defending world champion Caity Simmers ensured she finally got the better of the Californian in their seventh encounter.
But Hawaiian Bettylou Sakura Johnson (17 points) was too good in the final, edging Picklum (14.3) at Lower Trestles.
The Australian's result firmed her hold of third place, well clear of fourth with three regular season events remaining before the top-five battle for the World Surf League title in Fiji in August.
'I'm really happy with second place,' said Picklum, who is hunting her third top-five finish in just her fourth season.
'This year, more than any other year, I've been pushed inside and outside of the water.
Most powerful turn all event? 🔨Molly Picklum gets her first win over Caity and advances to the Final ✅📺 @Lexus #TrestlesPro is LIVE | @outerknown pic.twitter.com/OZDcTEAhhg
'Caity obviously pushed me, and I'm so happy to have gotten one over her.
'She beats me every time, and then Bettylou, I got her a few times early on in our career, and now she's starting to get me.
'She inspires me in the water, and it's just incredible. Everyone's just so capable of beating everyone, and I'm so happy to be here.'
Joel Vaughan's giant-killing run ended in the quarter-finals while Jack Robinson (16.10) was pipped by Kanoa Igarashi (17.10) in the semi-finals.
The Japanese surfer (16.07) was then edged in a high-scoring final by Brazil's Yago Dora (17.90).
Ethan Ewing also made the quarter-finals, he and Robinson sixth and seventh respectively in a stacked men's ladder pushing for a Fiji berth in the final year of the top-five format.
The tour now moves to Brazil's Saquarema break in Rio de Janeiro, with the window opening on 21 June.
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The Guardian
32 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Wallabies break South Africa's aura of invincibility in win that asks: is Australian rugby back?
For 18 minutes, everything was going according to script. The double world champions were running riot at Ellis Park, stomping over the gain line with every carry, shrugging off tacklers and hammering anyone unlucky enough to be wearing a gold jersey. Australia had touched the ball twice before Kurt-Lee Arendse scored the opening try; once when James O'Connor kicked off, then again when Tom Wright spilled a contestable kick. Twelve minutes later André Esterhuizen sliced through the right before Siya Kolisi bulldozed over under the posts. Manie Libbok kicked seven extra points to nudge the score to 22-0 in South Africa's favour. We'd not yet reached the quarter mark of this one-sided contest. Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii had his nose bloodied by Eben Etzebeth. Will Skelton was being bullied. O'Connor, parachuted in at fly-half, had been steamrolled on three occasions. The Wallabies had arrived in Johannesburg with reputations enhanced after their Lions series defeat. This felt like a reality check. And then Fraser McReight won a penalty on the ground in his own 22. 'Momentum' is an overused word in rugby, usually cited only in hindsight. Yet this was the spark. It was here that Australia turned around, dug their heels in and fired shots of their own. It was here that Australian rugby under Joe Schmidt ascended another level. Four consecutive penalties later and Dylan Pietsch was sliding over in the corner. South Africa's failings compounded matters. 'We were really dogshit on the day,' their coach Rassie Erasmus said. Too often they overplayed and were inaccurate in the red zone. Their inability to secure the ball was a concern against Italy and Georgia during the July internationals. Now it is a glaring weakness. Any team with a back row as dynamic as the one under Schmidt's watch will cause the Boks a world of trouble. Two minutes after the restart Nick Frost nicked a lineout. Then Angus Bell thumped Malcolm Marx before finding Harry Wilson on a superb line. Ellis Park was hushed, as if 60,000 people realised at once that the Springboks' aura of invincibility was just a story they'd been told. The players seemed to sense it too. Most of them lifted the Webb Ellis Cup two years ago after a hat-trick of one-point victories. They've made a habit of snatching triumphs from hopeless causes but momentum was fully against them. Perhaps this is why Libbok forced the issue from inside his own half with an ambitious floating pass only to see Suaalii pluck it from the thin Highveld air and dot it down for a try on the hour. Wilson had his second, sparked by the magnificent Wright who didn't put a foot wrong after that opening knock-on, to give Australia the lead. Mere seconds after the restart Max Jorgensen was flying down the right tramline to open up the advantage. And when McReight stooped low with just seven minutes left, getting his meaty frame over the ball with the Boks swarming inside Australia's 22, the game was won. Wright's cherry-on-the-top, counterattacking, zigzagging try turned the result from a nail-biting upset to a bona fide shellacking. Make no mistake, this is the biggest hiding the world champions have copped since their fairytale run began in 2019. 'I don't think it was about one moment,' Schmidt said when asked how his team pulled this off. 'It was about sticking to what we'd talked about all week. The boys showed a lot of courage, and when we got a foothold, we kept building.' That is the emerging story of Schmidt's Wallabies: a side that doesn't collapse but grows when written off. They stole a late win at Twickenham last year, rallied against the Lions after a poor first Test, and now turned a 22-point deficit into a first win in Johannesburg since 1963. Sign up to The Breakdown The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed after newsletter promotion Does all this put the Lions series result in context? Are South Africa's veterans now a step behind? Are they caught between two philosophies, one that trusts in traditional might while the other compels them to run it from deep? Can we declare that Aussie rugby is officially back? This always seems to happen when Australia flips the script and produces something special. But maybe this is the script. Maybe a team with a solid set-piece, a totem in the lineout, berserkers at the breakdown, ballers in the midfield and dazzlers in the backfield are simply a formidable outfit that deserve more respect than they've been shown. Maybe those players under the guidance of a coach who appreciates rugby's fundamentals and knows how to get the most out of his charges can be more than just a plucky side character. If this is indeed the redrafting of a story we thought we all knew, then the entire sport will be better for it. Not that Erasmus will be too bothered with all that. He'll already be plotting a way back in the sequel next week.
