The Examiner’s Rob Shaw, Brian Allen, Josh Partridge and Ben Hann unpack and discuss Australia's Matildas fever and all the sports news across Northern Tasmania.
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00:07 Welcome to episode 17 of the Pressbox, the Examiner's Sportscast.
00:12 Today's edition will be dominated by the sporting contest that everyone's talking about.
00:16 We're recording this on Wednesday, and in case you've been living under a rock for the last week,
00:21 England are playing Australia in the Women's World Cup semi-final on Wednesday night,
00:25 and we'll be talking about that.
00:27 We'll just kick off with action from the weekend.
00:30 We had the fourth and final AFL game in Launceston this weekend.
00:34 Ben, you were there. It was a good game.
00:36 It was a cracking game. It's the second time there's been a three-point margin out of the four games this season.
00:42 Hawks this time, though, getting on the right side of the ledger there.
00:46 It was a really close game. Hawks, as I predicted, as you guys will remember,
00:52 last weekend got the chocolates over Bulldogs after the Bulldogs came home late,
00:58 but they were able to hold on, largely thanks to John Newcomb,
01:02 who was a mid-season pick, the number one pick in the 2021 mid-season draft.
01:08 I think he alone just about sums up why that's been such a good idea,
01:12 the mid-season drafter player that was looked over, who played his 50th game of the weekend
01:17 and already looks like such a solidified, really key AFL player.
01:22 40 touches, 10 score involvements, just everything he did,
01:27 including having Cody Whightman bounce off him when he was trying to tackle him,
01:32 to just winning clearance after clearance.
01:35 It was one of the best games I've ever played, and statistically the best game any Hawthorne player has ever played,
01:41 since Tom Mitchell when he won his Brown loan.
01:44 But obviously moving on to the huge soccer story of the week,
01:48 and that's that Brighton are already above Tottenham in the English Premier League.
01:52 But just wrapping up, the local soccer results, it was a winless weekend for our men's teams,
01:57 but the women's, Launceston United won 3-2 over Torino in the women's Super League.
02:03 Closest that any of the men came to winning was a very interesting game up at Lonnie City,
02:08 where they lost 1-0 to Devonport, but it got quite feisty in the last few minutes
02:12 when City were denied a couple of fairly good penalty shouts,
02:16 but they didn't get them and Devonport took the cherries,
02:19 which didn't go down well with City's former Devonport player, Daniel Syson, who's now their coach.
02:25 So Devonport very close to wrapping up the title.
02:29 But moving on to the Lionesses, which is dominating coverage in Australian media,
02:33 and unprecedented getting so close to AFL finals, and yet all anyone's talking about is a soccer contest.
02:39 I was lucky enough to be in England last year when England won the European Championships,
02:44 and it just took over the nation.
02:46 The whole country got behind the Lionesses and they went all the way through,
02:50 and it was in their own country which helped, and we've now got exactly the same scenario here.
02:54 And just the way the nation are getting behind the Matildas, irrespective of how they go tonight,
02:59 there is of course a third, fourth place playoff, so even if they lose the game against England,
03:03 they will have another game at the weekend, which will be against Sweden, having lost to Spain last night.
03:08 What do you guys make of it, obviously from an English background,
03:11 what do you guys make of it in terms of how much coverage the Matildas are getting?
03:16 It's been fantastic. I mean, you just had to look at the AFL matches on Saturday night.
03:22 People were wanting to watch the Matildas instead of the footy.
03:26 The MCG said they'd show the game, which they did, but it went to extra time,
03:31 and they didn't really account for that, so a big message came up on the screen that said,
03:35 "To continue watching, please switch to your personal devices or available screens throughout the stadium."
03:41 So people were either just watching on their phones or they left a crowd around little tellies near bars and stuff.
03:47 But yeah, you could tell that people were grumpy about that, like they wanted to keep watching it on the big screen.
03:54 And they had a different thing over in Perth, they were still able to watch it on the big screen,
03:59 and it worked really well, and even the players were saying, like people were going crazy when the Matildas were...
04:04 the players were warming up and watching it.
04:07 It's awesome to see all the other sports and all that kind of teams get around the Matildas at the moment.
04:13 What's your take on it, Brian?
04:15 My take was it was summed up in this office, just us three guys here on Saturday night,
04:21 and we were obviously writing about the local sport, but the game was on in the background.
04:31 We were doing a little bit of work, by the way.
04:34 Anyway, so the penalty shootout comes on, and it got to a point there where we were all watching,
04:44 and it's amazing what this game can do, the tension of...
04:48 I don't know what the players are going through, but the tension of even watching it is like,
04:51 people are hiding in their houses, they can't watch even the kicks being taken.
05:00 You can imagine how much pressure there is for the players that are actually taking the kicks.
05:04 Anyway, in this office there was a... I believe we saved one, and Ben came and picked me up,
05:11 and lifted me up in celebration.
05:16 Unfortunately, I think we missed our first chance to win, and then obviously I think we ended up having three chances
05:27 where if we just kicked it we would have won.
