Sport
Sportsview with Murray Leeder
West Perth President, Brett Raponi, went public after the club’ s thrashing by urging the WAFL Commission to make changes to the eligibility rules governing AFL players competing in WAFL finals. The Commission’ s response was to berate Raponi and threaten him and his club with a heavy fine! Undeterred the Falcons mounted a stronger campaign, supported by the other six unaligned clubs. Raponi was on solid ground. Peel played West Perth with a team bolstered by no less than 17 in-form Dockers. No one has yet heard comments from the Peel players who served the club all season only to be dumped for the finals. The situation also had some serious undertones regarding Fremantle’ s dismal form. Once their season was destroyed be serious injury to star players, did they tank? Did they decide to kill two birds with one stone by giving mature players a lighter playing load and assist their WAFL club at the same time. Seven WA clubs have thrown their weight behind a review claiming, quite rightly, that the eligibility rules in WA are ridiculous when compared with South Australia and Victoria. The WA Football Commission backed down. After all, the WAFL clubs have considerable influence over commissioners’ election to office. The Commission has since announced it will conduct a review at season’ s end and any talk of fining the Falcons’ and their President have evaporated. We live in interesting times.
Racing Australia
Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. As always it will be big! The only question we ex pats and vets living in Nam want to know is, apart from which nag will win the Cups, are we going to be able to view Australian racing live in our sports bars? And I don’ t mean the Channel 7 coverage of Melbourne and Sydney races exclusively. Keen racing aficionados want to watch ALL Aussie races live, including Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. If your establishment is willing to provide this service advertise in The MAG Vung Tau Monthly. You’ ll be pleasantly surprised at the boost in turnover. Let’ s go racing!
Melbournites will be crossing their fingers for warmer weather. After one of the most bitterly cold winters in memory, Spring not only means a few sunny skies for a welcome change, September also heralds the time when sporting focus switches from footy to racing. The Melbourne Spring Carnival is now recognised as one of the most famous sporting spectacles in the world, especially now that it has been made possible for thoroughbred horses in the northern hemisphere to fly south to participate. In recent years international interest has been ramped up by the appearance of some of the finest gallopers on the planet and with them come the gun riders.
Horses and riders from Ireland, UK, France, Hong Kong and Japan relish the opportunity to perhaps win Australia’ s premier race – The Melbourne Cup. The VRC and VATC, however, also program many Group 1 feature races including the Caulfield Cup and the VRC Derby. There is a stark contrast between training methods adopted by Australian mentors and their international counterparts. Trainers from overseas usually run their charges fresh in targeted major races, whilst the Aussie brigade generally prefer to prepare their horses by running them in lead up races over gradually increasing distances. As a result it is often difficult to get an updated form line on the invaders“ Visitors”. No doubt there will be some amazing performances by up and coming champions. The trick for punters is recognising which nag is best suited to invest their hard earned on and who will win the big race?
If I knew the answer to that I’ d be putting in my order for a new Maserati sports car!
The MAG Vung Tau 39