Although forged by eucalypt-sniffing romantics and balladeers over 120 years ago the bush-inspired notion of an Australian identity lingers. Accordingly, despite all evidence to the contrary, there persists the idea that Australians are, as a rule, egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, hospitable and laid-back. And although we have a veneer of toughness we’re fair.
“Tough but fair” is a line Australia’s male cricketers have long used as a defence when accused of being overly-aggressive. Its effectiveness as an apologia all but ended in Cape Town in March, however, when, in what was arguably the Australian sporting story of the year, leading Australian players were involved in ball tampering during the third Test against South Africa.
Rookie batsman Cameron Bancroft was caught by television cameras rubbing the ball with a switch of sandpaper and in the charged aftermath, David Warner and captain Steve Smith — both shedding enough tears to have the South African ground staff eyeing off the covers — admitted their involvement and, along with Bancroft, were sanctioned.
Having seen it all before, the ICC handed out wrist-slaps. Cricket Australia, however, mindful of the public sentiment — and belatedly trying to deflect any culpability by being seen to be neutering a beast it had raised, encouraged and released into the wild — imposed lengthy bans on the trio. The fall out included coach Darren Lehmann resigning, the launching of a cultural review into Australian cricket, and much finger-pointing and hypocrisy by past players, drunk on schadenfreude, in Australia and abroad. Notwithstanding a resilient showing against India in this summer’s Tests, the affair also had the effect of hobbling the men’s Test team.
It wasn’t all bad news for Australia’s national game, however. In November, belying the woes of their male counterparts, the Australian women’s team won the World T20 in Antigua, beating England by eight wickets in the final. Australia’s standout was opener Alyssa Healy who hit the fastest 50 (in 21 balls against Ireland) in women’s T20, scored the most runs in the competition, and was named player of the tournament.
As captain Meg Lanning might have said afterwards, it was up to the women to clean up the mess made by the men. “We felt that we could really lift the spirits [of the Australian cricket community] by just playing the way we do and being ourselves and enjoying what we do,” she said. “Hopefully we’ve been able to make them proud.”
Continuing a trend, Australia’s female athletes excelled on the world stage. In October, Jessica Fox became the most successful female paddler in history when she won the C1 (canoe singles) K1 (kayak singles) titles at the World Championships. This followed two gold in the same events in the World Cup series. Ash Barty, meantime, finished the year as Australia’s highest ranked tennis player; her singles ranking of 15 built upon high quality and consistent tennis — the kind she demonstrated alongside American CoCo Vandeweghe in winning, at the US Open, her first Grand Slam doubles title.
In Hawaii in November, surfer Stephanie Gilmore, 30, clinched the women’s world surfing title. It was her seventh such crown since she won her first in 2007, and she now stands alongside compatriot Layne Beachley as the most successful female surfer of all time. Beachley was full of praise: “As a surfer she’s beautiful and graceful and it looks effortless.”
Two years ago swimmer Cate Campbell put on a brave face after her performance at the Rio Olympics, one she called the “greatest choke in the history of Australian sport”. It might have shattered her psychologically but showing great mental resilience she kept plowing furrows in the pool and in 2018 reaped a golden harvest. In April, she won four golds at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. More impressively, in August, she claimed five gold medals — including the 50m and 100m freestyle — at the Pan Pacs in Tokyo. “The nightmares have gone and now I am having sweet dreams,” she said.
Despite featuring a closing ceremony in which TV viewers were left wondering where the athletes were (they’d been seated before the telecast began), the Commonwealth Games were well received on the Gold Coast. Predictably, Australia did well at home, topping the table with 80 gold medals — although arguably the most notable win in the Games was that of the England netball team which defeated Australia’s Diamonds in a classic.
Closing ceremony flag bearer, Kurt Fearnley, was one such gold medalist, winning the men’s wheelchair marathon. It was a popular win, made more significant due to the integration, for the first time at a major games, of able-bodied and para-athlete events. By doing so it gave a host of brilliant athletes the audience and attention they deserved.
Ahead of the 2019 Women’s World Cup the Matildas had a mixed year by their recent high standards; standards so high that their 1-0 defeat to Japan in the Asian Cup final in April was seen as a missed opportunity. The Matildas also lost to the likes of Portugal, Chile and Brazil during the year but their 1-all draw with the USA, and an emphatic 5-0 thrashing of Chile at season’s end, showed they remain a World Cup chance. Striker Sam Kerr — who again won the golden boot in the US national women’s league — remained the team’s talisman.
