Bizarre late sin bin DRAMA
RLG: Tom Starling was sin binned late in Canberra's game against New Zealand due to a clear high shot, but bizarrely his captain Joe Tapine decided to challenge.
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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
World Test Championship final quick hits: Cummins makes history and batting remains brutal
Pat Cummins reaches a magic marker, Temba Bavuma finally gets one right, and batting remains brutal at Lord's. Here are the quick hits from day two of the World Test Championship final. Sometimes when batters are trapped plumb LBW, they will instantly send the decision upstairs for a review and you straight away say, "Oh, they've nicked it." But that wasn't the case on the second morning at Lord's when it looked for all money like Australia had ended Temba Bavuma's counterattack. The South Africa captain came out swinging on day two but was trapped in front by an in-swinging delivery from Josh Hazlewood that hit the diminutive batter on the back pad. He didn't seem overly confident in his chances but eventually sent Chris Gaffaney's dismissal to DRS where Richard Kettleborough found a faint inside edge before the ball hit his pad. "It took forever to think about reviewing it," former New Zealand captain Ian Smith said in commentary. "When you feel as if you've got a touch on it you just automatically say, 'I'm reviewing that.' There was no semblance of that in that discussion. That was so interesting." Having only just survived that LBW call, it felt like Bavuma was destined for a match-defining innings on day two. Lord's purred as he drove over the covers and gasped as he pulled Pat Cummins for the first six of the match, but his expansiveness ended up getting the better of him. Stepping forward to a full Cummins delivery, he got the connection but not the height. The ball flew through the air before being plucked out of it by a full-stretch Marnus Labuschagne in the covers. Bavuma's brief but exhilarating counterpunch was over on 36 and South Africa's hopes of a first innings lead were fading fast. We've learned over the past few years that most Test cricketers wouldn't make great umpires, with their reviews often wildly off the mark. But Pat Cummins isn't most cricketers. Australia's captain, fired up after lunch on day two at Lord's, was appealing loudly to umpire Chris Gaffaney while running backwards with his arms outstretched. As Gaffaney started shaking his head Cummins was blindsided by Kyle Verreynne, the target of the seamer's appeal, and the pair went crashing to the turf. Cummins quickly dusted himself off, consulted with his lieutenants and reviewed the not-out LBW decision, with three red lights showing the ball smashing leg stump and sending Verreynne back to the sheds. That wasn't the only time Cummins found himself on the carpet that over. Only a matter of balls later, the newly arrived Marco Jansen was pushing forward and looped one straight back to the Australia captain, who was on his knees to complete a simple return catch. And suddenly, a milestone was in sight. Cummins was just two wickets away from becoming the eighth Australian to take 300. His 299th was a delight. A full delivery that straightened off the seam was far too good for David Bedingham, who feathered one through to Alex Carey. His 300th was slightly less textbook. Kagiso Rabada, who had worn a couple of Cummins bouncers, stood tall and shovelled one deep to the leg side. It looked like it was destined to fall safe, but Beau Webster circled, steadied and then soared to take a spectacular catch as he dived forward. South Africa's innings was over and Cummins became the third member of his team — after Nathan Lyon and Josh Hazlewood — to take 300 Test match wickets. After South Africa lost its last five wickets for just 12 runs, the Aussies began their second innings with intent and a 74-run lead, but things went downhill quickly. Usman Khawaja was the first to go, pushing at and edging a delivery to nick off in typical fashion, before Cameron Green went in similar fashion for a duck as they were both dismissed in the same Kagiso Rabada over for the second time in the game. Marnus Labuschagne again got into his work before he too was caught behind after tea, and Steve Smith was out six balls later as South Africa correctly reviewed a not-out LBW call. That was bad enough, but then came another clump of wickets as Lungi Ngidi, Wiaan Mulder and Ngidi again struck in successive overs to take Australia from 4-64 to 7-73. If not for Alex Carey and Mitchell Starc's rearguard, the Proteas might have already taken a big bite out of their run chase before stumps.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Messi, Kane and the warehouse worker — the Kiwi minnows taking on FIFA giants
Conor Tracey works more than 40 hours a week at Auckland's largest veterinary pharmaceutical warehouse. He calls himself "blue collar through and through," and has made his way from a part-time packer to his current position as the foreman's leading hand. It's a role he juggles with an otherworldly footballing double life. Not to be confused with Auckland FC — the A-League's newest club and most recent premiers — Tracey plays in goal for the entirely amateur Auckland City FC. And this month, he and his teammates will travel to the United States, where they will take part in what is being billed as the richest club football tournament of all time — FIFA's revamped, 32-team Club World Cup. As champions of the often-overlooked confederation of Oceania, Auckland City FC will be the only non-professional — and by far the smallest — team at the tournament. Group stage clashes with German mega-club Bayern Munich, 35-time champions of Argentina Boca Juniors, and two-time European Cup winners Benfica await the team's unheralded squad of office workers and sales reps. Calling it an underdog story doesn't quite do it justice. Because these are, on paper at least, some of the most outrageous mismatches in football history. Often the best team in its region, Auckland City hold the record for the most appearances at FIFA's previous