Wallabies down All Blacks in Brisbane
The third Test of the series might have been a dead rubber but Michael Cheika’s men had a point to prove to their trans-Tasman enemies – and they did it, ending a run of seven straight defeats to score their first win over New Zealand since August 2015.Australia scored three tries to two, showing new-found grit to close out the match as New Zealand mounted a late rally in front of 45,107 supporters who braved constant rain.Two crunch second-half penalties from Reece Hodge – in the 64th and 78th minutes, both from beyond the halfway line – iced it for the Wallabies.The All Blacks could could have levelled the scores in the 73rd minute after Rieko Ioane’s try but Damien McKenzie couldn’t land a difficult conversion attempt from out wide.It was sweet relief for Bernard Foley, whose own wayward goalkicking nearly cost the Wallabies yet again after he missed three of his four shots at goal.Foley kicked two from six in the second Bledisloe Test, when New Zealand prevailed in the dying minutes in Dunedin – but the world champions couldn’t conjure up the same magic this time around.Just like that clash, this one also started with an early intercept try to the Wallabies.Will Genia’s pressure and tackle on Lima Sopoaga created the opportunity, forcing him to cough the ball up right in the path of Hodge, who galloped 70m to score next to the posts.But Australia’s 7-0 lead lasted only seven minutes. New Zealand replied quickly through Waisake Naholo, who went over untouched on the overlap.Sopoaga converted and then nailed back-to-back penalties to extend the visitors’ lead to 13-7, with Australia struggling to keep the ball in the slippery conditions.Eventually they strung some passes together and it worked.Israel Folau darted between Naholo and Liam Squire to cap off a well-worked crossfield move in the dying embers of the first-half.Bernard Foley was off target with a follow-up kick that would have put them in front, so it remained 13-12 at half-time.Foley missed another penalty attempt in the 51st minute and could have had one more shot in the 56th from right in front, after an offside penalty.But they opted for an attacking line-out – a decision that paid off handsomely.It led to Marika Koroibete crossing on the other side of the field for his fourth try in three Tests, steamrolling McKenzie to make it 17-13. It was a lead they didn’t surrender.New Zealand beat Australia 54-34 in Sydney and 35-29 in Dunedin during the Rugby Championship and so were already assured of retaining the Bledisloe Cup for a 15th successive season. Photo: PHOTOSPORT Waisake Naholo goes in for the All Blacks first try. 3rd Bledisloe Cup rugby test match, Australia v All Blacks, Brisbane, 2017
The energy from the home side getting aggressive when the game started. It was then captain Isake Katonibau, who told the PNG players, “to men up”. Play the game and stop acting like kids. It was PNG who begged the team to come, “so play rugby like men and stop behaving like children”.Fiji went on to win gold in both men and women’s.For Fijiana it was even more special. Having lost to Australia in the first game, Fijiana met them in the final again but this time, it was Fiji that reigned.The Karate teamPerhaps the most successful team in the Pacific Games raking in seven gold medals. The secret behind this team’s success was dedication and discipline. Karate section manager Lavorne Qio said the athletes trained early in the morning and in the afternoon.She said if it was not for the commitment of the athletes, the team would not have been able to achieve the seven gold medals.Toea WisilShe is the reigning Pacific Sprint Queen and the sporting star in PNG. Toea Wisil rarely makes public appearances and when she does, she gets mobbed by fans. Every two steps of the way, there is someone who wants a picture taken with her.Wisil remained true to what was expected of her. She ran a brilliant 100m and 200m and even won the 400m event.The PNG women 4x400m relay team which she was a part of also won gold medal.Wisil had just one regret from the Pacific Games, that was not able to win the 4x100m relay.My last glimpse of Wisil was at a Port Moresby club, where she came with her friends on the night of the closing ceremony. She rarely had a minute to herself. Every second patron coming to take pictures or have her sign autographs.Banuve TabakaucoroBanz was simply outstanding. He came and he set the tracks on fire and much to the dismay of the PNG fans, Tabakaucoro remained the fastest man in the Pacific.He ran a brilliant in the 100m. He ran smartly in the heats, not stepping on the paddle yet, fasts enough