Latest news with #Rocky-style
The Advertiser
6 days ago
- Health
- The Advertiser
'He's our player': Bulldogs coach speaks on ace forward
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has declared Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is "our player" amid speculation the exiled forward will seek a fresh start in Sydney. Ugle-Hagan remains on a leave of absence from the Whitten Oval as he deals with personal issues. The former No.1 draft pick hasn't played all season, after being unable to regularly train with the rest of the Bulldogs since late last year. Ugle-Hagan has recently spent time at a health retreat in northern NSW in an effort to get his life, and career, back on track. On Tuesday, Ugle-Hagan posted a Rocky-style training montage that appeared to show his physical and mental health was improving. Beveridge declared the video of Ugle-Hagan a "great sign". "We've got to keep an open mind about his prosperity and his future," Beveridge said on Wednesday. "I'm taking that as a positive ... with the new challenges and the commitment to going away and focusing on his own wellbeing and his life journey. "Hopefully he's got some things in a bit more of an order, and that can propel him into his footy yet at some point. When that is, who knows, it might still be a fair way away." A report on the Nine Network on Tuesday night suggested Ugle-Hagan, who is contracted at the Bulldogs until the end of 2026, was wanting to play with the Swans next season. "Just take any speculation in regards to any player with a grain of salt, that's the way we approach it," Beveridge said. "He's our player. "I've got no thoughts that he won't be here next year." In further positive news for the Bulldogs, superstar forward Sam Darcy is expected to return from a knee injury for next week's clash with St Kilda. Darcy hurt himself in the Bulldogs' previous game against the Saints back in round six. Initial fears were that Darcy had ruptured his ACL and would miss the entire season. But the 21-year-old looks like missing just seven games with an impaction fracture in his left knee. "It seems like Sam will probably be available next week," Beveridge said ahead of Thursday night's match against Hawthorn. "He's trained with the group, got through most of the sessions ... he's been a real pro in his rehab. "It seems like he'll be ready for next week's game at this point in time." Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has declared Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is "our player" amid speculation the exiled forward will seek a fresh start in Sydney. Ugle-Hagan remains on a leave of absence from the Whitten Oval as he deals with personal issues. The former No.1 draft pick hasn't played all season, after being unable to regularly train with the rest of the Bulldogs since late last year. Ugle-Hagan has recently spent time at a health retreat in northern NSW in an effort to get his life, and career, back on track. On Tuesday, Ugle-Hagan posted a Rocky-style training montage that appeared to show his physical and mental health was improving. Beveridge declared the video of Ugle-Hagan a "great sign". "We've got to keep an open mind about his prosperity and his future," Beveridge said on Wednesday. "I'm taking that as a positive ... with the new challenges and the commitment to going away and focusing on his own wellbeing and his life journey. "Hopefully he's got some things in a bit more of an order, and that can propel him into his footy yet at some point. When that is, who knows, it might still be a fair way away." A report on the Nine Network on Tuesday night suggested Ugle-Hagan, who is contracted at the Bulldogs until the end of 2026, was wanting to play with the Swans next season. "Just take any speculation in regards to any player with a grain of salt, that's the way we approach it," Beveridge said. "He's our player. "I've got no thoughts that he won't be here next year." In further positive news for the Bulldogs, superstar forward Sam Darcy is expected to return from a knee injury for next week's clash with St Kilda. Darcy hurt himself in the Bulldogs' previous game against the Saints back in round six. Initial fears were that Darcy had ruptured his ACL and would miss the entire season. But the 21-year-old looks like missing just seven games with an impaction fracture in his left knee. "It seems like Sam will probably be available next week," Beveridge said ahead of Thursday night's match against Hawthorn. "He's trained with the group, got through most of the sessions ... he's been a real pro in his rehab. "It seems like he'll be ready for next week's game at this point in time." Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has declared Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is "our player" amid speculation the exiled forward will seek a fresh start in Sydney. Ugle-Hagan remains on a leave of absence from the Whitten Oval as he deals with personal issues. The former No.1 draft pick hasn't played all season, after being unable to regularly train with the rest of the Bulldogs since late last year. Ugle-Hagan has recently spent time at a health retreat in northern NSW in an effort to get his life, and career, back on track. On Tuesday, Ugle-Hagan posted a Rocky-style training montage that appeared to show his physical and mental health was improving. Beveridge declared the video of Ugle-Hagan a "great sign". "We've got to keep an open mind about his prosperity and his future," Beveridge said on Wednesday. "I'm taking that as a positive ... with the new challenges and the commitment to going away and focusing on his own wellbeing and his life journey. "Hopefully he's got some things in a bit more of an order, and that can propel him into his footy yet at some point. When that is, who knows, it might still be a fair way away." A report on the Nine Network on Tuesday night suggested Ugle-Hagan, who is contracted at the Bulldogs until the end of 2026, was wanting to play with the Swans next season. "Just take any speculation in regards to any player with a grain of salt, that's the way we approach it," Beveridge said. "He's our player. "I've got no thoughts that he won't be here next year." In further positive news for the Bulldogs, superstar forward Sam Darcy is expected to return from a knee injury for next week's clash with St Kilda. Darcy hurt himself in the Bulldogs' previous game against the Saints back in round six. Initial fears were that Darcy had ruptured his ACL and would miss the entire season. But the 21-year-old looks like missing just seven games with an impaction fracture in his left knee. "It seems like Sam will probably be available next week," Beveridge said ahead of Thursday night's match against Hawthorn. "He's trained with the group, got through most of the sessions ... he's been a real pro in his rehab. "It seems like he'll be ready for next week's game at this point in time."
West Australian
6 days ago
- Health
- West Australian
'He's our player': Bulldogs coach speaks on ace forward
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has declared Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is "our player" amid speculation the exiled forward will seek a fresh start in Sydney. Ugle-Hagan remains on a leave of absence from the Whitten Oval as he deals with personal issues. The former No.1 draft pick hasn't played all season, after being unable to regularly train with the rest of the Bulldogs since late last year. Ugle-Hagan has recently spent time at a health retreat in northern NSW in an effort to get his life, and career, back on track. On Tuesday, Ugle-Hagan posted a Rocky-style training montage that appeared to show his physical and mental health was improving. Beveridge declared the video of Ugle-Hagan a "great sign". "We've got to keep an open mind about his prosperity and his future," Beveridge said on Wednesday. "I'm taking that as a positive ... with the new challenges and the commitment to going away and focusing on his own wellbeing and his life journey. "Hopefully he's got some things in a bit more of an order, and that can propel him into his footy yet at some point. When that is, who knows, it might still be a fair way away." A report on the Nine Network on Tuesday night suggested Ugle-Hagan, who is contracted at the Bulldogs until the end of 2026, was wanting to play with the Swans next season. "Just take any speculation in regards to any player with a grain of salt, that's the way we approach it," Beveridge said. "He's our player. "We'll do our best to continue to look at what's right for him and look after him. "I've got no thoughts that he won't be here next year." In further positive news for the Bulldogs, superstar forward Sam Darcy is expected to return from a knee injury for next week's clash with St Kilda. Darcy hurt himself in the Bulldogs' previous game against the Saints back in round six. Initial fears were that Darcy had ruptured his ACL and would miss the entire season. But the 21-year-old looks like missing just seven games with an impaction fracture in his left knee. "It seems like Sam will probably be available next week," Beveridge said ahead of Thursday night's match against Hawthorn. "He's trained with the group, got through most of the sessions ... he's been a real pro in his rehab. "It seems like he'll be ready for next week's game at this point in time."
