Is it a wider issue than just cricket?

[Gooka]

We're all pretty frustrated at the current state of our national cricket team. Bad performances and kids that largely don't seem up to it. Many theories have been bandied around recently - bad selections, bad coaches, bad leadership, no vision by CA. But is it a wider Australian sporting issue than just cricket?

Think of our other traditionally strong sports: Rugby, League, Swimming, Tennis, Golf... Other olympic events... We're under performing in many areas these days. Is there a broader issue within the country around tallent identification and development?

 

[Furn]

No one here will want to hear this but the whole Australians are great at sport is a bit of a myth.

Not saying Aus dont punch above their weight, and have had some great sportsman but the success seen by the current generation in the olympics, commonwealth games, cricket, soccer has alot do do with pouring huge money in sports.

In 1976 Aus won one gold medal in the olympics, and were smashed on home soil in the 1982 commonwealth games. Aus also struggled in cricket and soccer at the time.

The government poured money into the AIS and pathways, development etc for other sports. This resulted in a generation of success.

What we are seeing now is other countries doing the same thing and catching up. We saw it with the GB olympic team with the lotto money, and Eng made alot of changes to its cricket system as have India.

So while Aus will always be a great sporting nation i dont think we'll see the huge success across sports that weve see in the last 20 odd years.

 

[nineteen eighty]

Good point Furn.

I have also stated elsewhere that one of the reasons we are struggling to find suitable replacements from Sheffield Shield to come into the team is due to the way the SS is played these days. Games are manufactured for results and hence cheap wickets are taken due to batsmen taking risks in pursuit of quick runs. At the same time, batsmen take significant risks in the pursuit of quick runs which then becomes part of their game on a full time basis. Hence this leads to the situation we have now where once they come into the team (even as mature rookies) they struggle to adapt.

 

[superfreak]

Have a read of this....not sure what to make of it. Either a poor attempt at humour ot one of the biggest loads of shite i have ever read!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...atch--just-point-Australia.html#ixzz19bOVYrRD

 

[DeadlyAkkuret]

Australia is said to be positioned dangerously close to a potential sinkhole somewhere in the Indian Ocean, so there's that. Also, a recent study conducted by some of the world's leading smellologists has revealed that as little as 0.8% of books in Australia smell like rich mahogany.

Yeah, we're pretty much screwed.

 

[Damon_3388]

Have a read of this....not sure what to make of it. Either a poor attempt at humour ot one of the biggest loads of shite i have ever read!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...atch--just-point-Australia.html#ixzz19bOVYrRD

I'd think it was written with tongue firmly in cheek.

That being said, does anyone in Australia actually give a stuff about Rolf Harris? I know he's massive in the UK, but he's pretty much irrelevant to the average person here these days, isn't he?

 

[Tazwegian]

Have a read of this....not sure what to make of it. Either a poor attempt at humour ot one of the biggest loads of shite i have ever read!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...atch--just-point-Australia.html#ixzz19bOVYrRD

I think it is pretty funny. Nothing wrong with a bit of mudslinging between the two countries.

 

[borgsta2006]

Good point Furn.

I have also stated elsewhere that one of the reasons we are struggling to find suitable replacements from Sheffield Shield to come into the team is due to the way the SS is played these days. Games are manufactured for results and hence cheap wickets are taken due to batsmen taking risks in pursuit of quick runs. At the same time, batsmen take significant risks in the pursuit of quick runs which then becomes part of their game on a full time basis. Hence this leads to the situation we have now where once they come into the team (even as mature rookies) they struggle to adapt.

Some great points made here. Do we maybe need to make SS games 5 days to replicate the Test Matches?? I don't think so.

 

[Rookie]

To me, it seems like for a while there we were the best because we spent the most and had the most innovative and competitive structures. How else does a nation of 20 million people regularly finish in the top 5 or so at the Olympics? Hence a golden age of out performance.

Now the rest of the world is catching up and pegging us back across a wide variety of sports.

England's successful cricket academy is just one example.

 

[DaRick]

No one here will want to hear this but the whole Australians are great at sport is a bit of a myth.

Not saying Aus dont punch above their weight, and have had some great sportsman but the success seen by the current generation in the olympics, commonwealth games, cricket, soccer has alot do do with pouring huge money in sports.

In 1976 Aus won one gold medal in the olympics, and were smashed on home soil in the 1982 commonwealth games. Aus also struggled in cricket and soccer at the time.

The government poured money into the AIS and pathways, development etc for other sports. This resulted in a generation of success.

What we are seeing now is other countries doing the same thing and catching up. We saw it with the GB olympic team with the lotto money, and Eng made alot of changes to its cricket system as have India.

So while Aus will always be a great sporting nation i dont think we'll see the huge success across sports that weve see in the last 20 odd years.

No, we won those games - although we would perform much better in subsequent games, for the reasons you listed.

However, pouring money into sports is not always going to get you the desired results. There are other factors at work in various countries (i.e - corruption in India) and possibly a long-ingrained mentality that may preclude or otherwise adversely affect results.

 

[Ashski]

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket...larming-lack-of-newcomers-20110101-19ch3.html

Here is your answer.