to outclass all those running with him.During the 100m heats, PNG photographers gathered to compare shots of Tabakaucoro when one exclaimed, “he looks so calm”.In the 200m, he set a Pacific Games record just 0.03 seconds short of Olympic qualification. Those were the only two gold medals he won.In the 4x400m relay, Tabakaucoro was the anchor and had it not been Nelson Stone running for PNG, Fiji would have had the gold medal. Tabakaucoro’s biggest regret was not being able to win the 4x100m relay as well.This was just poor choice of runners. Albert Miller Jr who started the relay was just not fast enough. PNG started well and ended well.Tabakaucoro tried his best but Kupun Wisil of PNG was 30 metres ahead by the time he received the baton.The women’s 4×100 relay teamSisilia Seavula, Makelesi Tumalevu, Elenoa Sailosi and Younis Bese caused the biggest upset on the tracks.In an event where PNG was supposed to win, Fiji prevailed. PNG knew that Fiji had fast women and the home team made a tactical change. Toea Wisil was to be their second runner and the burden fell on Tumalevu.Seavula started the race very well. PNG and Fiji changed baton and Wisil tore up the tracks and crowd started cheering but it was to let Wisil know that the unknown Tumalevu was fast closing the gap.Sailosi who was on the last bend did marvellous work to ensure that Bese received the baton first. Bese has had to settle at second best behind Wisil since 2013, but now with no Wisil around, the smiling assassin finished first.The Fiji team outclassed the host nations in the baton interchange.The venuesTaurama: this venue housed the Taurama Aquatic Centre and the BSP Arena. The swimming pools were marvellous, so was the court which hosted basketball and then volleyball, karate and tae kwon do. Sitting was temporary showing that venue had not been fully finished.Caritas: the Caritas Complex was perhaps one venue that was finished. It hosted table-tennis, bodybuilding and boxing.Steamship Racquet Club: one venue that was not new. This hosted the lawn tennis and squash.Bisini: this was home to football, touch, lawn bowls and cricket. Before the Pacific Games, this was homes and empty space and supposedly the headquarters of the PNG Rugby Union. The spectator stands were temporary and to get from one end of the venue to another took more than half an hour. The size of the football fields was questionable as well.Sir John Guise Stadium: this was divided into four parts. The ground where the track and rugby games were held, the Power Dome where weightlifting, powerlifting, basketball and netball took place, the beach volleyball sands and the hockey turf.The ground where rugby was played was small and finished just after the tryline. Half of the try area was carpets which looked like grass. The ground was sand itself and there were a lot of bruises. The stands were beautiful even the temporary ones. This is where the opening and the closing ceremony was held. During the rugby sevens, it started raining, teams were housed under the main stand and after two hours of rain the teams had no dry area.The Power Dome was a beautiful venue. Finished in time and containing world-class features.Sir Hubert Murray Stadium: this was being worked on even when the Pacific Games was in its first week but after completion, this venue had the best pitch.Medal TallyIt was not until the second week of the Pacific Games when the situation regarding the medal tally was finalised. All teams/countries were asked to give their data so the data committee could check the data they had.Information flow was not the efficient and different venues rarely shared information with each other. The best organised was Taurama where the team headed by Constance and Cyrill kept all media informed of upcoming events and results were available five minutes after the event. No other venues operated with such efficiency.Despite the minor setbacks, it was an amazing experience for all.The athletes had the best time. The Games Village was a hive of activity and allowed athletes to make new friends. The people of Port Moresby turned out to be very good hosts. According to some, the games ensured Moresby was the safest it had been in years and there was hope that it would stay this way. Hopefully, Tonga is able to deliver a better experience. Tonga is taking help from PNG to help them organise an event which would be international in nature as well. They have four years to do that. The facilities were classed as world class and there was a rush to finish them. There were security concerns which the Papua New Guinea Government quashed by having the police and military on the