Only two more sleeps until the day before the Boxing Day Test – here’s our wish list
It’s that time of year where our sporting luminaries would love to ponder just one Christmas wish with no strings attached to make for a brighter 2023, writes Jim Tucker.
After watching his Christmas movie classic for a 10th time, let’s just accept that Hugh Grant is right, “If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love, actually, is all around.”
That’s a sporting world with no bans, tribunals, knuckle raps for poor sportsmanship, broken racquets, head high tackles or dire losing streaks.
So just where have we landed for our 12 sporting wishes for Christmas.
DAVID WARNER
Love him or hate him, he’s absorbing box office. The Australian opener’s 100th Test at the MCG from Boxing Day is the festive season’s big sports theme.
Is he still going to be a Test batsman in six months? Jury out.
At his best, he’s a batting bon bon, an explosion of bat meeting brand new ball in the first over and a cracker of a shot hurtling to the boundary.
The simple fact is that Test openers don’t get better with age. He’s 36 which is a number better than the batting average of just about every South African in the opposition team.
Unfortunately, he’s gone 10 innings without a Test 50 and nearly two years without a Test century.
I’ve never forgotten a line from Greg Chappell. The end for really good Test batsmen can be like falling off a cliff in terms of their run graph.
It’s sudden and terminal a la David Boon. Only the truly great batters can defy time with a gentler yet inevitable decline in output.
Warner would love a Boxing Day century and he’ll have millions watching to see if it is possible.
LIONEL MESSI
Christmas with the family on a quiet, sandy beach must be his dream.
It’s not that he didn’t enjoy the millions of partying Argentinian fans celebrating with the nation’s football team in Buenos Aires this week.
It got just a little bit crazed when several fans started jumping from a bridge hoping to land in the team’s open-topped bus which was virtually stalled in the massive crowd.
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Beautiful fairytales still happen in sport and a first World Cup for Messi was one. Bravo. He doesn’t need anything more in 2023. His cup is full.
CAMERON SMITH
Cameron Smith’s stellar 2022 entered the debate as one of the great calendar year runs by any Australian golfer in history.
His three-stroke victory at the Fortinet Australian PGA at Royal Queensland was his fifth win across the globe this year.
His Christmas wish is simple…golf finding a way back together so the PGA Tour and his LIV outfit get to live in harmony.
That’s not happening any time soon. There will be more acrimony before it finally does happen because it has to.
Smith’s world ranking is safe for now at No.3 and winning The Open at St Andrews in such style gives him exemptions into the majors for years anyway.
His biggest Christmas wish will be playing in the final group at the Masters in April with a putt to win it on the 72nd hole.
BRONCOS
Has anyone found that wheel? If they do, welding it back on before the 2023 NRL season kick-off would be nice because it fell off in the final rounds of 2022.
The Broncos did so much to re-engage with fans in 2022 with a strong start to the season.
The collapses in the closing weeks of the regular season to the Eels (53-6) and Storm (60-12) were massively jarring as the team dropped to ninth after seemingly being assured of a finals berth.
Fan favourite Pat Carrigan couldn’t have been more popular if he’d had a white beard and planned to squeeze down Brisbane’s remaining chimneys.
Let’s hope 2023 rolls on a bit like the name of new recruit Tyson Smoothy.
BRISBANE LIONS
No monkeys in Santa’s sack this year because they’ve been kicked off the back of the club by a rousing 2022 finals campaign.
Those pulsating victories over Richmond and Melbourne when everything was on the line hooked even non-AFL types with their excitement.
The Lions continue to make positive headway against the Broncos by gaining more ironed-on fans.
ASH BARTY
Talk about a wonderfully scripted final achievement on the tennis court and shock retirement at just 25.
Barty’s Australian Open triumph was riveting and you wonder how Channel Nine will command the same eyeballs in January with her not marching to the final.
She got married, she authored children books, put out a best-selling autobiography, developed Indigenous programs, played a bit of golf, enjoyed life and so it went on.
Ash will keep enjoying more of life in 2023 with some interesting announcements to come.
Playing golf professionally will not be one of them.
NICK KYRGIOS
The shotmaker supreme announced his own Christmas wish this week while at the World Tennis League exhibition event in Dubai.
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“Hopefully, I can win a slam and just retire,” Kyrgios said with a smile.
There might not be a retirement at 27 or 28 from Kyrgios but there is no way he’ll still be playing on like Roger Federer did before retiring at 41.
The Kyrgios run to the 2022 Wimbledon final was thrilling and what his talent has always deserved.
BRISBANE BULLETS
The ninth-placed club is battling for stability.
Fans are still turning out and get the chance on December 27 with a home game against the Perth Wildcats at Nissan Arena.
The NBL is breaking new ground with a Christmas Day clash in Sydney. Deck the hoops.
THE WALLABIES
When Wallabies coach Dave Rennie rips the wrapping paper off a present under his Christmas tree, he’s just hoping it’s not a snow globe with a grinning face of a mini Eddie Jones inside.
The Wallabies’ rollercoaster ride through 2022 with just five wins from 14 Tests put the blowtorch on Rennie.
He’s the guy who will lead the Wallabies to the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France but Rugby Australia just doesn’t quite know what to do with the coaching gift it has received.
Jones was axed by England and has a proven World Cup pedigree for results. He’s more dictator than co-coach so RA has to nut out if they want Jones for 2024.
If so, they have to make the call early. Rennie will then announce he’s moving on from the Wallabies after 2023 and the tedious “dead man walking” headlines will start up some time around July, 2023.
BRISBANE HEAT
The Heat were once filling the Gabba for Big Bash frolics and excitement. Too many collapses and losses have eroded that must-see attachment for fans.
Maybe, it turns around on Friday night when they host the Adelaide Strikers. After starting the season 0-2, they desperately need some early Xmas cheer.
SAM KERR AND THE MATILDAS
The power of sport on the biggest stage is immense. We saw it with the kids heading to parks for a kick during the recent football World Cup.
We saw rugby-loving girls doing the same after the recent World Cup in New Zealand and the “triple crown” triumphs of Australia’s young, dynamic rugby sevens team.
Charlotte Caslick, Maddi Levi, Faith Nathan, Madi Ashby and co have turned the latest rugby sevens crop into Australia’s best women’s footy team of any code with their stellar results.
Over to you Sam Kerr.
The super-competitive world of women’s football will descend on co-hosts Australia and New Zealand in July-August.
It’s a one-off, marvellous opportunity to lure aspiring youngsters to the game in Australia.
Finding a way out of the group stage against Ireland, Canada and Nigeria, with a July 27 stop in Brisbane, is Kerr’s Christmas wish for a tough pool.
THE GABBA
The iconic Brisbane venue just wishes someone would hurry up and make up their mind on how they are going to shoehorn an Olympic stadium into a plot of land not big enough for the purpose.
The stadium already hangs over Vulture and Stanley Streets to squeeze as best it can onto the land between the two major traffic arteries.
Sending Vulture Street underground to widen the stadium on the German Club side of the ground? Nah. No one has that money or disruption time. You’re trying to win over Brisbane people, right, not alienate them with years of traffic snarls.
Taking over East Brisbane State School and relocating it offers only one answer. You can have the world’s longest, narrowest major stadium and run the first Olympic 400m race as a point-to-point event rather than around an oval track. Nope.
Good luck with this one. Right now, there’s 20 top minds all with a different Christmas wish to solve The Great Olympic Stadium Puzzle.
Jim Tucker has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media.
