Gerard Whateley

Andy Harper, just perfect after the final whistle.

Wisdom and experience of Robert Craddock.

Hello to you, Crash.

It's everything we love about Australian teams, isn't it?

What do you think it'll do to the way we follow the tournament to get that start and knowing that there are these two games, they're perfectly placed across the two weekends and then away we go from there, hopefully into the group of, well, what is it, 32 get taken through now?

Yes, yeah, they're ready for it now and not a...

Not necessarily the preview material, but it's the in tournament.

And that's why to win at the start, and Simon Hill made the point, is that was Kaiserslautern.

And the way momentum built from that is if you win at the end when they're dead rubbers or you put two together and go through to the next round, is that's how...

That's how there was a full house at Amy Park in the early hours of a Saturday morning.

Once the momentum builds and to have that going right from the start, it's just such a huge opportunity for the team and its profile, for the country and for the tournament to really have a hold for the best part of a month.

I love the back page of the Courier Mail as pop stars, which I feel we'll catch on as the coach is going to be a big figure out of this, having made the bold calls and got his dividends straight away.

So, yeah, it was just the most perfect way to start.

And I'm a bit with you.

Salute to the 10,000 fans who are there because part of the colour and atmosphere of what we watch relies on fans for each nation and for Australia to be so well-supported.

And we've seen this from World Cup to World Cup.

And we've heard from so many already this morning, Crash, who are in Germany for that, who are at Qatar last time around.

It's a rite of passage for a lot of sports fans.

And to see them march through the streets and to be there in that bay with the team posing in front of them, that's everything that we know about World Cup.

So salute to all.