Staying with football, it was a men’s World Cup year, and the Socceroos, with a new gaffer (in Bert van Marwijk) barely bedded down, did their usual winning-admiration-if-not-matches thing during the tournament in Russia. Employing a more direct style, they departed after a group phase that saw them push France in a 2-1 loss, lose to Peru 2-0 and draw 1-1 with Denmark. Young gun Daniel Arzani made an impression, veteran Tim Cahill barely made it on to the pitch, and the Socceroos showed they continued to struggle to score from open play which, most pundits agree, makes winning football games a tad difficult.
In domestic football, amid regime change and political machinations at the FFA, Jet Riley McGree scored an outrageous scorpion goal that made the Puskas shortlist, former sprinter (something of an understatement, I concede) Usain Bolt threatened to undermine the integrity of the A-League before failing to win a contract with Central Coast, and Brisbane Roar won the W-League premiership, with Melbourne City winning the championship.
In the A-League, Graham Arnold’s Sydney FC won the premiership at a canter but the vagaries of the A-League finals system was cast into a light harsher that that in a 7-Eleven at 2.30am when Melbourne Victory, who finished fourth and a massive 23-points behind the Sky Blues at the end of the regular season, won the championship after beating the previous year’s wooden-spooners Newcastle 1-0 in the grand final. It was a game most notable for VAR’s overlooking of an offside in the build up to Victory’s goal, and Jet Roy O’Donovan kicking Victory keeper Lawrence Thomas in the face, earning himself the most obvious red card in Australian football history.
As ugly as that moment was, it wasn’t a patch on the bench-clearing fight that took place between the Australian and Philippines basketball teams during 2019 World Cup qualification in Bocaue, and caused the game to be abandoned. It was the kind of incident that brought basketball, floor decals, and collapsible chairs into disrepute, not to mention a number of offending Australian and Filipino players and coaching staff.
A year out from the World Cup, the Wallabies finished the year black and blue, having lost nine of 13 Tests. As a result an axe hangs over coach Michael Cheika and darkness has enveloped the game in Australia. The light at the end of the tunnel, if indeed there is one, is too small to make out.
Things were considerably brighter for the owners of racehorse Winx. She continued on her merry way in 2018 increasing her unbeaten run to 29 races, adding seven more wins, including the Cox Plate. Speaking of horsepower, Kiwi Scott McLaughlin won his first Supercars Championship while Formula One’s Daniel Ricciardo ended his relationship with Red Bull Racing after a frustrating year — highlighted though it was with his win in the Monaco grand prix.
In rugby league we witnessed the first women’s State of Origin fixture, which featured a Blues win and a memorable kiss. The inaugural season of Women’s NRL was also held, with the Brisbane Broncos beating the Sydney Roosters in the grand final. It’s just a four-team competition at this stage but the standard of football was high and it feels as if a solid platform for a bright future for the women’s game has been laid.
In the men’s game, meantime, a host of leading lights hung up their boots, not least Johnathan Thurston and Billy Slater. Not coincidentally, the NSW Blues won just their second Origin crown in 13 years, and they did so in a manner that suggests that Origin will again become an arm-wrestle, with the retiring of many Queensland greats bringing the Maroons down a peg. In the NRL, Cooper Cronk, wearing the unfamiliar tri-colours of the Roosters, gave another reminder of his talents, steering his new team to a 21-6 grand final win over his former team, the Melbourne Storm. Remarkably, he barely touched the ball as he was nursing a broken scapula throughout the game. Luke Keary rightly won man-of-the-match honours, but as commentator Phil Gould said of Cronk, “It was one of the best non-performance we’ve ever seen”.
Finally, in the AFL, we were reminded yet again of the sporting administrator’s compulsion to give fans what they’ve never wanted or needed (AFLX anyone?) but also of sport’s ability to delight and torment, and the inches between success and failure. In a year in which Hawthorn’s Tom Mitchell won the Brownlow Medal, Richmond’s Jack Higgins kicked a memorable goal, and Sydney’s Alex Johnson returned to the field after six years and five-ACL tears (only, devastatingly, to make it a sixth in just his second game back), it was the West Coast Eagles’ thrilling come-from-behind grand final win over Collingwood that resonated.
Written off before the season the Eagles, missing a host of stars, started like the tortoise against the hare and they looked outgunned against a Magpies team that had memorably dispatched flag favourites Richmond in the preliminary final a week earlier. But the Eagles clawed their way into the game and set up a seesawing, nerve-jangling final quarter. Collingwood would rue their many opportunities to ice the game when, with just over two minutes remaining, Liam Ryan pulled off a Sistine Chapel-worthy mark before playing on to Dom Sheed in the pocket. His curling effort under enormous pressure put the Eagles ahead and they held on to win.