Perth Now
6 days ago
- Health
- Perth Now
'He's our player': Bulldogs coach speaks on ace forward
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has declared Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is "our player" amid speculation the exiled forward will seek a fresh start in Sydney. Ugle-Hagan remains on a leave of absence from the Whitten Oval as he deals with personal issues. The former No.1 draft pick hasn't played all season, after being unable to regularly train with the rest of the Bulldogs since late last year. Ugle-Hagan has recently spent time at a health retreat in northern NSW in an effort to get his life, and career, back on track. On Tuesday, Ugle-Hagan posted a Rocky-style training montage that appeared to show his physical and mental health was improving. Beveridge declared the video of Ugle-Hagan a "great sign". "We've got to keep an open mind about his prosperity and his future," Beveridge said on Wednesday. "I'm taking that as a positive ... with the new challenges and the commitment to going away and focusing on his own wellbeing and his life journey. "Hopefully he's got some things in a bit more of an order, and that can propel him into his footy yet at some point. When that is, who knows, it might still be a fair way away." A report on the Nine Network on Tuesday night suggested Ugle-Hagan, who is contracted at the Bulldogs until the end of 2026, was wanting to play with the Swans next season. "Just take any speculation in regards to any player with a grain of salt, that's the way we approach it," Beveridge said. "He's our player. "We'll do our best to continue to look at what's right for him and look after him. "I've got no thoughts that he won't be here next year." In further positive news for the Bulldogs, superstar forward Sam Darcy is expected to return from a knee injury for next week's clash with St Kilda. Darcy hurt himself in the Bulldogs' previous game against the Saints back in round six. Initial fears were that Darcy had ruptured his ACL and would miss the entire season. But the 21-year-old looks like missing just seven games with an impaction fracture in his left knee. "It seems like Sam will probably be available next week," Beveridge said ahead of Thursday night's match against Hawthorn. "He's trained with the group, got through most of the sessions ... he's been a real pro in his rehab. "It seems like he'll be ready for next week's game at this point in time."
Telegraph
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Royal Ballet's Steven McRae: ‘I instantly thought: this is it, it's all over'
'Doi-unnck!' is the sound Steven McRae heard when his Achilles tendon snapped on stage at the Royal Opera House during a performance of Manon, back in October 2019. A principal dancer with the Royal Ballet since 2009, the 39-year-old Australian now remembers 'looking down in horror – even through my tights it seemed as if something had bitten a big chunk out of my leg'. An audience of 2,500 heard him 'screaming in agony' from the wings. Through the burning pain, he recalls the cold clarity of the thought: 'This is it. It's all over.' The excruciating, inspiring story of how this fallen 'semi-god' (as one reviewer described him) ended up flying across that stage again two years later is tenderly told in Stéphane Carrel's documentary Steven McRae: Dancing Back to the Light. It's an arresting, exposing film that shows McRae stripped – literally – naked and broken before chronicling his gruelling rehabilitation via surgery, physio, gym, ice baths and relentless, frustrating rehearsal. It's ballet's answer to a Rocky-style training montage, made all the more moving by scenes of McRae limping around the south London home he shares with his wife (and former Royal Ballet soloist), Elizabeth Harrod, and attempting push-ups in a toy-strewn lounge with their three small children on his back. 'I agreed to the documentary when I couldn't even walk. So when we started filming, we had no idea how the story would end,' says McRae today. Precise in both speech and movement – making laser-like eye contact – he's come to meet me in the office of Kevin O'Hare, the Royal Ballet's director. He says it's 'thanks to Kevin that I only wasted 20 minutes thinking my career had ended, panicking about how I was going to feed my children [who were four, two and five weeks old at that time]. I don't come from the land of privilege and silver spoons. But Kevin told me right there and then, backstage: 'You'll dance again.' The medical team spoke to the surgeon while I was back in my dressing room and booked a scan for the next morning. The mission had started.' Although McRae strikes me as a man who has always been on a mission – and quite a steely, singular one. I last saw him on stage – deranged sparks flying – in the Mad Hatter role created for him by Christopher Wheeldon for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Today, he flashes a Cheshire Cat grin as he says he's always resisted watching recordings of Baryshnikov and Nureyev in the roles he dances to ensure he's not influenced by them. McRae likes to do things his own way. Born in Sydney in 1985, he's the son of a drag racer and mechanic father, and describes himself as 'a shy boy, always hiding behind my mum'. The eye contact he's making now? He was scared of that. He couldn't even speak to strangers, let alone look at them. But he was inspired by his sister, seven years older, 'pushing the boundaries with gymnastics and then dance'. When he himself was seven years old, he asked his parents if he could 'have a go at dancing' and was 'hooked' from his first class. 