AFL = Cancer to Australia's international sport competiveness. Plain and simple.

 

[Wallaby]

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket...larming-lack-of-newcomers-20110101-19ch3.html

Here is your answer.

AFL = Cancer to Australia's international sport competiveness. Plain and simple.

Absolutely true. However, in England the best kids go into soccer. In the US, the best kids go into NFL, basketball and baseball. The same thing happens in all countries.

I now a guy whose son came second in the Australian U/16 400m a year or so ago. The kid is also a good footballer. Guess which sport he's going to choose?
He can make a fairly average living from aths if he's one of the top 2 or 3 400m runners in the country. To make a good living as an AFL footballer, he has to be in the best 500.

 

[Ashski]

Absolutely true. However, in England the best kids go into soccer. In the US, the best kids go into NFL, basketball and baseball. The same thing happens in all countries.
quote]

England and USA have 51 and 307 million people respectively!

The county cricket system attracts world players from around the world, there are plenty of teams and sponsorship money has been strong. These factors have created a large opportunity for attracting professional cricket players from a large population base, despite soccer's dominance. Soccer doesn't attract the biggest atheletes though. Very few soccer players are much over 6'3". Notice how most of the English fast bowlers in this squad are well beyond that. Our tall guys could also be going into cricket, rugby union or basketball.

Somehow NSW supports Cricket, League, Union and Soccer equally and provides the bulk of their respective international representatives. The push by AFL into western Sydney and the Gold Coast is a disaster as far as I'm concerned. Totally unecessary. Australia cannot afford for NSW and QLD to lose athletes to AFL.

Australia used to have a tradition of punching above it's weight and we all got great pleasure from it. I wonder how keen in the future Melbournian's will be in attending these international "foreign" sports "events" played by the rest of the country when Australia is getting flogged?

At least women's sport has a brighter international future. Australia won the Asian Women's Football Cup recently, a marvellous achievement. We have a few decent womens tennis players, the basketballers are strong. A 16 yr old from Albury even won a major skiing moguls comp in the USA a couple of weeks ago, beating all the best of the American women!

This is as it should be, punching above our weight, but the mens side of things will never be what it should be.

 

[nineteen eighty]

Interesting topic by Henry Lawson...makes some excellent points...

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket...lectors-who-know-the-game-20110101-19chh.html

- has a more than decent crack at Nielson (who continually denigrates Sheffield Shield)
- "Coaches who have little or no experience at international level, and fitness and medical staff who have narrow and fixed ideas of what constitutes bespoke preparation and who basically don't understand the game, are a significant problem."
- crack at Troy Cooley as our bowling coach "Tactically, Australia's bowling was bereft in Melbourne. No tall bowlers hitting the pitch hard (four selectors who are all batsmen, take note: no cutters, no cross seam, almost a total lack of bowling fundamentals)."

Final paragraph sums it up:

"At the moment, we appear to have a surfeit of technical, mechanical and - heaven forbid - spiritual coaches who talk a good game but lack real, applicable cricket knowledge, and a formula that is applied exactly the same to every player. Time to get some coaches, selectors and administrators who ''know the game"."

Got to say that I agree with pretty much everything he has stated. From the time that Gilly, Warne and Mcgrath retired, it was obvious that we would come back to the pack but I have been surprised with how far we have come back to the pack. I don't understand how the English bowlers can swing the ball in Melbourne and we were bowling dead straght...or in Siddle's case at least he was doing a bit off the seam.

 

[gazzas army]

No one here will want to hear this but the whole Australians are great at sport is a bit of a myth.

Not saying Aus dont punch above their weight, and have had some great sportsman but the success seen by the current generation in the olympics, commonwealth games, cricket, soccer has alot do do with pouring huge money in sports.

In 1976 Aus won one gold medal in the olympics, and were smashed on home soil in the 1982 commonwealth games. Aus also struggled in cricket and soccer at the time.

The government poured money into the AIS and pathways, development etc for other sports. This resulted in a generation of success.

What we are seeing now is other countries doing the same thing and catching up. We saw it with the GB olympic team with the lotto money, and Eng made alot of changes to its cricket system as have India.

So while Aus will always be a great sporting nation i dont think we'll see the huge success across sports that weve see in the last 20 odd years.

Your point is mostly taken, having said that, pouring heaps of money into sport is no gaurantee of success, may I remind you of Tamsyn Lewis

 

[Father Jack]

Have a read of this....not sure what to make of it. Either a poor attempt at humour ot one of the biggest loads of shite i have ever read!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...atch--just-point-Australia.html#ixzz19bOVYrRD

pretty much just a regurgitation of the same old tired cliches that were old and tired when Monty Python were doing their 'Bruces' sketches in the Sixties.

I do like the casual denigration of Aussie Rules being played pretty much only Australia, as having your game go international and taken out of your control certainly has worked well with the Poms and soccer, as their World Cup hosting in 2018 will show.

 

[Thommo 42]

It's clearly the Labor governments fault.

As if we can be a good sporting nation with leaders like Rudd and Gillard!