Let me entertain you: Oh, the drama and promise that sport delivers in spades
Sport has a crazy knack for riveting rookie lift-offs, comebacks from the clouds, life-after stories and greats of the game seeing the finish line so suddenly it’s like a dive off a cliff, writes Jim Tucker.
This week, we have seen all those themes in Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Ash Barty, Tom Brady, Eddie Jones, Aaron Hardie and Phoebe Litchfield.
The reality is a month rarely goes by in sport without similar tugs on emotions, excitement levels, our sentimentality going into overdrive and the hint we have glimpsed the next big thing. And the footy season hasn’t even begun yet.
In quick time, we have had to process Nadal’s famed reserves of resilience perhaps being stretched to breaking point for a final time at 36.
One moment, he was defending champion at the Australian Open. The next, he was leaving the court in Melbourne as a second-round casualty looking in need of another major recuperative period just to cope with five sets with a dodgy hip.
Time catches up with everyone, even “Rafa.” Could it have been his last Australian Open appearance? Could last year’s French Open triumph have been his 22nd and last Grand Slam title? Perhaps. What memories he has given us.
But oi, Jimmy, you want memories? What about that irascible Scotsman Andy Murray, only a year younger than Rafa but thrilling everyone with an epic win against Thanasi Kokkanakis that ended at 4am on Friday and is already billed as the greatest Australian Open match that nobody saw?
Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all-time, is pondering whether he can defy Father Time for another season at 45. Being dumped ingloriously from the NFL play-offs was not the script he’d planned with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Just maybe, he has 30 touchdown passes in his fabled launching arm for a new swansong club.
Either way, it’s not a decision that will make a difference between food on the table and the poor house. He’s already got a mega 10-year, US $375 million-plus deal waiting as an NFL analyst for TV for when he does call time.
Rarely, do you get to write the perfect ending to a career unless, of course, you are Barty.
She’s not even playing the Australian Open this year yet the fresh news of her pregnancy almost broke the internet so much is she hugged worldwide by admirers of all ages.
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Eddie Jones. One name has changed the entire outlook for Australian rugby union.
Rugby has often had a sentimental tie to coaches that has meant administrators just haven’t pulled out the guillotine as early as they might in AFL, rugby league or football.
I vividly remember asking the late Ian Brusasco that very question around how swiftly football clubs cycle through managers compared to rugby clubs.
He was the long-time godfather of football in Queensland and a State rugby representative as well so he was well-positioned to compare.
“If it’s not working, we cut off the head and move on,” he said of clubs being in the brutal business of winning.
Rugby Australia shocked players, fans and the media with the swiftness of this week’s call to chop coach Dave Rennie and seize on Jones as the mastermind of the code’s next five years.
It is a masterstroke. Those who worry he has only eight months to get the Wallabies firing for the Rugby World Cup in France have short memories.
In 2003, his Wallabies were embarrassed 50-21 by the All Blacks in Sydney. Less than four months later, Jones had orchestrated a stunning upset of the Kiwis in a World Cup semi-final performance for the ages.
There was no waiting once Jones was sacked by England and became available. If RA had dithered in the hope of signing Jones for 2024, he would have boarded another coaching ship bound for elsewhere.
His first press conference on Thursday was full of what suffering rugby fans wanted to hear.
Did expectations for 2023 have to be muted because of his late arrival?
“I’ll tell you, mate, there’s no long term. The whole thing is to win the World Cup in 2023 and we are capable, definitely,” Jones said.
A sparky, running halfback like Tate McDermott could be the starting Wallabies No.9 in July.
Jordan Petaia might unlock overdue consistency with Jones giving him just three or four key tasks to excel at.
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“Use Super Rugby to select yourself, boys,” Jones said to every Aussie player.
It’ll be a fun ride too because he pricked the hot air balloon that is often rugby league and horseracing chief Peter V’landys, who took a cheap shot at rugby being boring.
If the Wallabies start winning, Jones said, “We may even get, what’s his name, the horse guy, to a media conference…V’landys,” Jones said with a smile.
The inevitable volcanic moments and burnt out assistant coaches are too far down the track to worry about just now.
If sport did not have an astonishing power to regenerate with comeback stories, new stars, drama and even changes to the way it is played, we might have shut cricket down when Sir Donald Bradman played his last cover drive for Australia in 1948.
We might never have heard of one-day internationals or T20 cricket. We certainly would not have heard of Litchfield or Hardie.
Left-hander Hardie is setting the BBL alight for the Perth Scorchers in a way that watching him means you can accept “Mark Modest” and “Ollie Ordinary” filling other batting orders around the country.
Hardie played a superb knock of 65 not out off 45 balls at the Gabba last week to dominant the flat Brisbane Heat.
It was no one-off. He motored to a 62-ball 90 not out in Perth this week with all his savage pull shots, lofted drives and timing. Time. He plays with so much of it. He’s a Test player of the future with the handy medium-pace to crack a more immediate spot in the white ball game for Australia.
If Cameron Green hadn’t been spotted first, it might have been Hardie anointed as Australia’s exciting all-rounder.
Phoebe Litchfield? The name might not have struck a chord too widely even a week ago.
At 19, she is the future of the Australian women’s cricket team to take the baton that Belinda Clark, Alyssa Healy, Ellyse Perry, Meg Lanning and Co have carried over the past 30 years.
Her unbeaten knocks of 67 and 78 in the two one-day wins over Pakistan at Allan Border Field this week were superb.
She’s all quick footwork, technique and fresh vigour at the crease. She absolutely spanks her best cuts, those lofted drives and sweet legside punches for boundaries now she has built her strength.
She’s a prodigy from Orange in country NSW and has had a tag as something special since she was at school.
You just don’t waltz into any Australian side with such polish on debut without an overload of talent.
It was cool to hear that having female role models in sport really is so important. Lanning was hers and she got to bat with her for the first time with Australia.
“She was one of my favourite players (as a youngster), her and Ellyse Perry. Seeing them on the TV to now playing with them is pretty surreal,” Litchfield said.
Australian women’s cricket has enjoyed a golden period and you need young guns to continue the momentum of the sport.
She was magnetic viewing at “AB Field” this week. Litchfield is another leftie. Why does Australia produce such a proliferation of talented lefties. There’s another column. Next time.
Jim Tucker has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media.
