The Press Box - Episode 64 (13/8/24)
The Examiner’s Josh Partridge, Brian Allen and Ben Hann unpack and discuss the sports news across Northern Tasmania.
Transcript
00:00Welcome one and all to another episode of the PressFox episode 64. My name is Ben Henn,
00:12joined once again by Brian Allen and Josh Partridge. We're at the end of the Olympics,
00:17finally sleep can return, finally. I know I felt it the last week or so, but you know,
00:23now Australian footy finals, so plenty to get through, but we'll start with everyone's
00:28favourite segment, numerology. I've earned this number in sport, a bit of a stretch guys,
00:38so bear with me, probably should have been last week's episode. David Boone, the great
00:42Tasmanian cricketer David Boone, who obviously launched the whole indoor, obviously the indoor
00:48stadium, wants to be playing Test cricket there, obviously played a number of Test matches,
00:52took that great catch in Mornings. Patrick, he is turning 64 this year.
00:57That's not where I thought you were going. It's episode 64 by the way.
01:03Yeah, sorry, I think I said that at the start. Now that we're off to this flyer,
01:15we better get straight into the Olympics, obviously it has wrapped up. We got six medals,
01:20Tasmania, to contribute to the overall tally, and obviously Ariane Tipmuss got the bulk of those,
01:25but we had plenty more contributors besides. I'll start off with Georgia Baker. I was covering her
01:31live. She had a really heartbreaking time, unfortunately. So I started off with a team
01:37suit. I don't think they were ever expected to medal on that, she came seventh. She did really
01:40well on that, individually. And then ninth in the Madison, an event she was expected to medal,
01:46they just couldn't get going. And then probably the most depressing was the Omnium right at the
01:52end, basically for four races, was second going to the last race, and the points race,
01:57just couldn't quite get it done. It was an amazing achievement for her, she did awesome,
02:01but yeah, just couldn't quite get that medal, Josh. Obviously she's such a decorated athlete
02:06with the Triple Commonwealth Games medals, I suppose. How disappointing is it for her that
02:11she hasn't been able to, I guess, translate that to the big time at the Olympics?
02:15Yeah, I think she was pretty disappointed. Look, I think no one within the cycling community,
02:20or even just the Australian community, believes that she isn't worthy of a medal. She's clearly
02:26really good, and as you mentioned, has done it in every other arena, including that French
02:31melodrama. She's had a lot of success there. But I think in the Olympics, I suppose the beauty
02:38almost of it is there are always great stories, there are always heartbreak stories as well,
02:43which is, you know, it's the way it goes, I suppose, with sport. But she's still done all
02:47of Tassie and all of Australia proud, so I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
02:52In slightly different Olympic news, a bit more viral news, Brian, we had an Australian
03:01competing in the women's breakdancing. Maybe take any audience members who have been living
03:07under a rock for the last week. What happened? Yeah, look, Rachel Gunn, Ray Gunn, she competed
03:15in the breakdancing and jittered, I suppose, the social media algorithms. I feel like I've done a
03:20PhD in the breaking now. And yeah, look, it's just something that I obviously had a huge laugh about
03:32on Saturday when I saw it. And it's lasted three or four days now of all the
03:40articles and chat and that sort of stuff. Yeah, you wouldn't have missed it. But basically,
03:47unfortunately, she competed in three battles. And yeah, but essentially, you go up against
03:54someone else, and the judges, I believe there was nine, they basically award the point, the vote to
04:02who I thought the winner was. She ended up not getting any votes across her three battles,
04:07which is 50-4-0. So that, yeah, it's obviously got shock value. Because I probably just introduced
04:17it. Maybe come back to me and say, can you give me your take on what happened? Oh, it was just,
04:22it just didn't really look like a sport, like what she was doing. It didn't really look like it
04:28suited the Olympics, the style of the Olympics and all that kind of stuff. I suppose when you
04:32see it done, I'm not going to say properly, but I guess when it is done properly, it looks really
04:38quite athletic. But what she was doing wasn't exactly athletic, I don't think. Yeah, there's
04:43obviously almost two separate directions in which you became, you know, a meme, effectively on one
04:49side of things, people comparing it to their four-year-old nephew when they want to show their
04:54parents something. Or, you know, in spite of unemployment, for example, they really celebrated
04:59her as this sort of Australian icon. And I think, yeah, I don't really disagree with either way you
05:04both would take it. There's certainly an argument to say, look, she's probably taken someone's spot
05:08that was way more deserving to be there. In a sense, it's also an indelible moment in Australian
05:15cultural history that we'll always remember. Is that necessarily a bad thing? It might not be.
05:20I guess you've tapped into a couple of things, a couple of points I thought about, because it's a
05:25bit confusing. Even Adele, the singer, was kind of like, was it a joke? So at the time I watched it
05:32and I thought, oh look, she's just not quite up to the kind of conventional moves of breakdancing
05:40that would win you the judge's vote here, like compared to who we're seeing her battle against.
05:44So that was the initial thought. And then because it's dragged on, I guess you kind of think about
05:52like Aussie culture when it comes to sports. So we've obviously got this spectrum of like,
05:56we strive for excellence. But at the other end, it's about having a go and don't knock the person
06:02having a go. And obviously, whatever happened exists somewhere in between, because we're
06:09obviously critical of someone, critical of how she had a go. So we obviously care about how you
06:15actually have the go. And then I noticed that she said, basically, she knew she wasn't going to be
06:23competitive in the interview afterwards. So she went down the creative route. And it makes sense.
