More Trouble In The Australian Camp

As if Aus cricket didn't have enough problems, David Warner has been dropped for the Snoozer match after allegedly getting punchy after the drubbing on Saturday. Investigations ongoing, with further sanctions to follow if story is true, including the possibility of being sent home.

What with the "homework" affair a few months ago, the Aussie squad seem to have lost all cohesion in recent years to the point of becoming a complete rabble lacking any semblance of discipline - team or self.

The leadership must take at least some of the blame. We accept CA are a bunch of numpty-heads (putting it kindly), but the team manager and skipper can't escape responsibility either. Why hasn't Pup imposed his will on the squad? For all his faults as captain, Ricky Ponting never had the kind of disharmony we see now. I suspect SRW would have done his fruit, possibly Tubby Taylor as well ..... and I don't like to think of how Allan Border would have reacted to such incidents.

Thoughts from my Australian friends?

Read the Aus v NZ thread

Now being reported that Root was wearing a fake beard. Hoping to not be mistaken as underage, I guess.

tricycle wrote:Now being reported that Root was wearing a fake beard. Hoping to not be mistaken as underage, I guess.

So that's what annoyed Warner. He thought it was Amla.

On a similar theme - what's going on regarding the Lions rugby union tour? It used to be the case that a touring side, be it Lions, Boks, Wallabies, All Blacks or Pumas were afforded top-class opposition in the warm-up matches before the Test matches, and in any midweek games during the series. For players unlikely to ever win an international cap, a game against a touring XV was the highlight of their career, especially if they gave the visitors a good hard game.

So - why did Western Force pick half a team who hadn't even played Super XV rugby to face the Lions, holding back their first choice players for a dead rubber league match? Had I been a first-team player I'd have been spitting nails at not facing the best of the Northern Hemisphere at the expense of third-string squad members. The force got the result they both expected and deserved, as did the combined XV a couple of days ago.

In contrast, Quade Coopers Qld Reds gave us a damn good game between the other two - proper opposition, and proper preparation for a Test series. If Tests are meant to be "our best against your best", then what are the Aus RU playing at organising joke opposition? Do they want the Lions undercooked so we can be ambushed when the Tests begin?

Much of the talk beforehand has been about hurting a few of the Lions, "letting them know they've been in a battle", taking a couple of them out and such like - rather than running us ragged, dominating set-pieces, or countering the threat of our back row etc. The days of tear-ups as a matter of routine in international matches are long gone - so why is such language being used.

The Wallabies are a fine rugby team, no doubt about that. Cooper hasn't been selected, which will make the Lions task easier, without a doubt. However, the governing board and the coach, Robbie Deans give the impression that they don't believe they can win the series against a fully fit, properly prepared, battle-hardened Lions side which Gatland has selected on the basis of "Test intensity" warm-up matches. Games against WF and CC have't helped him make any decisions as to form.

At one time, not so long ago, to pull on the green & gold, or wear a baggy green was a matter of immense pride, and the best feeling was to prove their worth by beating the very best of the rest. That attitude seems to be evaporating, and it looks like it's spreading from the top downwards.

It saddens me to see such attitudes, as it does with the situation with the cricket. No wonder so many Aussies on here are so despondent - we had years of that feeling and it's not pleasant.

Brass Monkey wrote:Read the Aus v NZ thread

Done Dan, but wanted to open the discussion to the wider issue of attitude rather than this one incident ......

What a numpty.

Chicken shit as well - he had a choice of two bowlers (Broad and Woakes) who'd seen the inside of a gym before and had a bit of upper body strength, or some floppy teenage girl who weighs 9st soaked through and went for the cheapest shot, naturally.

Warner should be sent home. You can't tolerate that kind of nonsense.

As for the Lions Tour. The Fleet Street reaction to the understength Force side was a bit over the top.

SANZAR stuffed up the draw. They should really have given the Force a bye following the Lions game, something that would have been easy to incorporate into the schedule.

The Force are in danger of finishing stone motherless last in the Super XV. They are fighting to avoid the wooden spoon. I don't think you can blame them for trying to avoid that ignominy. 

The Lions will be facing the best the Waratahs can offer this Saturday. There is no conspiracy to deprive the Lions of a first-rate warm-up.

Warner - could he be persuaded to reinvent boxing for Australia instead?


I wonder if his absence of a first class career makes him prone to outbursts.

Trying to hit Joe Root?What a chavy knob. Send him round to my house before he gets put on  the plane home. I'll tell him few home truths, Warner is a bullying spoilt brat.

Makes you wonder about the fate of young sportsmen today from many countries involved in sports where there are vast monies to be made. They have "too much, too soon". They are told how great they, given obscene amounts of money, have no real experience of the world, some have little formal education or are not academic and are given no emotional/psychological support to help them deal with the unreal situation they find themselves in. If they haven't been instilled with values by their parents/teachers etc they believe they in the hype and start to believe they don't have to behave like other people.

