DAVE: G’day boys, welcome back Marcus after a well-deserved week off, but mate, you’ve brought the rain back with you…
MARCUS: Hang on a minute; while I was away I noticed one of you two clowns put a cricket snick in last week about how lucky we’ve been with the weather lately. Why would you tempt fate like that?
DAVE: Yep, sorry to the local cricket community out there; that was me who put the mozz on things on the weekend. But Marcus, you can’t blame me for trying to pass the buck. Now give us your best action from the weekend.
MARCUS: There wasn’t much locally to watch on the weekend, but I was scrolling on social media and my mind and attention was drawn to the world of American college football. They had what was considered a rivalry round, which had schools that genuinely hate each other take each other on. There were a few games where teams that won on enemy territory would try and plant their flag on the home team’s logo in the centre of the field; which created some chaotic brawls. American college football is not something I pay attention to at all, but there’s always something going on; whether that’s theatre, drama, and it’s all based on a genuine hatred for the opposition. The one I’m mostly talking about here is the game between Ohio State and Michigan, who knocked off Ohio State on their own home ground. Georgia v Georgia Tech was another one; it was just great to see the characters and personalities of that particular sport shine through.
DAVE: Boys, being a sports nerd, and not having much sport to watch on the weekend, I Googled the ‘10 biggest stadiums in the world’, just to see where the MCG sits on the list.
JONTY: Would have to be top three, wouldn’t it?
DAVE: Nah, it just snuck into the top 10. But a lot of the biggest stadiums in the world are college football stadiums, which surprised me. 106,000, 103,000…these joints are bloody huge.
MARCUS: And the fact that they fill them every week is incredible. Jonty, can you imagine the Dandenong Stingrays or Haileybury College getting 100,000 people to a game?
JONTY: How good would that be! Talking about stadiums, what I’d be interested in is if you had infinite capacity at the MCG how many you could get in. Like a Collingwood and Carlton grand final, something like that. How big could it get, do you reckon, with infinite capacity?
DAVE: They got over 120,000 to the 1970 grand final between Collingwood and Carlton (actually 121,696).
MARCUS: Hang on; let’s recap for a minute here. It’s December 2 and you blokes have just taken a topic on college football and you’ve still made it about Collingwood (Boys all laugh). This might be your best!
DAVE: Okay boys, I’ll go first…140,000 people.
JONTY: I’d say 190,000…
MARCUS: Yeah, I’d be closer to Jonty’s.
DAVE: Jonty, come on mate, let’s refocus and concentrate on best action.
JONTY: Okay, something a little more tangible. Taylah Gatt, a Dandenong Stingrays graduate, won the AFLW premiership with North Melbourne on the weekend. She’s been an established member of that North Melbourne team for a couple of years now, running up and down the wing, and it was great to see her win a premiership.
DAVE: I watched the whole game Jonty…
JONTY: Did she play well?
DAVE: I didn’t notice her to be honest (Boys laugh), but that’s more me concentrating on the players I had in my Same Game Multi than anything else. But my best action goes to Emma Kearney, who played a bit with our local girl Ellie Blackburn at the Bulldogs when AFLW first kicked off. She’s gone on to captain North Melbourne since 2019 and it was just fantastic to see her hold up the cup on Saturday night. There’s talk that it might end up like the Joel Selwood moment, where she retires as a premiership captain, and no-one deserves it more than her. She’s 35 now, had a brilliant career; so the timing might be right.
JONTY: A multi-sport athlete as well; having played some cricket for the Melbourne Stars.
DAVE: There you go; and my other best action goes to Ryggs Johnston…
JONTY: Who?
DAVE: Ryggs Johnston, a 24-year-old American, number 954 in the world, who won the Australian Open golf on Sunday. I remember being at Metropolitan Golf Club back in 1997, watching a young Lee Westwood defeat Greg Norman, and he went on to have a great career. Johnston’s win sort of reminded me of that, and if he goes on to have half the career that Westwood has, he’ll have done pretty good for himself.
SUMMER LOVIN’
DAVE: Jonty, what was yesterday?
JONTY: The first day of summer!
DAVE: Correct. What I want from you is your favourite big-ticket sporting event of the summer and you’re off-Broadway event that you always look forward to the most.
JONTY: Big-ticket item for me is clearly the Boxing Day test, I’ve been to every Boxing Day test since the 2013/14 Ashes Series, so that’s the one I lock in the calendar each year. The one that is off the beaten track, and I’ve done most years, is not happening next year, and that’s the Kooyong Classic. You always get the big names there, playing exhibition matches before the Australian Open, and what is really fun is baking in the sun at Kooyong, which is an extremely hot place, and then going to the BBL at night. It’s just a really nice sporting day; and when the BBL was really big seven or eight years ago…that was a lot of fun.
MARCUS: Something that Jonty and I have spoken about a fair bit is the joy and the bliss of cricket on the radio.
JONTY: YES.
DAVE: YES.
MARCUS: I’m glad you agree with me boys. It’s just such good company, when you’re doing chores around the house, taking the dog for a walk…
DAVE: In the garden!