'It was instant,' he recalls. 'The teacher said, 'Jump as high as you can. Spin as fast as you can. Explore.' A whole new world just exploded in front of me.' Soon, he was going three times a week. He says that, despite the macho Aussie culture of the 1980s, he didn't suffer much Billy Elliot-style bullying for being a boy in tights. 'I remember being at the race track with my dad one day and a driver came over and said, 'What's this? We hear your son's dancing?' My dad didn't even hesitate. I can still hear him now. He said, 'Yeah, he's really good. You should come and watch him.' That was it. The end of the conversation.' McRae invites me to fast-forward a few years and picture him starting high school, aged 12: 'I was tiny, scrawny, with red hair and braces, and this kid – aged 16, size of a man – came up and asked if I was a dancer. I didn't want to be bullied for the next two years, but I remembered my dad and said, 'Yeah. Apparently I'm really good. You should come and watch me.' They left me alone!' Although he grew up tap dancing, with Gene Kelly as a hero, it was a VHS tape of the pas de deux from Manon (recorded from the television by his dad) that turned McRae on to ballet at 14. 'I watched Sylvie Guillem and Jonathan Cope dance that eight or nine times. My teacher said I could aim for the Royal Ballet. I think my parents thought that was in Melbourne!' It came as a shock to them when he won the Prix de Lausanne, aged 17, in 2003 and was snapped up by the Royal Ballet there and then. His plane ticket back home was swapped out for London, where he says 'there was no hiding my ambition'. Soul-sapping homesickness was a price he was prepared to pay to 'be part of an art form that can rip the hearts from the audience's chests when you get it right'. He pushed through the embarrassments of not having grown up steeped in ballet culture: 'The first time I went on stage in Frederick Ashton's Symphonic Variations, I asked people if Ashton would be in the audience. I didn't realise he'd been dead for decades!' His unswerving mission was to 'Get the best training, get a contract, get this role, that role, the next. Manon!' Carrel's film captures all of McRae's wild fire – but also sees him reflecting on how close he came to burn-out. It's a documentary that challenges a culture in which dancers seldom get a break. While other high-performance athletes all have periods of down-time as they work towards sporting events, the ballet calendar can be relentless, and the applause addictive. We watch McRae push his body beyond sane limits, popping painkillers just to walk. 'But the lessons are transferable to any profession,' he says today. 'Especially in a city like London, where everyone is always go, go, go! Nobody wants to miss out. I would have performed every night if I could have.' These days, McRae's mission is to change ballet culture so that dancers can take better care of themselves. With O'Hare, he's been working to schedule breaks in the calendar. Having found the gym so helpful in his recovery, he's also trying hard to 'bust the myth that lifting weights will cause dancers to bulk up and ruin their 'line'. It's just not true. No dancer has enough hours in their day to end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.' McRae is clearly proud of his newly muscular physique – his ripped torso fills much of his social-media feed. Carrel's camera catches the flash of pride when he can no longer fit his old, jewel-encrusted jacket from Romeo and Juliet over his pecs. I get to witness a form of push-up in action as he leads me downstairs through the opera house and – instead of walking down the stairs – hoists himself up on the steel bannisters and slides gleefully down them, a flight at a time. Evangelical about how 'a new culture of self-care' can extend a dancer's longevity, McRae has been known to say he may never quit. But he's earned both a degree and a master's in business in recent years. He talks passionately about policy and philosophy: about the NHS course for people suffering problems with their mental health that the Royal Ballet has been hosting in its basement ('allowing dancers to express feelings that might otherwise have been locked into them'), and about ensuring children from all backgrounds have equal access to the arts. Is he after O'Hare's job? He laughs. 'I do want to stay in this profession,' is the diplomatic response. Do his own children – now 10, eight and five – all dance? He nods, cautiously. 'They all have a go at a dance lesson,' he says. 'But because my wife and I became so focused on our passion at such a young age, I think we've gone completely the other way with our kids. They do football and gymnastics. But only one after-school activity each per week. We want them to come home from classes and just be kids.'