streets.In Fiji, sporting bodies were getting their best together.According to FASANOC president Joe Rodan, the Pacific Games was almost equivalent to the Olympic Games for some sports and for some island nations as well.This was to be my first trip to Papua New Guinea, the “Land of the Unexpected” and believe me I was a bit anxious.There was no one in Fiji who had said “have a good time”, in fact whenever had I mentioned that I was going to be spending 19 days in Port Moresby, all I seemed to be getting was “stay safe.”But despite the warnings, the Pacific Games was a very memorable experience.The following according to me were the highlights of the games.The opening ceremonyThe organisers of the Pacific Games had contracted the same company that had done the opening ceremony for the London Olympic Games and Port Moresby was abuzz. Streets were closed and people lined up for almost a kilometre to get to the ticket booths.The teams or the different countries had lined up from 3pm and along with them the various tribes and cultural performers.The tall stages were on either side and the centre stage where the performers and teams passed through. The night concluded with fireworks with more than 15,000 in attendance and a million more on television.Fiji’s first goldManueli Tulo stands at five feet six inches and weighs at 58kg but he is a giant when it comes to weightlifting.Tulo had a personal vendetta this time around. After being told to leave the weightlifting academy by Paul Coffa, Tulo had some scores to be settled.The little giant won three gold medals and then made amends with Coffa.The power of PNG fansWhenever the host nation PNG is playing, the sport is one that has mass appeal and beware the extra man — the fans. Fiji got its first taste of PNG fans’ behaviour when the basketball men’s took on the home side in Taurama.The PNG fans only cheer their team for every action but booed the opposition as loudly as possible — sometimes disturbing their concentration.Captain Marques Whippy after the game admitted, the crowd had unsettled the team leading to their loss.The Fiji sevens teamsThe Fiji sevens team were being awaited with much anticipation. To the PNG fans , the Fiji team were superstars, who they had watched on television only. To make things more interesting, the home side was pitted to play Fiji in the first game.
The country’s flagbearer Vai had an easy game winning all her sets against Samoa, 11-6,11-2 and 11-5.In another result, Miriam Peni finished 6th in the finals with a season’s best time of 12:38s. Beupu Noki lost his first match in boxing while Ryan Maskelyne did a personal best (27:70s) in the 50m butterfly and Savannah Tkatchenko went in at 1:10.46 and did 1:12.48 on the clock. In tennis, Matthew Stubbings beat his Fijian rival and Violet Apisah was victorious over Barbados in their first singles round. Bea Ovia was unlucky in the women’s weightlifting, missing out on the bronze by just 0.01kg (bodyweight).The Commonwealth Youth Games started on September 5th and will end on the 11th.
The 23-man squad including 23 players and three goalkeepers looked prepared as they walked out of the terminal and set foot on the bus. Captaining the team will be Roy Krishna while Ba’s defender, Alvin Singh was selected as the vice-captain. Fiji will take on New Zealand at 6pm this Saturday in its first pool match. However, from the eight teams New Zealand, New Caledonia, Tahiti and Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa the teams that have already arrived were the defending champions Tahiti, Vanuatu, Samoa and New Caledonia. New Zealand and Solomon Islands are set to arrive on Saturday when the games kick off.
The eleven categories are male athlete of the year, female athlete of the year, team of the year, national performance of the year, community sports initiative, junior male athlete of the year, junior female athlete of the year, best sportsperson with a disability, sports official of the year, sports media of the year and sports photo of the year.From the 140 nominees for the awards in different categories, SP sports award committees, chaired by Moses Koiri, have picked the top three nominees for each category for the finals.Moreover, SP Brewery thanked the family of sponsors for supporting the event and making it possible and hopes that it will be a memorable one.Also, among the guests and awardees tomorrow evening will also feature one of Australia’s basketballer and former NBA star Lauren Jackson. She will be a guest speaker at the awards.The event will be staged at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, downtown Port Moresby, starting at 6pm.
