Bravo North Queensland MP Bob Katter, for saying what needed to be said, last Wednesday, in his publicly released statement: "Darrius (sic) Boyd wouldn't know what a line break was, if he fell over it on a dark night. Some of the greatest try-saving tackles recorded in rugby league history, belong to Billy Slater.
"Few would question that he can make a break out of nothing. We don't deny Darrius (sic), he is a solid rock on which you can build an NRL team; however that is not needed at State of Origin level when you have arguably all-time great players such as Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Johnathan Thurston. The QLD selectors and coach clearly are in the pocket of the Broncos."
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Plays of the Week
Speed demons, tight angles and potentially life-saving dodging abilities, these are the Plays of the Week.
Exactly! The selection of Boyd is clearly a Brisbane-centric conspiracy, and it has taken Katter to call them out.
Meanwhile, in unrelated news on Thursday, Queensland coach Kevvie Walters released a statement of his own: "Bob Katter, I think has got it wrong in his fuels policy. The removal of the tax on Australian-produced bio-fuels and the introduction of a statutory 10 per cent bio-fuel (ethanol) content in all petrol rising to 22 per cent [as in Brazil], is not the way to go. He says this will restore self-sufficiency in oil; removing the aromatics and small particle emissions – both carcinogenic; reducing the price of fuel to Brazil/US prices – 73¢/L and 84¢/L, respectively, but I don't think so. I am happy to work with Mr Katter on his policy."
![Brisbane-centric conspiracy: Turns out the axing of Maroon's legend Billy Slater was because "the Queensland selectors ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170802061501im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/s/v/v/h/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwdz4k.png/1495832938015.jpg)
When nature calls
Listen this is a bit on the scatological side of things, but here at TFF we don't resile from matters murky. See, on Tuesday, Dutch cyclist Tom Dumoulin's was leading the Giro d'Italia, bearer of the famed "Maglia Rosa", when, with 33 kilometres to go in the 222-kilometre stage 16, he suddenly stopped his bike, and raced into some bushes to answer the call of nature which took a very expensive 90 seconds, and allowed his three closest rivals to pass him!
"I just had problems, I needed to take a dump," he explained afterwards. "I couldn't hold it anymore."
Fair enough, I guess, but let the record show, there was an – admittedly unthinkably ugly – alternative. In 1928, see, Australia's own Hubert Opperman, was competing in France's famed Bol D'Or, with the aim being to see how far you could travel in 24 hours round and round the Montrouge Velodrome, just outside Paris. Opperman started well but about an hour into the race, his chain broke – courtesy of being sabotaged – and while riding his interpreter's bike for six laps while his was repaired he fell badly behind. How to make up the lost ground? One thing was to decline to take toilet stops with all the others.
![Illustration: John Shakespeare](http://web.archive.org./web/20170802061501im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/e/a/n/t/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gwdz4k.png/1495832938015.jpg)
"I was, after all, in France," he told me in 1994, not long before he died, "where people don't call the police if they see someone with their 'old man' out. It was late at night, about 2 o'clock in the morning, and I really just didn't have any choice."
So, after a bit of manoeuvring, some re-adjustment of his clothing, he assumed a slightly higher position in the saddle, and was ready: "It still took a little while, but I eventually overcame my diffidence and emitted a stream like a stallion. I could hear all the riders behind me who were riding through it, cursing me, but that was too bad ..."
Opperman went on to win the race, and after his sporting career was over, became a respected Cabinet Minister in the Menzies government.
And yes, I know. A little more problematic when the issue was "Number Twos" not "Number Ones" but ... but still.
Boycott Qantas? How 'bout rename the Margaret Court Arena
The Margaret Court thing? Her comments that she refuses to fly Qantas anymore in protest at the Qantas CEO's advocacy of same-sex marriage? Simply sad. She embarrasses herself. Her remarks are consistent with other homophobic comments she has made over the years – "To legitimise what God calls abominable sexual practices that include sodomy, reveals our ignorance as to the ills that come when society is forced to accept law that violates their very own God-given nature," – and no great surprise.
"I am disappointed that Qantas has become an active promoter for same-sex marriage," Ms Court said in a letter to the editor published in The West Australian on Thursday. "I believe in marriage as a union between a man and a woman as stated in the Bible. Your statement leaves me no option but to use other airlines were possible for my extensive travelling."
Given Virgin Australia also is a promoter of same-sex marriage, that leaves her pretty grounded as far as I can see, which is to the good. (Still, can someone check if Greyhound Buses have a policy on this? I'll bet they are in the 21st century, too, so Ms Court might have to boycott them, too?)
Meantime, though, what I'd love her to explain is how it is, if her God is so firmly against gays, why he made them in the first place? And if you're citing the Bible, can you answer Dom Knight's question and explain why YOU, as a Pastor, get an exemption from 1 Timothy 2: "I do not permit a woman to teach?" Or is it OK to ignore bits that apply to you?
And yes, yes, yes of course it is Ms Court's "right" to express those views. But it is equally our right to blow loud raspberries in her general direction. And one of the twitterati Phil Branagan, made an interesting point: "Using the same logic, Ms Court will surely understand if one was to boycott the stadium named in her honour due to her social intolerance ..."
Tennis is an inclusive game, and ever more inclusive in the 21st century. Does Melbourne Park really want to have an arena named after someone who stands so firmly against such inclusiveness, who is becoming a byword for bigot?