Quite a few amusing comments on the White Rose forum. Most seem to think that Joe was wearing the wig and beard to get into pub.

forum.yorkshireccc.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=3405&p=2

I doubt one could say that Warner is an exceptional case, but certainly his rise to such heights was exceptional. He was in the Australia team after basically one good season, hyped up, souped up. The media attention was abundant to say the least. 'Reinventing opening batting' was the most ridiculous and deluded, but there was plenty more to go with it.

Even after 'Twittergate' some of the media were still saying things like 'he needs to *insert crap here* if he ever wants to be captain' and shit like that - stunning. His place is never under question, regardless of the fact he's hardly done anything of note, apart from a handful of flashes of brilliance. There's never any sort of analysis of his performances in a way that attempt to show his true worth to the Australian side.

This, from afar, has stunned me. Growing up and seeing *insert a plethora of Aussie batsmen* who hardly got a chance to make it at international level, for whatever reason, seeing this absolute hack get a pampered and fawning free ride all the way to the top, to be spoken of as a future captain(based on f*ck all) has stuck in the throat.

His conduct on the field has bordered on a joke at times, during his interviews he's seemed nothing but the basest of animals - absolutely nothing going for him. His elevated status and bags of cash have kept him away from any self-awareness whatsoever.

He's a very talented hitter, but technically he's a shitmuncher.

After Warner's twitter moment, Clarke said to the press, "Davey has great potential to be a leader of the Australian cricket team, he's a wonderful guy, he's a wonderful player, I know he's learnt from this".

I mean, what the actual f*ck?

The man's got a low, sloping brow and a wide jaw suitable for chewing grains and small rodents. He's reinventing Neanderthalism.

eowyn wrote:Quite a few amusing comments on the White Rose forum. Most seem to think that Joe was wearing the wig and beard to get into pub.

forum.yorkshireccc.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=3405&p=2

Interesting forum. One of the threads was about Boycott and Close having a spat about smoking in the pavilion.

Perhaps the biggest concern from an England point of view is that Root seems to have slotted seamlessly into the bowlers' Twat Pack...

eowyn wrote:Trying to hit Joe Root?What a chavy knob. Send him round to my house before he gets put on  the plane home. I'll tell him few home truths, Warner is a bullying spoilt brat.

Makes you wonder about the fate of young sportsmen today from many countries involved in sports where there are vast monies to be made. They have "too much, too soon". They are told how great they, given obscene amounts of money, have no real experience of the world, some have little formal education or are not academic and are given no emotional/psychological support to help them deal with the unreal situation they find themselves in. If they haven't been instilled with values by their parents/teachers etc they believe they in the hype and start to believe they don't have to behave like other people.

yes ... and Warner is the one of the knobbiest knobs that ever knobbed.

Just when I thought he could not be a bigger topbottomingthunderqunt I read this

Warner, who according to a barman was drinking ‘Jäger-bomb’ cocktails

G.Wood wrote:Just when I thought he could not be a bigger topbottomingthunderqunt I read this

Warner, who according to a barman was drinking ‘Jäger-bomb’ cocktails

To be fair, the only time I have ever drunk Jagerbombs is at 2am in the morning at a bar in the city.

question - why were Australian players out getting rat faced in the middle of a tour?...were others there?

story on the radio suggests Root had irked the gcs by donning a yellow and green "australian" wig and dancing around

Richard Hinds on the money:

Warner is currently leading a rock star lifestyle with a club cricketer's average. He seems deluded by the trappings his so far limited achievements have afforded. Riches automatically bestowed on our "elite" players through a contractual system that fails to distinguish between the relative plodders of today and the superstars of the past. 

Contracts that will grow in proportion with the vast new television rights deal recently signed by Cricket Australia, and augmented by the Monopoly money of the IPL.
Yet Warner's fame and fortune, to date, are mostly a stroke of good fortune. He is the right man at - for Australian cricket - the wrong time.
 
He can hardly claim to have contributed vastly to the game's financial wellbeing. Rather, he is beneficiary of more than a century of goodwill accumulated by far less well remunerated players.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/fame-and-money-is-the-root-of-warners-problems-20130613-2o5po.html#ixzz2W3my5fIv

Sage. Someone needs to punch the little qunt in his ranga face to make him wake up to himself. Unfortch, he can allegedly handle himself with the fists.

skully wrote:Sage. Someone needs to punch the little qunt in his ranga face to make him wake up to himself. Unfortch, he can allegedly handle himself with the fists.

Joe Root says not

CA still dithering about?

taipan wrote:CA still dithering about?

It's a key selection criteria for a board position.

I am surprised they managed to keep it queit for 4-5 days