The Examiner's Rob Shaw, Josh Partridge, Ben Hann and Brian Allen unpack and discuss sports news from across Northern Tasmania. Video by Aaron Smith, Paul Scambler and Phillip Biggs (28/5/2024)
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00:00 Welcome to episode 54 of the Press Boxing Examiner's weekly sportscast.
00:11 We've got loads to get through this week.
00:13 We're going to begin with a huge weekend of footy.
00:16 Josh, I was at Windsor Park at the soccer, but I could hear stuff going on over at the
00:21 footy.
00:22 What happened?
00:23 Yeah, well, Launceston were leading by 12 points with 89 seconds to go against Kingborough.
00:28 So obviously they won.
00:29 Nah.
00:30 Oh dear.
00:31 That was very similar to the Hawthorne Port Adelaide game a couple of weeks ago.
00:35 Yeah, so Kingborough needed to score three times within those 89 seconds and they did.
00:39 So they kicked a goal.
00:40 There was a point and then Lonnie kicked it out.
00:43 Needed, thought be said, about three inches away from the boundary line.
00:47 Didn't get across and Kingborough obviously came back and second gamer Ryan Bradburn kicked
00:53 the goal, which would have been fantastic on his second game.
00:56 The atmosphere was crazy.
00:58 How many seconds were left when he kicked it?
01:00 I reckon it would have had to have been one or two because when they went back to the
01:03 middle and threw the ball up, the siren went when the ball was in midair.
01:06 So yeah, it was truly last second stuff.
01:10 So I heard the roar and the siren.
01:13 Well, it was virtually the winning goal, wasn't it?
01:15 Yeah, it was.
01:16 Absolutely.
01:17 There was no time left at all.
01:20 And NTFA, big weekend for NTFA footy.
01:23 Talk us through Meander Valley then.
01:26 Yeah, it was probably slightly happier scenes out at Westbury than it was for Launceston.
01:34 Meander Valley won their first game in just over a thousand days, so pretty much three
01:38 years.
01:39 It's been a lot of tough losses in that period as well, not losing by small margins, a lot
01:43 of really big losses in that time.
01:46 It was a really great scene out there.
01:48 There was a lot of really passionate support.
01:50 Will Stoltenberg was celebrating on the sidelines with every moment, with every kick pretty
01:55 much and I just want to touch on an emotional moment after the game.
01:58 Caleb Williams, who's one of their players, appears to have broken his pelvis halfway
02:02 through the game and it was a really great emotional moment between him and Will as the
02:08 siren went.
02:09 They were hugging, it was on the back page of the Sunday Examiner.
02:12 Yeah, it was great to be a part of and it's sort of what country footy is all about, seeing
02:17 community wrap around a club like that.
02:19 I also saw a video on social media of one of the Meander Suns players getting this final
02:23 score tattooed on their leg.
02:25 So it's fair to say that the Meander Valley players enjoyed their night and enjoyed breaking
02:31 their drought.
02:32 Yeah, the President sort of said, "This is not where we want to stop.
02:37 This is just the start of hopefully what's to come."
02:40 But breaking that drought and getting that win is really massive for the club.
02:45 So it's, from a neutral perspective, great to see.
02:48 And speaking of drought-breaking results, Brian, what happened at Longford?
02:53 So Longford were beaten at home for the first time since late 2021 and they were beaten
02:59 by Bridge North by about three goals.
03:01 But it came after Longford scored their first victory at Rotorilie in about five years,
03:08 just the week before.
03:09 So we've got a couple of statistical quirks in consecutive weeks and I think that this
03:17 has got you thinking, mate, about bringing back a certain segment.
03:20 Oh no, here we go.
03:22 Get ready for the sting that I hope is going to come up here.
03:24 No pressure, Aaron.
03:25 [Storm]
03:26 Pandy's Hard Hitters is making its hard-hitting return and our question this week, everyone,
03:35 is what is the toughest challenge in sport?
03:38 I'm going to start off with you, Josh.
03:40 Well, my mind went to Tiger Woods at major golf championships.
03:45 So from 1998 to 2005, he made 142 consecutive cuts just on the PGA Tour alone.
03:52 But at major championships from 1997 to 2003, he was 126 under par and the next best was
04:01 251 shots behind him.
04:04 So Tiger went alright.
04:06 He goad alright.
04:07 Wow.
04:08 What about you, Rob?
04:10 Coming from my soccer background, I can't stand them, but I'll have to say Manchester
04:13 City at home.
04:14 They last lost at home in December 2022 and they didn't lose with Rodri playing since
04:22 February last year until the cup final at the weekend.
04:25 And he ground.
04:26 Yes.
04:27 If Rodri played, they did not lose and he played nearly every game.
04:31 And he wears his shorts so high up, he really is a Harry Hypanx.
04:35 So I think if you can get away wearing shorts like that and never losing, that's pretty
04:38 impressive.
04:39 And for you, Brian?
04:40 Yeah, I'll go with tennis for something different.
04:43 Like obviously Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open over the last 15 years has been almost
04:50 unbeatable.
04:51 And I'm going to go on a similar theme.
04:52 Rafael Nadal has 112 to 4 record now after last night at Roland Garros since he first
04:59 started in 2005, I want to say.
05:01 It's pretty remarkable.
05:02 And a quick shout out to the All Blacks as well, who didn't lose at Eden Park for three
05:06 decades.
05:07 Fair point.
05:08 Speaking of tennis, you boys have been working on the latest development at the Regional
05:12 Tennis Centre.
05:13 They've finally got their clubhouse.
05:14 Can you just give us a summary of what's happened there?