WBC champion Jack (20-1-2) performed a workout in front of the media at Brooklyn’s Gleason’s Gym on Wednesday, ahead of Saturday night’s eagerly-anticipated unification clash with DeGale, live on Sky Sports 1 HD.And despite admitting he rates DeGale highly, Jack has vowed to disappoint UK fight fans by beating the 2008 Olympic gold medallist at the Barclays Center this weekend.”I’m going to win the fight, no matter what it takes,” Jack told Sky Sports News HQ.”I know it will happen. I love the UK fans – I’ve got a lot of fans in the UK – but I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal, it’s business and I have to beat him.Both fighters have only tasted defeat once in their professional careers and DeGale (23-1-0) is convinced he has done the hard yards to ensure there will not be another loss on his record this weekend.”I’m in fantastic shape and I’m feeling great. It’s been a long camp and I just can’t wait to get in there now,” he said.”This camp and the way I’m feeling now reminds me of when I won the world title in Boston, but this is champ v champ and there’s a lot on the line.”I’ve done all the hard work. Mind, body and soul, I feel great. I’ve whipped myself into fantastic shape after putting myself through hell.”I’m over the moon, I’m really pleased with myself and I’m just ready to go now.”Badou Jack v James DeGale is live on Sky Sports 1 HD on Saturday night from 2am.
In the club they consider that the arguments that protect them are more than justified to request a replacement, since Although it is true that this type of injury and subsequent passage through the operating room to resolve it with surgery, they usually recover within a maximum of four months, the background in injuries and relapses of the French striker invite to be more cautious if possible, so making a six-month forecast is in no case an entelechy. However, The last word will be taken by the Federation Medical Committee. Ousmane Dembélé will be off the pitch for six months. This was highlighted by the statement issued by the club this afternoon after operating in Finland by the team of the prestigious surgeon Sakari Orava. The player was successfully intervened for a complete rupture of the proximal tendon of the biceps femoris of the right leg, according to the medical part.That obviously means saying goodbye to the season and also to the possibility of playing the European Championship with France, since at best it would be recovered in the face of the start of the pre-season of Barcelona next August. And it also opens the doors wide to find a substitute since it falls within the minimum margin of five months required by the Federation so that an alternative can be sought in full season and with the window of the winter market fully closed. Now it will be a Committee of five doctors of the Federation who will decide if the medical report that the club gives them about the player’s withdrawal is correct or not. If it falls within the established parameters, the Committee will give the OK and the Blaugrana club may sign a player to replace the long-range withdrawal of Dembélé.
By the way, the subsidiary player, the Japanese Hiroki Abe, was also operated this morning by the Sakari Orava team of a complete rupture of the proximal tendon of the biceps femoris of the right leg. In his case, according to the medical report, the recovery time is set at about four months.
Sonia Duro, consultant, digital marketing trainer and community manager of Nicestream, a subsidiary of I3 Ventures for two years, recognized in an interview at El Món to RAC 1 that “what surprises me most about this case is that one million euros is paid for a monitoring job, which is outrageous and out of the market. It is also surprising that the pages in question have many followers, we talk about 25,000 or something. And the followers are real. There are ways to increase followers “. Nicestream and I3Ventures are the companies hired by Barcelona in 2017 to monitor their Social Networks and that the SER Chain revealed that it created accounts to attack characters from the Barcelona environment including players of the current squad such as Messi or Piqué. Duro explained that he worked as a Community Manager and left the company before it was hired by Barça. “Six or seven people worked in the company and I left because I was fired because I could not make work compatible as the impulse of a personal project. In my opinion it is unethical to use social networks to attack people, networks are not bad per se, you have to make good use. I was surprised by the news regarding the practices of the company, when I found out I asked what had happened and everyone was surprised. I cannot assure you that they have done it. Personally, I am against these practices, but it is a fact that this is done. I cannot assure you that it was done in my previous company, “he said.