Telegraph
41 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Merv Hughes interview: I should be knighted for ‘dragging' Botham out of crocodile-infested waters
Merv Hughes has spent nine months relishing his reimagining as a 21st-century Crocodile Dundee, plucking a stricken Lord Botham from the jaws of an apex predator 15 feet long. Their escapades last November on the Moyle River passed instantly into folklore, with the great larrikin of Australian cricket reportedly shelving any thought of self-preservation to ensure that England's beloved Beefy – who published photographs of bruises sustained in his fall from their fishing boat – did not end his days as the local crocodiles' lunch. 'I should be knighted,' he says with a laugh, that famous moustache twitching with delight. 'I can't believe King Charles didn't give me a call.' There was just one problem: Hughes, far from diving heroically into the murky, treacherous waters, was blissfully unaware his friend had even taken a tumble. Deciding it is finally time to come clean, he says: 'We did go fishing, and Ian Botham did fall in the water. But did I have anything to do with dragging him out? Not quite. I was asleep in my cabin. I found out about two hours later.' Hughes and Botham are hewn from the same stock, having both become Ashes icons through a combination of playing hard and celebrating harder. If Botham is immortalised in the mind's eye through that picture of him dragging on a dressing-room cigar after hitting 145 not out, en route to the timeless 1981 triumph at Headingley, then Hughes is best captured by an image marking Australia's 1993 series win by necking a bottle of Veuve Clicquot at the same ground. 'He's great company, Beefy,' says the incorrigible Merv. 'He loves a lot of things I love doing – loves his fishing, loves his drinking, loves his eating.' Tales of Hughes's ox-like constitution are legion: he could put away so much ale in his pomp that the Bay 13 brewery, named after the Melbourne Cricket Ground's rowdiest section, has launched a 'Merv' pilsner in his honour. As for food, the scale of his late-night room service orders, involving steak sandwiches galore and milkshakes in every flavour, could shock even his room-mate Shane Warne. When he failed to make the cut for the 1997 tour of England, he joked that it was the right one to miss given that the Australians were no longer backed by the XXXX brewery. 'Got to honour the sponsors,' he grins. 'We also had the McDonald's Cup in those days, where we were given Big Mac vouchers.' It feels somewhat against the grain, then, that when we meet on a breezy day in Melbourne's Docklands, still deep in the southern-hemisphere winter, he opts for nothing more fortifying than a latte. At 63, he is all that you would hope for in the flesh, with his luxuriant whiskers and well-upholstered physique arguably more redolent of a bush ranger than a fast bowler. He made an indelible impact, though, with England fans' mocking chants of 'Sumo' contradicted by his 212 Test wickets and by the verdict of the late, great Bob Simpson, Australia's former coach, that he was 'one of the most underrated bowlers in the history of the game'. There is so much to discuss, from the England players he ranks as his toughest opponents to his views on the Bazballers' new stated commitment to sledging, an art in which he can claim to be especially well-versed. Beyond all this, though, we need to establish the real chronology of his Boy's Own adventure last year with Botham in the Northern Territory. After all, his reputation for machismo is at stake here, with Botham himself hailing him as integral to the rescue act: 'Merv asked, 'Have I done the right thing?' Or words to that effect.' 'We had gone up for a charity lunch in Darwin,' Hughes reflects. 'We had a fish, and on the second day Beefy turned to me and said, 'You don't see many crocs here.' I said, 'Mate, it's not the crocs you see that are the problem.' When I got up early to admire the sunrise, I saw a 4½-metre crocodile 10 metres away, just sitting there. What people don't realise are the tides – it's a nine-metre tide. If you go off the back of the boat, you're going to get swept away. The moment Beefy went in, a couple of guys grabbed hold of his shirt so that he didn't lose contact. That's the true story. But if you want me to tell the fictitious one, I'm happy to go with that, too. The one where I dived in the water and dragged him out of the croc's grasp.' Well, it did seem a persuasive image. Although not, perhaps, if you knew the first thing about crocodiles. 