05:16 Yeah, it's been a really long winded project.
05:19 You would know, Rob.
05:21 It's been more than a decade in the making.
05:23 So effectively on Friday, it was announced to the tennis club members that the people,
05:31 the contract effectively been handed out to Fair Brothers Group and construction is actually
05:35 meant to start Monday just gone, the 26th I think that might be.
05:40 And yeah, it's a huge moment for the club.
05:44 It's been waiting on this now single story clubhouse for obviously such a long time and
05:50 it's going to bring back the Launceston International, which obviously has been played in Burnie
05:53 the last couple of years.
05:54 So it's genuinely really good news for the tennis community up here in Launceston.
05:58 Yeah, it's been so long in the making.
06:01 I remember when it opened, I can't remember what year it was, but Sam Stozer came and
06:05 it was meant to be the next big thing in regional tennis in Australia.
06:09 And then basically since then there hasn't been anything done to the court.
06:13 And if anything, they've lost courts because they had the indoor centre at that time as
06:16 well.
06:17 So this will finally give tennis, I think, the shot in the arm that it possibly needs
06:22 in Tasmania and Northern Tasmania especially.
06:25 I think you're spot on.
06:26 I remember interviewing Sam Stozer that day.
06:28 I can't remember what year it was either.
06:29 But everyone thought this is Launceston's tennis problem solved at last.
06:34 And a few years later, we lose a major international tournament because we haven't got good enough
06:37 facilities.
06:38 So it all comes down to this clubhouse.
06:39 Yeah, I think it all comes down to you can't be what you can't see.
06:43 It's a bit of a cliche phrase, but I think it's true.
06:45 Launceston tennis has really suffered because you don't have this high end tournament coming
06:49 through where kids can come and watch and see what tennis can be.
06:54 And I think that's why we find the sport where it is at the moment.
06:57 We're just going to end with an Olympic update as well.
07:00 It's that time of year in an Olympic year where the squads are being named for Paris
07:05 at the moment.
07:06 And we've got lots of Tasmanians in relation to it.
07:08 I did a story this week.
07:09 I interviewed Jacob Despard, who's a Hobart sprinter, and he's doing very well this year.
07:14 He's actually the fastest Australian this year.
07:17 And so he was part of the team that qualified a 4x100 relay for Paris.
07:23 But it's one thing to qualify it.
07:25 It's another thing to then be selected for it.
07:26 And it's quite a complicated process.
07:28 Yeah.
07:29 Tell me a bit more about it.
07:30 I suppose there's one group that qualifies for them, but there's probably a fifth elephant
07:34 in the room, I suppose, that's been called.
07:36 That is exactly the expression that Jacob used.
07:39 So the four that qualified for the team were Jacob, Caleb Law, Sebastian Sultana, and Josh
07:45 Azapati.
07:46 And they went to the Bahamas for the World Relay Championships.
07:49 And they had to finish first or second, and they finished second in their race.
07:52 So they qualified a team.
07:53 The complication now comes in who makes the final make-up.
07:57 And to quote Jacob, "The elephant in the room here is Rowan Browning, but he does not come
08:01 to relay training."
08:02 So there's a bit of controversy, obviously, involved in this.
08:06 And Browning was the one who was part of the 4x1 team at the last Commonwealth Games and
08:12 stumbled as he started the anchor leg, and so they didn't finish.
08:16 I think there's a concern that the same might happen again because he doesn't go to relay
08:19 training.
08:20 He's undoubtedly one of the fastest sprinters, but the point that Despold was making was
08:24 that the fastest four runners aren't necessarily the best four relay runners.
08:28 Yeah, to read your piece, Rob, it's pretty interesting just looking beyond the characters
08:35 involved.
08:36 I think there's, in Australia, our culture around sport.
08:40 Obviously, we interview that many athletes almost every time.
08:44 So look, I know it's hard to talk about yourself, so we'll ask them about the team aspect.
08:49 And right down to that stuff, culturally in Australia, we are about, in cricket, the XR,
08:56 all 11 players and what they can contribute.
08:59 And we're looking at the very end of the last tail end that can do something for the Aussie
09:05 team.
09:06 And we're not really about Messiahs in sport.
09:10 And so when I read this, I was like, "Oh, I think this taps into that Aussie culture
09:17 of like, "Hang on a minute, these guys are the best team.
09:19 They're the best four.
09:20 They've trained together.
09:21 It's specific training."
09:23 So yeah, that was just my take on it.
09:26 Pardo, did you have any thoughts?
09:27 I was just going to say, this is truly the biggest story in Australian athletics at the
09:31 moment, and possibly even Australian sport going into the Olympics.
09:34 So congratulations, Rob.
09:35 I don't want to blow it up yet, but no, that's a really good story.
09:39 And to get Jacob's point of view on it, especially considering Rowan and Rowan's status in Australian
09:46 athletics as well, it's massive.
09:47 I think you touched on it just quickly.
09:51 They know each other really well, which means their baton passing is really smooth.
09:56 That's faster, or perhaps more valuable than a slightly faster runner in and of itself.
10:01 And that's another sort of Australian phrase that comes to mind is a team of champions
10:06 is not as good as a champion team.
10:08 I think that's probably fitting for this occasion.
10:10 Yeah, that's spot on.
10:11 It'll be interesting to see which way they go.
10:14 All the other sports are also on the verge of announcing Olympic squads in the next month
10:17 or two, and the games kick off, I think, on July 24th.
10:20 Let's watch this space and we'll see what happens.
10:23 Thanks for tuning in.
10:24 We'll see you next week.
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