A new survey of this newspaper at Bale’s most direct environment draws a complicated situation for Madrid. Has the welsh contract until 2022 and charges 14.5 million net per season, the one of the team with Ramos. And, today, “it does not occur to him other than to terminate his contract wearing the Madrid shirt”, They tell us flatly. At this point there is no team interested in getting their services. There wasn’t last summer, with the exception of Jiangsu Sunning, who only took care of his card but did not pay transfer. The operation was undone at the same time that Madrid asked for money for the sale. Now, seen his performance this season, it would have been advantageous to let him out for free … Roller coasterZidane dreamed of a trident Bale, Benzema, Hazard at the beginning of the season. That is why he opted for the Welshman from the beginning. That “if you leave today better than tomorrow” was not a malicious phrase, as the Frenchman was responsible for transmitting the player in a private meeting, but a demonstration from the certainty that he was leaving for the Chinese team. That Zidane crowded a Madrid with the BBH for the big occasions, the fact that it was his bet for the first big game of the season, against the PSG in the Park of the Princes. But he was too ambitious and placed James next to Casemiro and Kroos. He fell 3-0 with a crash. And yet, Zidane scored the same eleven in the next game, in a whole Sánchez Pizjuán (0-1 this time). The technician repeated trident before the Atlético en Liga (0-0), another big game. This time with Casemiro-Valverde-Kroos …. Hazard’s ankle injury truncated the idea of BBH de Zidane, that came back to return with the return of the Belgian in the match against him Celtic (2-2). It seemed a general rehearsal of what was to come before City and in the Classic. But first the poor performance of Bale, and then Hazard’s injury, they definitely buried Zidane’s plan.Bale’s credit in Madrid is low. It only saves him that the board sees him as a amortized player. The numbers leave him very naked. He hasn’t scored in the League since September 1 (It’s already 188 days!). There are only three goals this campaign, in which he has only been able to dispute the 33% of possible minutes (so far, its average was 47%). He has only been able to finish five games of the 14 he has started … Everything for a player who is the best paid with Ramos. Now, Bale runs a serious risk of becoming transparent.
“I understand that they made me more Turkish head than the rest. It’s something I didn’t attend to much, but I think it wasn’t fair. I can’t say I’m happy to be playing“Already few remember how far Bale took the leg out of the pot at the beginning of the season, when I was having a relevant role in the team after a summer full of turbulence in which he had a foot and a half in the Chinese Super League. It was just a mirage. Bale has once again become the irrelevant Bale of recent seasons, which disappeared at a stroke after scoring a double in the Kiev final, his last great contribution to the cause.Forced by the manifest lack of goal of the team and being Bale one of the men more easily to score the squad, Zidane had an attempt at rehabilitation with the Welshman. It was before the two tRare matches against City and Barcelona so unlike luck for Real Madrid. With foot and a half outside the Champions (after 1-2 of the Bernabéu before the Guardiola) and with a predominant position to win the League (one point up after the 2-0 of the Classic with twelve days ahead and better calendar), now It remains to be seen what role Bale will play by the end of the season. It is an enigma that will begin to be solved this Sunday at Benito Villamarín. If you have minutes again your role in the template would be revived facing the visit to Ettihad Stadium next day 17. If not, run the Welsh risk of staying in a limbo from here to end your contract.
Thebes will shortly participate in a Commission with UEFA, by videoconference, which will work on the restructuring of all calendars in Europe: “This commission is going to decide how we connect the calendars of all the European competitions of all the leagues (League, Cup, Champions, Europa League …). Nobody escapes that a calendar must be coordinated with European and all national competitions ”.Thebes is optimistic: “There are still 11 leagues in European competitions with competing teams. Already over the weekend we sent five proposals for different calendars, with different starting dates. We must think that Serie A has teams in Europe and still 15 days to play, between the Cup and the league. But everything is possible, even with Serie A. Our goal is to have in a maximum of ten days all the calendars of all the competitions in Europe remade ”. LaLiga president Javier Tebas has been very satisfied with the resolutions adopted by UEFA on Tuesday and that will allow, if the coronavirus pendemic is controlled, to finish the national championships with relative normality even if it is after the dates set at the beginning of the season.“Today’s events confirm what I have been saying for days, that we will end the season and that we will have dates”, ensures the maximum responsible for the employers.