Diamonds In The Sporting Wilderness

I need to make an apology for an ill-considered line I wrote recently. In a casual and poorly researched comment about the quality of sport in Australia, I wrote this:

I think the fact that Steve doesn't really care where he lives is more helpful. Steve's 'fortunate' to live in Australia, where decent sport is hard to come by

The Steve referred to is of course Daily 25's Steve M who, unless I have missed it, has been very quiet about his nation's top sport.

While the Rugby team took another hammering this weekend, unbeknownst to me, Australia has been hosting a World Cup in Netball over the past few days, and my Twitter feed today tells me that Australia actually won it. Yes, really! Congratulations to Steve and I am especially impressed over how modest Steve has been about his nations biggest sporting success in many a year.

Before getting too carried away, it should be noted that the tournament is only taken seriously by two countries, with New Zealand being the other, so calling it a 'World Cup' is a little cheeky.

A quick look at the record of this tournament shows that of the 14 tournaments, Australia has won (or jointly won) 11 and been second the other three occasions. New Zealand have won (or jointly won) it four times, and been runners-up eight times. England, South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago are the only other nations to ever finish in the top two.

Anyway, this observation is not intended to take anything away from Steve, who is no doubt celebrating this rare international sporting success late into the night with a glass (or two) of wine. Perhaps they will ease the pain of the Wallabies result.