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Chapter 1: What insights does Robert Craddock share about the Socceroos' performance?
the wisdom and experience of Robert Craddock on the day that a major finishes, where there's cricket all around the world. Australia's played a role in some of that, and we pick up our Socceroos conversation. No sporting superiority here, no snobbery. If you are Australian and you are following the Socceroos, you are welcome to a view on the team.
Glorious one week, and it was just a bit disappointing the next. Hello to you, Crash.
G'day, Gerard. Yes, that was a nice little tweet you had, text there you had about the Brisbane Lions. I just sensed that punters that back the Lions are just about ready to have a sneaky go and the feeling that they're still hiding in the bushes and ready to pounce. And we often talk about that Hawthorne way of the 1980s when they were just lobbing, lobbing, lobbing, and then go bang. All right.
What did you think of the Socceroos? Well, do you know what? I thought it was an interesting case study in sports psychology. I really did. Because it was at 5 AM, Gerard, and I didn't want to wake up my household, I watched it with the sound down. And because of that, I was really taking particular interest to body language and everything. And we used the word frozen in our headline.
And it was, the occasion was, that was perfect. The occasion was just too big for them, wasn't it? From Tony Popovich down, like he looked like a guy who had a thousand yard stare. He really did. And so did the players. In the first game, they had that beautiful ambush mentality, didn't they, against Turkey, where they were sort of, hey, you're hitting us off. Look at us.
We're going to get down and desperate here. But this one, it was like USA in USA. We all probably didn't realise the magnitude of just how down big it was. And I just felt that they were ā Almost, you could almost see them, you know where you see it sometimes? Swimmers at the Olympics. Sometimes they spend all their time getting there and it's such a unique occasion.
They stand on the blocks and literally just almost becomes an out-of-body experience.
Yes, yep. It was just so disappointing because we played... The Americans had been obnoxious, let's be honest. Clearly not all Americans. There's one loudmouth and he's had far too much coverage. But the idea that we're sort of... an uncouth backwater team. And we played like it. Their own goal was a shocker. The level of physicality was really unsophisticated.
We played like the team that they had ridiculed us as, which that was the bit that annoyed me the most.
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Chapter 2: What psychological factors affected the Socceroos during their matches?
So you've just got to keep reminding yourself, as we say, that Italy have missed the World Cup for the third time in a row. If we go through to the next round, it's happy days. And I think... That loss to United States, they had that one marked on the calendar as soon as the draw came out as their monumental match of the tournament. And I think you'll see a much better team this Friday.
And if they get through to the next round, you just never know because expectations now have been really levelled. And that's when Australian teams often do their best work.
Yeah, I remain completely optimistic. The US game was a loss. All circumstances, you could have written that down. So the first and the third game, we were going to declare Australia's fate. It's just that because the Americans had been just so painful, that was the... Anyway, I'd set off the top crash.
It was like a world where John Bertrand didn't outsmart Dennis Connor and Ian Thorpe didn't swim over the top of... of Gary Hall Jr. And that world sucks, to be honest. That sucks.
It really does, Gerard. I must admit that you just, you know, only a month ago I watched a replay of the documentary of Australia 2 winning the World Cup and the smugness of the New York Yacht Club. I had to watch it a second time because I enjoyed it so much. Just the Australians wallowing in the New York Yacht Club, you know, having to surrender the cup to Australia.
And I thought, this can be a beautiful moment, this game against the USA, but it just didn't shape up. But there are other fish to fry in this tournament, and I just think that...
I bet you if you went into the Socceroos camp now, and I was speaking to one of our reporters last night who said this, it's almost like they've just had a shower and moved on and are just so much more relaxed for getting that horrible loss out of the way. Sure, there's a bit of anxiety as in, oh, we could have done better.
But the next game will have a completely different vibe to it, and I reckon they'll win.
All right. Terrific. Let's hope for Friday lunchtime and some good stuff. Hey, I've got this little idea. Here's Wyndham Clark winning the U.S. Open this morning.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the Socceroos' loss to the USA?