MARCUS: Exactly, cricket just really lends itself to radio, more than TV, because the dead time allows time to foster conversation, and you don’t get that with other sports because there’s too much going on.
DAVE: Marcus, this could be your best answer yet. Cricket on the radio during summer is just the best. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had a few sneaky cans in the backyard listening to the cricket and ending up quite inebriated.
JONTY: And I love having cricket on in the background when you’ve got lots of work to do.
MARCUS: Another nomination from me – I love the Christmas Day NBA games that fall on our Boxing Day due to the time difference. You can have the cricket on one screen and a full slate of basketball games on the other. This year we’ve got Denver v Phoenix, who played the best game on Christmas Day two years ago; and obviously I’m quite partial to the Nuggets there. And the one off the beaten track has sort of happened already. It’s the annual Australian cricket story; the sky is falling, everyone crack open the Test team’s head and feast on the goo inside, the cricket disaster. I feel like the Monday after last Sunday’s disaster of the Perth Test is when it happened this year. Cricket is never more interesting than when Australia is doing badly, because people actually start taking notice of what’s happening. People are now looking at Shield cricket, seeing who is making scores or taking wickets, which is something we don’t do when the side is really settled and the door is slammed shut. The annual cricket crisis, when we go from the best in the world to having no future whatsoever…now that’s summer loving for me.
JONTY: I feel like you’re being harsh there Marcus; there’s no way it happens every year. We’ve been good enough over the last few years for that not to happen.
MARCUS: Maybe not every year, but every two or three years at least.
DAVE: Jonty, I’m with you, you can’t beat the Boxing Day test. They shut the roads beside the Cricketers Arms at 8am in the morning, blokes are downing pints and cans like they’re going out of fashion, and the atmosphere is just great. My mate Derek had four pints and two cans one year before 9.30am…just brilliant, and what a strikerate! And I’m grouping my favourite ‘off-the-beaten track’ events into one; Picnic race days. Whether it’s Woolamai, Balnarring, Drouin, Yea, Healesville, you just pack the esky, take a couple of fold-up chairs and have the time of your life. I can’t wait for summer for those reasons.
PLAYING SANTA
DAVE: Alright boys, I’m giving you a credit card each with no limit and I want you to buy three presents for local sporting people. Marcus, what are buying, and who are you buying it for?
MARCUS: My first present is a trophy cabinet for Bailey Howarth, because how’s this for a run. His last three football seasons, and last two cricket premierships have ended in premierships.
JONTY: What have his contributions been like in each of them? (Boys laugh).
MARCUS: That’s not the point Jonty; its Narre Warren reserves in footy and Dandenong West in cricket.
DAVE: That’s Jackson Sketcher like.
MARCUS: He had a pretty good run for a while.
JONTY: At least Sketcher contributes though.
MARCUS: Yeah, look, I feel like Bailey Howarth would be delighted to know we’re putting him in the same bracket as Jackson Sketcher. My second purchase is for Morteza Ali from Narre South; he either needs a new stick, because he can’t make a run, or do I buy him a pond for all his ducks. And the final present goes to the Pakenham Football Club; a safety-blanket, because the previous safety-blanket has walked out of the club in Jordan Stewart. They no longer have the ability to swing him when they need him to both ends, which was always the first move that coaches made.
DAVE: Nice, so a present for Justin Stanton.
MARCUS: I was thinking about maxing out the credit card and buying Pakenham travel pillows as well; considering all the travelling they’ll be doing this year as well.
JONTY: The first one is easy; Zac Davis from Kooweerup needs a new bat; five hits, four outs, no runs. I’m buying a ‘dream catcher’ for Pakenham Warriors CBL coach Brayden Venning. The CBL team is going into a semi-final this week, and the last four finals series he has coached have ended in grand final defeats. So Venning gets a dream catcher in the hope it brings good luck. And I’m buying a gift voucher for Joel Hillis and Zak Roscoe, because they’ve probably been fined endlessly for the amount of times I’ve mentioned them in LTS.
DAVE: I’m buying new Bunyip coach Nick Smith an auto-cue machine; like the television presenters’ use, where the writing moves across the screen. Before I hand it over, I’m programming in the Bunyip theme song, because when they win their first game in Ellinbank, I want every player to know the words of the song. They haven’t won a game for two years so the boys might need a gentle reminder. I’m also buying Pakenham coach Justin Stanton a present; a subscription to Advanced Hair Studio, because I think he’s hair will fall out as he becomes accustomed to the glaring gap between the list he had at Nar Nar Goon and the list he now has at Pakky. He doesn’t have the cattle he once had; but the competition won’t be great either. And I’m buying my long-time mate Dave Power some chipping and putting lessons with a local golf pro. Dave hits the ball well, but get him inside a full swing of his pitching wedge and he gets a little nervous. If Dave could chip and putt, and dial in his short irons, I reckon he could take 15 shots off a round. I want Davey Boy to experience the thrill of a consistent short game. Good chat boys; we’ll reconvene again next week.