'One of my sons rang me up and asked, 'Dad, did you really dive in and save him?' And I told him, 'If my eldest child went in that river, I wouldn't dive in.' You don't even dip your toe in the water up there.' Ultimately, it was the three crew members who were awake – Justin Jones, Hughes's friend and an avid fisherman, Greg Ireland, chief executive of the Northern Territory's chamber of commerce, plus the on-board chef – who took credit for hauling Botham to safety. Not that the man himself let his battered torso and wounded pride detract from the object of the trip. A few hours later, he caught a 3ft barramundi. 'He knows what he's doing, I'll give him that,' Hughes says. 'I thought he'd just be a fly fisherman, catching trout. Some people get intimidated by big fish, but he just does it easily. I was thinking, 'I wish I was that calm.'' It might be the warmest compliment to an Englishman that has ever passed Hughes's lips. For in Ashes mode he became a terror, a cartoon savage, with his curiously pitter-patter run-up – 'mincing', one observer called it – disguising an extreme malevolence of intent. It was just not his deliveries that could unsettle, with his 1993 yorker to demolish Mike Gatting's stumps a particular highlight, but also the four-letter oaths he would throw in afterwards. 'I was pretty basic,' he admits. 'That's where Mike Atherton was too good for me. He walked past me once and said something, and I had to ask Ian Healy, 'What was that?' 'Oh, he meant that you look like a chimpanzee,' Heals said. 'Why didn't he just say it, then?' 'I think he's educated, mate.' It's interesting, the way people go about it. There was nothing subtle about what I did on a cricket ground.' By any standards, it was a fascinating duel: Atherton, the Cambridge Blue, versus Hughes, whose formal schooling ended at 16 and who, pre-stardom, kept himself fed and watered working in a Melbourne toy shop. In 1989, he targeted the 21-year-old Atherton deliberately because he was young – 'I'll bowl you a piano, see if you can play that' was one favourite barb – and was impressed by the stoicism of the response. 'I went hard at him, to see what he was made of. And he was pretty b----- good. It was just water off a duck's back, it didn't faze him.' The same could hardly be said of Graeme Hick, whom Hughes tormented so relentlessly throughout the '93 Ashes that umpire Dickie Bird intervened, saying: 'Don't talk to Mr Hick like that. What has he done to you?' Apparently, he had been fond of taunting his prey: 'Turn the bat over, the instructions are on the other side.' While the Ashes brought out his most devilish instincts, his finest moment of spontaneity came against Pakistan in 1991, when Javed Miandad had the temerity to deride him as a 'fat bus conductor'. Taking his wicket a couple of balls later, Hughes, suitably piqued, revelled in calling after him: 'Tickets, please.' It is his virtuoso abilities at what Australians call a 'bit of chirp' that make him well-placed to judge England's efforts at amplifying their nasty streak. With Harry Brook, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett all far more belligerent in confronting India this summer, the pre-Ashes tensions are coming to the boil beautifully. Except Hughes believes it is all a little too premeditated. 'If you've got to practise it, you've lost,' he says. 'If it doesn't come naturally to you and you have to add it to your game, you're better off not doing it. I grew up with it. At 14, 15, I was copping it. The big thing you learn is that you have to be in control. The best sledge you can give an opposing batsman is one that totally humiliates him and makes your team-mates laugh.' With many predictions suggesting the closest series in years, would Hughes like to see a more even series? 'Nah,' he replies. 'I really enjoy the blow-outs.' With scorelines Down Under of 5-0, 4-0, 4-0 since 2011, he has had plenty of sadistic pleasure at the Poms' expense. The difference was that the extraordinary team to which he belonged, under Allan Border's captaincy, achieved the same dominance on English soil, securing big wins on both his Ashes tours. 'I had gone over to England on an Esso scholarship in 1983, spending time in Essex, and I progressed five years in six months,' he reflects. 'Heading off on the '89 tour, we had been written off as the worst Australian team of all time. But we had confidence among ourselves. Plus, there was real combat for spots on the team. I was looking over my shoulder at guys like Michael Slater, Shane Warne, Paul Reiffel, Damien Martyn, thinking, 'I don't want to put in a bad performance here.'' Their supremacy set the tone: when they wrested the urn back from England in '89, they would not relinquish it for 16 years. It was Hughes's antics on tour that would define him. With the demeanour of a villain in a silent movie, he was fodder for England supporters whenever he ventured near the boundary rope, not least when he began chasing a stray dog on the Trent Bridge outfield. And yet the casting was one he loved. 