seven-team, straight knockout imagining of the Club World Cup. But barring a stirring third-place finish in 2014, City's previous tournaments have rarely lasted longer than one game, often against the hosting club. These international adventures have been the shining lights in a last half decade that general manager Gordon Watson told ABC Sport had been difficult for the club. A 2020 restructuring of top-flight New Zealand amateur football — of which Auckland City was the only team from the old New Zealand Football Championship to survive — meant that the club's number of games a season almost doubled from less than 30 to more than 50. In addition to weekly league matches and this month's Club World Cup, Auckland City's 2025 schedule included the two-week long Oceania Champions League in the Soloman Islands earlier this year, and will feature a week-long overseas trip for the FIFA Intercontinental Cup in December. Combine that with four training sessions a week, physio appointments, as well as a nutrition regime usually only expected of professionals, and it's a lot to ask of a playing group whose footballing "salaries" are capped at $150 a week in expenses. "And I'm spending all of that on petrol," Tracey told ABC Sport, whose drive from work to training can often take up to two hours in the heat of the Auckland afternoon gridlock. Meanwhile, Tracey's World Cup-winning goalkeeping idol and opposite number on match day one of the Club World Cup, Manuel Neuer, earns a reported $700,000 a week at Bayern Munich. And he probably hasn't spent much time in Auckland traffic jams. Internationally, much of the build-up to this month's tournament has centred around FIFA's bare-faced desire to shoehorn both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo into the competition, as well the viability of adding another four-week tournament to an already packed global football calendar. The European club season only finished in late May, and many of the players will be arriving in the US directly from commitments with their national teams. Last September, Manchester City's Rodri said the world's footballers could be heading towards a strike if the fixtures kept piling up. "I personally don't have too much of an opinion about it … for us, getting to play against Bayern Munich, Benfica and Boca Juniors — there's no way we're gonna start complaining," Tracey said. Instead, Auckland City's players face entirely more relatable concerns, like ensuring they have enough leave for a four week "holiday" in the middle of the working year. The addition of the Club World Cup means that football will take Tracey away from his job for eight weeks over the course of 10 months — something his employer has reluctantly accepted. "You can just see them biting their tongue," he said. And the extraordinariness of lining up against some of the best, most highly paid sportspeople on the planet is something that has generally been lost on his colleagues. "I don't think they fully realise … New Zealand's not, you know, football central," Tracey said. "I think they try their best to understand, which is nice. If I have a genuine conversation with them about it, they will say 'that is actually really cool'. "But 80 per cent of the time it's banter and 80 per cent of that banter is just, 'Oh yeah, off on holiday again!'" City's third top scorer on record, Angus Kilkolly, who has had to forgo recent trips in the face of increasing responsibility in his role as the regional manager of a power tool company, also said the enormity of the tournament hadn't really been understood by the people around him. "They know it's a hobby of ours, and they know we do it on the weekend, but I definitely don't think they know the extent," Kilkolly told ABC Sport. Tracey remembers the 2017 Club World Cup vividly. The tournament in the UAE was not only the then-19-year-olds first international tournament, but his first involvement with the Auckland City first team. He walked out to a crowd of 20,000 people before City went down 1-0 to Emirati club Al-Jazira. "As a 19-year-old kid that's used to playing in front of 50 people and 20 dogs, I just went, 'Holy shit, look at all these people,'" he said. "It was stained on my mind." Tracey said that it is these moments that keep him training at a level expected of a professional player while juggling his full-time, physical job and personal relationships. "Sometimes it's really hard to sort of remind yourself why you're doing it, because it is a slog," he said. "It does take a big mental toll." Looming over the tournament, of course, hangs the spectre of a thumping. Despite the commitment, the sacrifice and the passion of its players, Auckland City just isn't Bayern Munich, Benfica or Boca Juniors. "I'm gonna be honest — we've all thought about it. Everyone thinks that we're all thinking about it too," Tracey said. But it's with a sense of responsibility, not fear, that the team will walk out with in the US. "The thing that plays on me most, and I think the club, is that we want to go there and make ourselves proud," Kilkolly said. "We want to leave these games with no regrets — that we've actually gone out there and done the best we can." Auckland City's appearance at the Club World Cup is a testament to all that is beautiful, romantic and downright bizarre about football. It defies logic that an entirely amateur team could sneak its way into the inaugural edition of a tournament FIFA is committed to making the world's most prestigious (and highest grossing) in all of club football. And with the newly proposed Oceania Pro League slated to bring professionalism to the region in 2026, as well as the possibility of increased blurring of Oceanian and Asian club football, Auckland City's outrageous underdog story may well prove to be a one off. "For normal people, most dreams happen after 5pm," general manager Watson said. "And this is what this Club World Cup has been — it's a dream that's happened after 5pm. "But goodness me, the amount of hours and the blood, sweat, tears and toil that have been collected along the way, even before you get to the first game, is unreal."
