Sport

It’s provocative, it’s viral and we’re writing about a product that isn’t even available here. From a marketing perspective, job done. But aren’t we past viewing female athletes as sex symbols first?

MARK ‘SPUDD’ CARROLL: Supercoach Bennett echoed my thoughts on the Bunker exactly after his Rabbitohs were beaten by Newcastle on Friday. But here’s the solution.

It isn’t the sport itself that really matters — it is every moment of joy and relief these clubs bring to our farmers, who need them as much as everyone needs their community to flourish and stay healthy.

The longest road trip in NFL history is culminating at the MCG this morning as the Los Angeles Rams take on the San Francisco 49ers in the latest instalment of one of the game’s greatest rivalries.

Only a handful of weeks ago, the four-peat bullies had sucked the rest of the competition in to believing this year’s premiership race was actually wide open. 

MARK ‘SPUDD’ CARROLL: I can’t believe Wests Tigers coach Benji Marshall is hailing Jarome Luai’s two years at the club a success.

You can play with complete freedom throughout a season or tournament. Then finals arrive and, without deliberately changing anything, the thought process can become different.

Thursday night’s qualifying final at the home of the Fremantle Dockers in front of a packed purple haze is an intimidating venue for Hawthorn to enter.

Watching the NRL experiment with the new kick off rule, while still dealing with the fallout from its expanded six-again interpretation, it is fair to ask whether the game is becoming unnecessarily complicated.

DANE ELDRIDGE: Finding the promised land wouldn’t only reward the club for rescuing the game, it’d go a long way to dispelling its reputation as being known solely for fun and wild mullets.

I enjoyed wildcard round, I’m just not ready to tell you whether I liked it because if you like wildcard as a concept, you have to be prepared to like it when the games aren’t close, writes Georgie Parker.

Spudd Carroll has the utmost respect for the Chooks and the people running the joint, but as an old Rabbitoh it annoys the hell out of him they are blocking the Bunnies’ bid to play fulltime out of Moore Park.

We would question a player who picked and chose the Test series he wanted to play in, so why should assistant coaches such as Daniel Vettori be judged differently?

At Sunday’s Sydney marathon, a cab driver named Dave from Manchester in England will take part in his 96th 42km road race. His proud achievements provide lessons for us all.

MITCHELL JOHNSON: Collapses have always been part of cricket. Sometimes a team simply has a terrible innings. But my concern is what happens if two and three-day Test matches become too common.

KIERSTEN DUKE: There are moments in rugby that feel bigger than the game itself. When the results, the ladder and even the rules themselves suddenly feel insignificant. There’s no doubting this is one of them.

Of course, at some point we’ll need to adapt to life without them, and not just because it’s bordering on elder abuse. 

MARK ‘SPUDD’ CARROLL: Luxury accommodation won’t hide the risk of players’ families losing the everyday freedoms we take for granted in Australia.