'I can't for the life of me understand how opposing players get disturbed by the crowd. If the crowd bait you in England, you think, 'Well, at least they know who I am.' Mitchell Johnson said it was really intimidating. But mate, it's only intimidating if you allow it to be. It was the same for Botham at the MCG – they knew who he was. It's a feather in your cap.' Sometimes, Hughes's distinctions as a cricketer can be forgotten. In 1988, he took the most wickets ever for Australia in a losing cause, with his 13 for 207 against the West Indies in brutal Perth heat. That featured the most convoluted hat-trick of all, spread across three overs and two innings. Woe betide anyone who argues that it is diminished on that basis. 'People say, 'A batsman can't get 80 in one innings, 20 in another, and be credited with a hundred.' Well, batting's easy, bowling's hard. Make the rules for batsmen and leave the bowlers alone.' He blazed relatively briefly as a player, retreating to the margins after a serious knee injury. But he takes comfort from the fact that he savoured every minute. 'Paul Hibbert used to say to me, 'Treat every game like it's your last, because it could well be.' When you're 20, it sounds a stupid saying. But then you get to a point where you think, 'How real is that?' It's amazing, the things that hit years later.' Hibbert, nine years his senior, died at 56 from an internal haemorrhage reported as possibly related to alcoholism. The generation of which Hughes was part has suffered no shortage of tragedy, from Shane Warne to Graham Thorpe. 'Dean Jones, too,' he says, remembering the batsman he once called his 'brother', who died from a stroke in 2020. It is why, although he tires sometimes of being celebrated as a 'character', he is just content that his contribution continues to endure. 'You don't play 10 years of international cricket because you're a character. But I'm happy to run with it – it still gets me work, still gets me recognised. 'Character' is fine. I'm happy to go with whatever anyone wants to call me, to be honest.' And therein lies the essence of Hughes, a sledger extraordinaire but a man with no shortage of soul.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Rays don't solve Justin Verlander but edge Giants again
August 17 - Brandon Lowe capped a two-run eighth inning with an RBI single, five Tampa Bay pitchers combined on a seven-hitter and the Rays recorded a second straight one-run road win over the San Francisco Giants, 2-1 on Saturday night despite a turn-back-the-clock performance by Justin Verlander. Down 1-0 entering the eighth but with the Giants having turned the game over to their bullpen, the Rays got a break when No. 9 hitter Nick Fortes was hit by a pitch from right-hander Jose Butto (3-3) with two outs. Chandler Simpson and Yandy Diaz followed with singles, the latter plating pinch runner Tristan Gray with the tying run. Lowe then greeted left-hander Matt Gage with a single to left field, scoring Simpson with the eventual difference-maker. Edwin Uceta (9-2), who pitched a scoreless seventh, was credited with his second win in two nights. Bryan Baker threw a 1-2-3 eighth before Pete Fairbanks pitched around a leadoff single and stolen base by Jung Hoo Lee in the ninth for his 22nd save. Verlander, who is 1-9 this season, did not get a decision. He worked the first seven innings, leaving with a 1-0 lead after allowing just two hits and no walks. He struck out eight, one off his season high. The scoreless effort was the 81st of Verlander's 20-year career. He had been the winning pitcher in 62 of his previous 80 such games, including a 1-0 record with the Giants when his only win in 21 starts came after five shutout innings in a 9-3 win at Atlanta in July. For the hard-luck 42-year-old, it was the 12th time this season in which he's gotten two or fewer runs of support. For seven innings, it appeared the Giants had given Verlander the only run needed for a second win when Christian Koss, San Francisco's new third baseman in the wake of injuries to Matt Chapman and Casey Schmitt, singled home Willy Adames with two outs in the sixth. The hit came off Uceta, Tampa Bay's third pitcher, after Rays starter Adrian Houser had matched zeroes with Verlander for five innings. The right-hander allowed four hits while striking out six with no walks. Diaz and Lowe had two hits apiece for the Rays, who won a third straight despite not having an extra-base blow among their six hits. Lee had two hits and Koss collected a single and a double, the only extra-base hit of the game, for the Giants, who lost their seventh straight, all at home. --Field Level Media