He'll be back and he'll be back as captain. It makes the cycle a bit hard to read. So at the start, the captain breached the first attempts that had been made to make this a...
professional setup and then there was clearly a lot of backgrounding around hey he's in a really fragile state so just go easy on the criticisms and the commentary sort of reflected that and now despite all the level of concern and Brendan McCullum spoke gravely about his concerns for Stokes he's right to come straight back into the team and keep captaining you'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit cynical about this one
Oh, this was weird. And then when he turned up at Durham, the Durham chief executive said, no, Ben's fine. I spoke to him this morning. I'm not concerned about him at all. He's ready to go. And he duly made 95, clipped the ball around as if he was, you know, tripping the light fantastic. Like he looked, he was smiling in the field and everything like that.
And then apparently he said at the hearing to the disciplinary inquiry into why him and Gus Atkinson were out after midnight, he wasn't sure that the curfew applied on the night when a test was decided and the test was finished. But, I mean, he was one of the guys who put the curfew in place.
So the whole thing is very mysterious, but you can bet your life, Gerard, that the result in that test match has just put the absolute... You know, the desire to get Stokes back is just, you know...
extreme after they look so poor in that test and you know nasa hussein made the point the other night and is a good one he said if stokes had a retired just so he'd announce he he was retiring we would have all done tributes saying he was one of the greatest arounders we've ever had And the team wasn't the same without him.
Like, they couldn't pick a spinner because they didn't have the all-rounder playing two roles. They missed him as a captain. They missed him as a batsman. So, yeah, he'll come back. I will be interested to see his first press conference, how much responsibility he takes for his own actions in missing the curfew. Or does he defend himself by saying, I wasn't aware of it?
But, you know, he has to be better. I mean, it's a horrible look for him. It really is. And... Gee, they're looking fragile, Gerard. They've got a year to go to the ashes, and this England team does not scare me one bit, even though Australia will be ageing and vulnerable by then in a year's time. We all get that.
But this team, no spinner, lacks bite with its attack, and its top order still looks very flaky.
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Chapter 4: How did Wyndham Clark win the U.S. Open and what does it mean for golf?
There will be some bowlers play for Australia, Gerard, in the next two years that you're thinking, if we sat here now and saw their names, I would say, what? Wow, really? Wow. It'll happen. The winds of change are almost upon us.
We're in a phase where they don't all have to be 10-year players. They don't all have to be 50 test players. There might be a bowler who's an 18-month bowler who plays seven tests, which are crucial at the right time.
Well, I think that is a really astute observation and it was one that Australia learnt through when Dennis Lilley, Rod Marsh and Greg Chappell all retired in the one test, they went looking for them instantly, oh, who's our next long-term this or long-term that?
But it was repeated by the selectors when Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer retired in about the year 2006, 2007, that, yes, there is such a thing as a guy that only plays 20 tests and does a good job for you. You know, Marcus North did quite a good job for Australia. Chris Rogers did a wonderful job for Australia in that sort of career. Adam Voges.
So it's a really good point you make, and it's not said often enough, that you don't have to be shopping for the next big thing. Sometimes the next quite good thing can get you through a difficult period.
All right, give us a closing word on the wash-up to Origin crash. I was there and watched Queensland's second-half domination of New South Wales in front of a record crowd at the MCG. What's been the ripple effect?
Yeah, the ripple effect is New South Wales have really turned on themselves, Gerard, this enormous discussion about everything from Laurie Daly, the coach, to players who should and shouldn't be in.
And it reminded me a little bit of back in the 1990s whenever Australia had a good win in England, Alan Borda and Steve Waugh used to love getting up and reading the papers in the breakfast room the next day and they'd say, oh, look at this, England's attacking themselves. Yeah.
And that's a little bit of the mood in Queensland because we know in Sydney there's about, just about every player's had their place questioned in the team. But... Origin's funny. The deciding game in a one-all series is at Suncorp Stadium in a couple of Wednesdays' time. Now, you've got to say, oh, that's in Brisbane. Queensland will win that. But Origin's funny, Gerard.
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