Personally, I know of no finer person, no one more generous and inclusive than Evonne Goolagong-Cawley. I run into her about once a year in airports around Australia and she is always on her way to do something to help someone. How about the Evonne Goolagong Arena, as a name that tennis can be proud to put up in lights?
Returning serve to Margaret Court
Since TFF ran the piece above online on Thursday, the mood of many people to not attend Margaret Court Arena, or watch matches there, or buy sponsors products seems to have hardened. The column received, if I may say, enormous support on social media, with a tiny bit of flak accusing me of, yes, "Nazism". Not at all. Return to Branagan's point. If it is legitimate for Ms Court to publicly announce she will not use Qantas because she does not like their position on same-sex marriage, why on earth can't people who don't like the vehemence of her position on same-sex marriage publicly decline to support anything with her name on it? And to be clear, the problem is not simply she doesn't support SSM. Plenty of fine Australians don't. It is the consistency of her homophobia over so many years and the fact that the only buttressing of her position is religious mumbo-jumbo. Those who say Ms Court is being "bullied", should talk to the gays about being bullied for centuries, by people spouting precisely the views Ms Court puts out.
WHAT THEY SAID
Margaret Court, endeavours to publicly shame our national airline for believing in equality: "I am disappointed that Qantas has become an active promoter for same-sex marriage. I believe in marriage as a union between a man and a woman as stated in the Bible. Your statement leaves me no option but to use other airlines were possible for my extensive travelling." (See item.)
Martina Navratilova: "Maybe it's time to change the name of the Margaret Court Arena ..." She wasn't the only one to say so, and there appears to be a growing mood, at least among the public, to do exactly that.
Swans coach John Longmire praising former Swan Tom Mitchell: "I know as good as anyone how good a player Tommy Mitchell can be and how he can find the footy. I reckon if there was one football left in the world and you employed Tom Mitchell to go and find it, he'd find it. It could be in a cave in the middle of the jungle somewhere and he'd be able to find it."
Cathy Freeman looking back almost 20 years: "The thought in my mind as I crossed the line was, 'So this is what it feels like to be an Olympic champion'. And then I looked across at the time and I actually was a bit disappointed, because I would have loved for it to have been under 49 seconds. But then I was just so overwhelmed because it was just so surreal and then it was a case of just trying to enjoy myself really."
GWS coach Leon Cameron after they snuck home against Richmond: "We didn't play well. Richmond should have won. They were better than us throughout the game. We were in front for a minute out of 120. It's a ruthless game ... you need a little bit of luck."
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley felt similar after a bad start against Hawthorn, being behind by 43 points, only to win at the death by 18: "I was thinking about just jumping in the car and driving home 20 minutes into the first quarter … There were alarm bells going off pretty early in the coaches box even before the scoreboard got really bad."
Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has seen 5-0 go to 5-3 with three narrow losses: "There is an art [to closing out matches], there is no doubt about that. In 2012 we had a similar patch. This side, many people will see, it has got some inexperience in it. We just need to make sure we get that a little bit better."
James Spithill on the America's Cup and Australia, and why no one here gives a stuff any more: "Probably a lot of people think back to 1983 and when Australia II won. The next memory is Alan Bond going to jail and then followed by that is our boat, One Australia, sinking."
Essendon coach John Worsfold not concerned with abandoning the centre bounce: "When we get a good bounce, do people sit there and say that's a good bounce? I don't think they do. When it's a bad bounce people get frustrated. There is not a lot of upside."
George W Bush's cousin, Billy Bush, finally walks away from the words of Donald Trump, and his defence of the famous "pussy-grabbing" tape. "I'm in a lot of locker rooms, I am an athlete, and no, that is not the type of conversation that goes on or that I've participated in."
The admirable Ian Chappell on Cricket Australia's negotiating tactics with their cricketers: "Some ploys might work for Rio Tinto and might work with some businesses and some industries. But what you've got here is 100 per cent membership of a union. And cricketers are more than employees of a business. As a board you risk putting down your most important assets."
Team of the week
AFL. Cleaned up at the inaugural Pride in Sport Index awards last week which honours LGBTI inclusiveness within sport. Of the 10 national and state sporting organisations participating, the AFL was named the inaugural winner. David Pocock won the Pride in Sport Champion Ally Award.
Margaret Court. Is unlikely to win the LGBTI award next year.
Jason Day. Runner-up at the Byron Nelson when he lost a play-off.
Chelsea. Have now won the league in each of the last four years that there has been a general election in Britain (2005, 2010, 2015 and 2017).
Brisbane Lions. If there was relegation in Australian sport, they'd go down. If they were actual lions, they'd be put down. Played nine matches, won one.
ANZ Stadium. (The Olympic stadium to you and me.) Two NRL games last weekend at the venue had a total crowd a touch over 25,000. Great ground for Origin and finals otherwise the tens of thousands of empty seats is a bad look.
Richmond supporters. Is there a more tortured fan-base in the world than Richmond? Haven't won a final since 2001. And since the introduction of the Top 8 have finished ninth no fewer than six times ... At the moment they're seventh, but have lost the last three matches.
RIP. Nicky Hayden. Former MotoGP champion has died five days after he was hit by a car while training on his bicycle. Hayden was 35.
Twitter: @Peter_Fitz