05:31 I think it was the second time around I said to him, "Mate, you better not come and pick me up
05:37 until we've actually kicked the goal, the goal that we need to win."
05:43 In fairness to him, I think he did hold off that second time,
05:46 but then the third time he was allowed to come and pick me up.
05:49 The three of us had a group hug.
05:53 But that's how much it moves people.
05:56 So Ben, aside from being picked up by Brian, what's your take on the whole thing?
06:00 Don't pick me up!
06:02 I don't think he could pick me up.
06:05 Oh look, it's been wonderful.
06:07 I've heard Suzie Rack, who's a respected English football journalist and commentator,
06:11 say that in her time down here she thinks this World Cup, Australia's got around this World Cup
06:16 even more so than England got around their Lionesses during that tournament,
06:20 which I think is a pretty big comment to say when England's such a football-loving country.
06:25 It's their main sport.
06:26 So I think that's a testament to just how much all of Australia, from every corner,
06:31 has just got around it.
06:33 I just suppose, from my point of view, I've been really, really impressed by--
06:37 I've known coming into it just how much quality we have in this team,
06:40 but I think there was a lot of questions when Sam Kerr wasn't playing.
06:43 She's one of the best players to have ever played football in the women's sport,
06:48 in my opinion.
06:50 Players like Caitlin Ford and Mary Fowler have been so important.
06:56 They've shown--the opposite class, I'd be amazed if Mary Fowler isn't a Premier League player
07:00 or a player for Barcelona or anything like that in the near future, the way she's played.
07:05 And even cameos from Mackenzie Arnold and Hayley Rasso.
07:12 It's sort of like--it's the great part about tournament football,
07:15 even just sport in general, you can make--these people become heroes in society
07:19 just through moments and stuff like that.
07:22 And you see it almost nowhere else in all of society.
07:26 I think it's probably been my favourite part about it,
07:28 is being able to champion these people who you would--
07:31 a lot of the public would never have heard of before this tournament.
07:34 One of the interesting aspects I've enjoyed watching is when I first came to the Examiner 20 years ago,
07:39 I came into the office, obviously from an English football background.
07:42 The first thing I was told was I wasn't allowed to call it football,
07:45 so I had to get used to calling it soccer.
07:47 And whenever I talked about soccer, I would be told, "Oh, let me guess, was it nil-nil?
07:52 That sounds exciting."
07:54 And now we have the nation wrapped by a nil-nil in absolute ratchets.
07:59 What do you guys, coming from an AFL background,
08:02 how do you think the AFL views the Matildas' success?
08:05 Are they happy to get on the bandwagon, or do you think they're threatened by it?
08:09 What do you think?
08:10 I think it's the bandwagon.
08:12 At the moment, they want to be seen--like everyone in society at the moment,
08:16 our politicians are getting behind the Matildas in absolute ratchets.
08:20 Everyone wants to be seen to be on the Matildas' bandwagon.
08:25 It would be interesting to see maybe in a couple of years' time,
08:28 or leading into another major tournament, what the AFL might do when it's not on home soil.
08:33 And whether we do all get behind them like we are now, it would be interesting to see.
08:38 But yeah, I think at the moment, well and truly on the bandwagon,
08:41 but the threatening feeling could be coming, I reckon.
08:44 I feel that this sort of transcends that soccer v AFL debate,
08:52 because it's a national moment, and it kind of just shows how crazy we are about sport in this country.
08:58 I mean, it was a sport based on Saturday night.
09:03 You had the Matildas win in a very tight game,
09:07 and then Carlton and Melbourne's game went down to the wire as well.
09:10 And I was watching the line-asses by then as well.
09:14 Yeah, but it was a delight for sports fans.
09:18 I really feel that, like with the footy,
09:24 the footy's issue really, it's been quite apparent this year,
09:28 is the concussions and the safety of the game.
09:32 Footy at the AFL level certainly is doing everything it can to make the game safer,
09:37 which has come through the tribunal sort of stuff this year.
09:42 But I think that, yeah, what footy kind of needs to deal with is making the game safe
09:50 so that parents feel that they can put their little kids in Auskick and all those sort of things.
09:55 And yeah, I just think that that's probably footy's biggest challenge.
10:00 Yeah, and we keep hearing in the stat that it was the biggest viewing figure since Cathy Freeman,
10:05 obviously the connection between the two is it's both female sport.
10:08 Do you think the nation is more prepared to get around a female sporting team than it might be?
10:15 More people are watching this than watch the men's team in the last World Cup.
10:19 Why do you think they are more happy to get behind women's sport?
10:22 It's a curious one. I think an element that people really love is the purity of what's going on about this.
10:29 But to be honest, my opinion on it is I think it was always going to be a matter of time
10:35 before a large proportion of the male population of Australia, which love their sport,
10:41 were going to come around and start watching more female sport.
10:45 I think this, I can't say this for sure, but I get the feeling that men's sport is so covered by,
10:55 the men's side of things is always so covered by so much sport that you're pretty much at your peak audience all the time,
11:01 whereas there's so much potential for more audience in women's sport.