06:32It's not something people do. You try something different. So you respect that. But then it kind
06:40of just didn't match up against the conventional breakdancing that we probably were expecting.
06:46So yeah, I think then just the last thing, the other thing was like, okay, well,
06:53you know, why did we send her? But then will she actually qualify at the Oceania
06:59Championships? And then you question what else is going on? How many people were at the Oceania
07:05Championships? And so if you're saying, well, she wasn't worthy to qualify, well, she actually did
07:09qualify. And then do you criticize someone that's just put their foot forward, and they've actually
07:14earned the spot that the way the system was set up? So I mean, yeah, do you have any further?
07:21I think my final thought on the whole matter is obviously we lost Democracy Manifest guy at such
07:26a sad moment, but another culture icon has been born in Australia. So I think it's gone full
07:32circle, to be honest. But we do now have your barnstorming new segment, Brian,
07:39Brian's extremely difficult sports quiz.
07:41You're winning after quiz one. It was a 3-2 win last week. So straight into it.
07:56Unsurprisingly, we're going to start with Raegun. So name two dance moves that Raegun broke out
08:01during her Olympic breaking performances. She did the sprinkler. And she did what I'm
08:08just going to call the calf cramp. I don't think there's a better other.
08:18Question two, American sprinter Noah Lyles was impacted by what in the men's 200 meter final
08:23in which he took bronze? COVID? Yes. Question three, what happened to the US men's team in
08:32the four by 100 meter sprint relay final? Did they forget? Did they suffer the baton pass?
08:39Yeah. Yeah. And they were disqualified. So question four, Bhutan's Kinzang Lamo received
08:47a standing ovation after finishing what event? Marathon. We'll share the points.
08:56Question five, in terms of Australia's medal tally,
09:01how many gold medals did we win? 18. Well done. That might be a dead heat.
09:10Pardo with the Raegun and medals. And then Ben with the Noah Lyles and the relay and then half
09:22a point each. It's a dead heat. You could have scripted it. I'm not sure what I'm looking at
09:29here then. That is 3.5 or 2.5 each. So they've shared the gold.
09:37Tell you what, the BEDSQ Brian is, just keeps getting better with every week. We do have to
09:43quickly move on to TSL. Josh, you've had some great stories in the works. Tell me a bit about it.
09:48Yeah. So the main one that I'm running today is that both Isaac Hyatt and Liam Jones are
09:55relocating to the Sam Foley after next year. I suppose that'll be the first couple of many that
10:00I guess will leave given the Tasmanian football restructure. So they'll be playing at Glenelg,
10:05which is Mitch Thorpe's old club, which is a nice little romantic side to it all. And then the other
10:10two that I did, I interviewed Brad Cox Goodger about whether he's playing his best footy ever,
10:16because he very nearly is. And Sam Foley about playing the ruck, which is different considering
10:23he's not exactly that tall. So he's been battling away in a new role given Launceston don't have
10:28that many talls. So it's been a big week. Absolutely. And it brings me on to Haney's hard hitters.
10:41In light of these TSL players leaving to the mainland, we've obviously got another few
10:48previous TSL players playing in next year's Division One, the middle division.
10:54Do you guys think that whether it's standard competition or anything else, or it's pure
10:59enjoyment, that the middle division next year will be a better competition than the Premier League?
11:07I've got a few mats at Lille Dale. So from that perspective, I'm very interested to see how they're
11:11going to step up against your Hillwoods, your Rochellees, that kind of thing. I think it's
11:16going to be really interesting to see clubs that haven't played each other, consistently play
11:21against each other. So I think from that perspective, I think it is going to be a better competition.
11:26But I think with some of the names that you hear that Launceston might potentially be getting back,
11:32I think that the standard, the top competition still will be fantastic.
11:36So it's NTFA Div 1. Will that be better than NTFA or Premier?
11:41Yeah, I suppose. Which one do you find yourself wanting to watch more?
11:45Oh, yeah. Look, I think there's so much water to go under the bridge here.
11:51Let's think about the best sides for the current NTFA Premier right now,
11:56and the ones that aren't going to graduate. We've got Hillwood, you've got players like Jake Pearce,
12:05Jacob Boyd, Hamish Leighton. And then you've got Rochellees, where you've got arguably the best
12:12local coach, and Josh Ponting. You've got Jordan Cousins, the best player in the NTFA Premier,
12:16pretty much. So you've got guys that will have to make a decision here. Do they want to be involved
12:22in the top, top-tiered league, or are they quite content playing for their current club? So
12:31I guess I'm expecting players to go up, and I think that that's why the top-tier competition
12:38will be the actual Premier one, and you'll want to watch that. But
12:43there's going to be some hard decisions for guys to leave their home clubs, just because
12:47of the restructure. I think, yeah, almost to further that point, I'll just quickly say that
12:53I think the fact that there's going to be eight or nine teams in this middle division,
12:57all of which are very, to a varying degree, really strong country community clubs who have great
13:03ties and who have always been very strong. I think maybe you might find that first year,
13:09there's probably a little bit more draw to that middle division, but I think, probably to your
13:12point, as there's one, two, three years of building this Premier League competition,
13:17more and more of the best players are going to go up to that top level, and I think it might be a
13:21bit more gradual than Saturn, but I do think by the end of it, in terms of the standard and the
13:26quality of football that we play at the top division, we'll be the top division. And that'll
13:30be reaping the benefits of the regional footy pathway that the Athletes' House want to create.
13:34So I think, yeah, I think you're pretty bang on the money. Well, that's all we have time for.
13:38Probably went a little bit over time, but that's okay. We'll catch you guys for the next one.