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
How Tom Harley traded up from one game at Port Adelaide to holding the keys to AFL House
One kick. One goal. That's where it could have ended for new AFL COO Tom Harley. Almost exactly 27 years ago, the then-20-year-old debuted for Port Adelaide in a round 14 game against Geelong that has every right to be forgotten. It was mid-season at Football Park, between two teams that would go on to miss finals — one on a trajectory up the ladder, the other crawling towards years of uncomfortable irrelevance. Amid a score of future Port premiership stars like Gavin Wanganeen and Warren Tredrea and Stuart Dew, the unfashionable, slow-moving number 27 was all but a footnote in a game that was an annotation in a season that was an aside in the history of both the Power and the Cats. He came on. He got a kick. That kick was a goal. He never played for Port again. For many, that would have been the end of it. Harley had worked hard to get to that point. He was hardly a star in his juniors, and lacked the skills, the speed, and the sheer athleticism to be considered any sort of game-changer on the field. He was the type of player that would be one of the last picked, and should have been grateful for the opportunity. One kick. One goal. Enough to be satisfied that he had made it to the AFL and at least got his hands on the pill. By the end of the season, he was surplus to demands at Port. He was studying for a Bachelor of Commerce in Adelaide, and a life of full-time work with a bit of part-time footy glanced around the changing room doors at Alberton and waggled its finger, as it had waggled at thousands of players before him. But that one kick. That one goal. Somehow, it had done enough to capture the eye of someone at Geelong. Maybe it was "master recruiter" Stephen Wells, who was early in his journey at the club, back when he was just "recruiter" Stephen Wells. Or maybe it was coach Gary Ayres, who had a habit of making unfashionable decisions at a club that had for so long relied on fashionable players. Whoever it was, they decided that Tom Harley was worth a punt. They gave Port Adelaide pick 37, Port Adelaide gave them Harley, and in an odd reminder of what he was worth to them, the Cats gave Harley the number 37 guernsey. He would debut for the Cats — as he did for the Power — in a round 14 game that had little bearing on the season. A Geelong team in the midst of its burgeoning irrelevance, an Adelaide team on the way down the ladder after two premierships. Three kicks. No goals. The next week he'd get the ball nine times. By game three, he'd found the Sherrin on 13 occasions. Carefully and gradually, he built on his trade. By 2000, and under new coach Mark Thompson, Harley had turned himself into a key defender whose magnet remained permanently attached to the centre half-back position on the white board. Slow, but clever, undersized, but strong. He was a reader of the game, a watcher who only inserted himself into the story when it absolutely demanded it. There was nothing glamorous about him. Geelong didn't need more glamour. The new kids on the list — Gary Ablett Jr, Steve Johnson, Jimmy Bartel — they had enough glitz to make Moorabool St feel like Sunset Boulevard. But Harley was different to the old Geelong. That Geelong cherished style above substance. That Geelong could make the Grand Final in a glorious halo of after-the-siren heroics but fall apart when it mattered. Harley was the in-betweener who had the respect of the players around him as a more-than-reliable general in the backline, and the respect of the administrators as a well-spoken, intelligent footballer who was fast learning what the business of footy was all about. That every man persona was part of the reason Thompson made him captain in 2007, the year Geelong broke its 44-year premiership drought. Ask any Geelong supporter and they'll mention a few names as being the key architects in turning the club around. Wells as recruiter will certainly be there. Thompson as coach deserves more plaudits than most. President Frank Costa and chief executive Brian Cook will always get a nod. When they talk about players, they'll mention Ablett and Bartel, Brad Ottens in the ruck, Matthew Scarlett at full-back. But a special mention will be left for Harley. That yes, he was the leader of an exceptional backline on the field. But it was what he did off it that was key. He understood that kicking the ball was one small part of a successful club. Having retired at the end of 2009, once again lifting the premiership cup to the Geelong faithful, Harley dabbled in media, he worked at the AIS-AFL Academy, and he played in role in the establishment of the GWS Giants. He got a taste for it all, before joining the Sydney Swans in 2014 as their general manager, becoming the CEO in 2019, and overseeing a club that has seen record crowds, record memberships, and sustained on-field success in the heart of rugby league territory. Now, Harley faces his greatest challenge of all, becoming the second banana behind Andrew Dillon. One of the great knocks of the AFL of late has been a perceived disregard for the clubs and the fans. Whether right or wrong, discord has been growing. The clubs and the coaches have felt unheard and unloved. The fans have felt pushed aside for the almighty dollar, as costs skyrocket and games scream out from behind a paywall. Harley's status as an in-betweener has never been more important. His knowledge of the clubs, his understanding of playing the game, his acute awareness of what success means to long-suffering fans will be put to the test over the coming years. One kick. One goal. In 2005, a Canadian blogger traded a red paper clip for a pen. He traded the pen for a doorknob. And he kept trading up until he eventually owned a house. From one kick, one goal, Tom Harley has traded up to almost holding the keys to AFL House. He might only have one shot at getting it right once he has them. The AFL can only hope that he kicks truly.