11:04 So you're getting all of women watching people who 20 years ago wouldn't have had the same opportunity,
11:12 at least not in front of the same amount of people or anything like that.
11:15 Plus these men, or the male population are also getting around it and enjoying it as much as they have been.
11:23 I think that's probably where the untapped potential has been, as well as I think,
11:27 that's why people get around the Olympics, like the 2000 Olympics, as you mentioned there before,
11:31 people get around sport that's pure and they do it for the love of the game,
11:35 because there's something just so inviting about it.
11:38 And on that purity front, one of the interesting things is how many kids have got behind the Matildas.
11:43 And we've got a little video here that we shot yesterday at Riverside Primary School.
11:46 We think we know about sport, we don't know anything compared to these kids.
11:50 It's very entertaining and here's what they had to say looking ahead to the semi-final.
11:53 Who's your favourite Matilda to play?
11:55 Probably Sam Kerr.
11:57 Why do you like Sam Kerr?
11:59 She's just got a really good touch.
12:02 Yep, and she gives away her shirts at the end of games, isn't that nice?
12:06 So predictions for the score guys, what do you think the score's going to be?
12:09 2-0.
12:12 2-0 Sam Kerr and Hayley Russell's score.
12:15 Thank you, you're not giving England much hope.
12:18 Yeah, that was great to see Rob.
12:20 And just quickly, as you said earlier, you've been at the paper for 20 years.
12:25 How have you seen female football develop in the Launceston area?
12:31 Hugely, in so much as I remember when my son played at Riverside Olympic
12:38 and I remember when they got a new clubhouse,
12:40 it was the first time that the girls didn't have to get changed in the toilets.
12:44 So there's been such a culture change in the fact that quite often you'll go to a game,
12:50 I go to the different grounds around Launceston,
12:52 and the prime kick-off time, the 2.30 slot that everyone wants,
12:56 is quite often a women's game.
12:58 So they're almost, I don't think they're at parity yet, but they're almost up there.
13:01 We've now got a statewide women's competition,
13:04 which we didn't have when I started here,
13:06 and Launceston United won it last year,
13:09 so it's good that we've got the best players, we've got somewhere to play,
13:12 and we've got a stage to play on, and that was not the case when I started at the paper.
13:17 Speaking of which, just moving on from that, looking ahead to this weekend,
13:21 United won't win the title this year because it's already been wrapped up by South Hobart,
13:26 but United are playing Devonport again, like I say, in the 2.15 time slot on Saturday afternoon,
13:31 followed by their men's statewide team at 4.30.
13:34 Riverside also got a home game at 4.30.
13:36 Moving back to footy, you've got quite a big weekend coming up, Josh.
13:40 Yeah, potentially the biggest game of the season so far,
13:43 so North Launceston have won either 12 or 13 in a row, can't remember off the top of my head,
13:48 but they face Tabletop in Kingborough.
13:51 Basically the winner of this should win the minor premiership,
13:53 should take out first spot on the ladder, which will get them hosting rights in the qualifying final,
13:58 and if they win that, they'll host the grand final.
14:00 So there's a lot long-term that's on the cards for this weekend.
14:04 And NTFA, fellas, what's happening there?
14:06 Yeah, in the Premier there's a couple of big things.
14:08 One is Bragnell's Josh Holland.
14:10 He's playing his 450th career game, so his career senior game.
14:15 He's played at a few different clubs over the journey, I think very prominent in the Northwest as well.
14:20 But yeah, congratulations to Josh.
14:22 And yeah, Delorane are holding their second annual Big Freeze event,
14:27 which was a real success last year, and that's, again, between Delorane and South Launceston.
14:32 I'll rattle through mine quickly.
14:34 It's Div 1 finals time at the moment, so Infomade Park is where all the games are played this weekend.
14:40 On Saturday we have Hillwood vs Georgetown semifinal in Div 1 women's,
14:45 and we also have a qualifying final between St Pat's and Lillydale,
14:48 while on Sunday we have Perth playing OLs.
14:51 Perth are the home team, even though it's at OLs ground.
14:54 It's just a quirk in the calendar, so we'll be looking forward to that.
14:58 What a massive weekend we've got coming up,
15:00 and we also wanted to take the opportunity to encourage as many people as possible to enter our Junior Sports Awards.
15:05 They're coming up.
15:06 We've got the Country Club Casino locked in for Wednesday, November 8.
15:10 That's when we'll do the presentations.
15:11 We want more entries, and the best way to enter is there's a QR code that goes in Wednesday's paper.
15:16 Ben's been doing our Junior Sport profiles.
15:18 Here's one of his Junior Sport profiles.
15:20 There's the QR code if you work in paper form, but if you want to have a look,
15:25 we'll put a slide over the top of this.
15:27 You can scan the QR code off that.
15:29 That's the best way to enter.
15:30 We want as many entries as possible.
15:32 Keep it as high standard.
15:33 That evening is always a great night where we recognise our best junior athletes,
15:38 and we always have a high-profile Tasmanian that we interview that night as well.
15:41 It's a great evening.
15:42 Please get your entries in.
15:44 Thanks for tuning in, and see you next week.
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