Telegraph
26-02-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Keir Starmer is about to discover how irrelevant he really is
Keir Starmer's visit to the White House this week is fraught with risk and could easily turn into a humiliation. One of the most unpopular and least impressive British prime ministers in decades, Starmer will be meeting with a revolutionary US president who doesn't suffer fools gladly. Donald Trump could not be further away in both style and substance from his British socialist counterpart, and in terms of ideology the two leaders are worlds apart. While Starmer remains slavishly wedded to the UN, International Criminal Court, the European Convention on Human Rights, and – strikingly – the European Union post-Brexit, Trump thinks in terms of nation-states, national sovereignty, and reining in supranational institutions. In many respects, Starmer is the embodiment of the out-of-touch elites who were swept out of power with the fall of the Biden presidency. President Trump succeeded in pulling off an emphatic election victory last November with a stunning Rocky-style fightback. In marked contrast, the dull and politically lifeless Starmer is already on the ropes in Britain and sinking fast in the polls. Britain's Prime Minister often looks and sounds like a startled deer in the headlights, struggling to adapt to a new world with a self-confident America at the helm, and a Right-ward political shift across much of Europe. Starmer's supposedly big pledge this week to increase defence spending was met with total indifference in the US. It stands to reason: it's a miniscule shift that's come far too late to shift the dial. His pledge to raise Britain's defence contribution to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 isn't going to wow a US administration that is already talking about the need for European allies to think about elevating defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP ahead of the Nato June summit in the Hague. If Poland can invest over 4 per cent of its GDP on its own security while also helping millions of real refugees from war-torn Ukraine, why can't the UK, the world's sixth-largest economy, do the same? The notion that Starmer can act as a 'bridge' between the United States and Europe is also facile. If anything, the UK is deemed in the US to be one of the worst offenders in Europe on everything from defence, to draconian restrictions on free speech, to mass migration. Starmer, in short, will come to the United States as a near total irrelevance. There can be no doubt that thanks to his ultra woke Left-wing government, the UK has a serious image problem in America. This was dramatically highlighted in JD Vance's powerful Munich speech, where he singled Britain out, arguing that 'free speech, I fear, is in retreat'. While paying superficial lip service to the partnership with the United States, Starmer has been recklessly trying to curry favour with the European Union, increasingly shifting the UK back into the orbit of Brussels in a slap to the face of the 17.4 million Britons who voted for Brexit in 2016. It is extraordinary that the United States now has a president who appears to be far more committed to the preservation of British sovereignty than the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom itself. At the same time, Sir Keir has been actively undermining both British and American interests with his incredibly dangerous proposed handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which many in Washington believe will place the long-term future of the US base of Diego Garcia at grave risk. Members of Congress are now blasting the Chagos deal as a gift to Communist China, and a huge insult to the United States – and with good reason. If the Labour Government decides to move forward with ending British control over Chagos, in the face of mounting US concerns, it will be immensely destructive for the Special Relationship. My advice to the Prime Minister as he heads to the Oval Office is to ditch the ghastly Chagos surrender, listen to perfectly legitimate US concerns over free speech in the UK, drop the woke, virtue-signalling language, and work with the United States on advancing a trade deal that creates jobs and increases prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. He should also be standing up to Communist China instead of kowtowing to Beijing. The distinctly uncharismatic Keir Starmer is barely known in the United States outside of the Washington Beltway. But he should still do his best not to embarrass himself in front of the world's superpower when he meets with president Trump on Thursday.
