Hit for six
IT WASN'T all that long ago, with teams such as Brisbane Lions, Sydney, West Coast and Port Adelaide running rampant, most Victorian footy fans (Geelong supporters being the notable exceptions) would have been excused for wondering if their teams would ever be a combined force again. Not any longer (well for the meantime anyway), not with only one team (Sydney) in the top four and only two others (Adelaide and Brisbane) in the top eight. But in case you haven't noticed, there's extra reasons for us poor battered old Vics to be rejoicing this week — the just completed round 14 saw all six interstate teams beaten in the same round, the first time this has happened since the last of the "invaders", Port Adelaide, joined the expanded national league in 1997. What's more, going into round 15, Adelaide, Brisbane Lions, Fremantle, Port Adelaide, Sydney and West Coast have (combined) won less than a third of their matches — 29.91% to be precise — which is the lowest since they had won 28.57% of their games in 2000, a season in which just one club, Brisbane Lions, was to eventually figure in the final eight. Previously, there had been 12 occasions where five of the six clubs lost within a particular round, the most recent being in round 14, 2002, when Port Adelaide was the only winner, beating Fremantle in an all-interstate affair at Subiaco, and in round 12 the previous year, when Brisbane Lions was the only non-Victorian team to win, the Lions defeating Melbourne at the Gabba. All of which is a far cry from round 15, 2005; round 14, 2004; round six, 2003 and round 13, 1998, when the unthinkable happened. In all these rounds, ALL six interstate teams WON.
All in the mind
FORMER Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath was renowned for his mental strength, so it's perhaps no surprise that during his playing days the big fella used mind power to overcome his injuries. In his his soon-to-be released book Line and Strength McGrath reveals he would go to sleep imagining teams of little men climbing inside his body to work the overnight shift on any injury he suffered during a game or at training. McGrath read about a martial arts expert who employed the practice and he thought it made perfect sense. "The concept was while he slept these little blokes would repair the damage," writes McGrath. "And when he'd wake up an imaginary siren would sound in his head and that was the signal for them to stop work and he took over. It seemed such a great concept, so I applied it — and it worked."Busy, busy Tatiana
EIGHT years ago, she was the Australia's darling of track and field, having just won silver at the Sydney Olympics but a lot has changed in the life of former pole vault star Tatiana Grigorieva. Well consider this: not only is she retired and divorced but these days lives in Queensland with her fiance, Plamen Milanov, studies Chinese medicine and acupuncture, accounting and law and has swapped pole vaulting for tennis, golf, surfing and yoga. All this while running the Caffe e Gelato Milany in Brisbane where (according to an interview she did with The Sunday Times in Britain last weekend) "we make 32 different flavours of ice cream". Phew!Can I bring my pole?
TATIANA was also forthcoming about the famous tattoo of rose and thorns that adorns her stomach (some things in her life she couldn't change), describing it as "the yin and yang in my life, my masculine and feminine sides". At least the tattoos are a reminder of her great sporting days. Mind you, so are the memories of having to cart all those massive 4.6 metre-long poles from one country to another, especially the problems they caused her at airports. Tatiana told The Sunday Times: "I used to get all kinds of suggestions: 'Could you fold them in half? Can you send them by cargo?' There were times when I was prevented from flying because the aircraft couldn't fit them in the luggage hold."For whom the Bell tolls
THIRTY-TWO is hardly old but it's getting that way in footy-speak. Well, it is according to North Melbourne captain Adam Simpson who yesterday paid tribute to his "old" mate Peter Bell, who quit Fremantle this week, ending a 286-game career. "I spoke to him last night. There's not many of the old dinosaurs left," said Simpson who is exactly two weeks older than his 1996 and '99 premiership teammate. Simpson said he couldn't speak highly enough of Bell, insisting: "I reckon he would have captained North Melbourne if he had have stayed. Who knows what would have happened if he had have stayed? We might have won another flag."Now he's motoring
AND we liked this line from British tennis player Chris Eaton who was the world's 661st-ranked player when he won in the first round at Wimbledon. But despite picking up $50,000 for his efforts, Eaton, who drives a modest Vauxhall Astra — complete with taped-up side mirror — says his life won't change much. "Maybe I'll buy some better Duct tape," he said.Who said that?
"It wasn't until after the game that he felt that it was almost eating him up inside."DEAN BAILEY on Aaron Davey's confession of missing a flight home to Melbourne after a Darwin drinking session the night before.
Here comes Shark's bride
HE MAY be big and still presents an imposing figure on the golf course but really, Greg Norman is a just an old softie at heart. Well, so it would seem anyway, given the gushing quotes — not to mention a selection of these snaps (oh shucks, Shark!) — of his June 28 Bahamas wedding to tennis icon Chris Evert, which are published in this week's Woman's Day magazine. In a huge spread that included photos of the bouquets made up of (wait for it) flowers set amid tennis racquets and golf clubs, the ex-champ didn't hold back in his big day, even describing the light rain that fell as the couple exchanged rings as a "kind of confetti of holy water coming down from the heavens". Evert, too, has rarely been so emotional. She said: "When I looked at Greg, I realised that I felt he and I were the only ones there. Every word I was saying I meant." Which we're sure she did, but not all of Woman's Day readers were as convinced. Wrote one on the magazine's website yesterday: "I can't share the congrats of others. Evert said, at the time of her marriage to Andy Mill: 'This one's forever'."
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