Sport

For many Indigenous rugby league players, the experience of representing their culture in the All Stars team fosters better knowledge and appreciation of their heritage and reinforces the NRL’s position as Australia’s first majority non-white sport.

Nick Kyrgios pushed the world number three to the brink at the Australian Open on Friday night, riding the raucous support of the crowd. But some still don’t like what he brings to tennis.

First in doubt and then delayed, the Australian Open is set to begin. But can the drama of coronavirus-positive international arrivals, hotel quarantine fears and social media volleys be eclipsed by actual action on the courts?

After a long history of AFL players of colour being abused and left unsupported by the league, it was not surprising when a report into Collingwood FC this week found systemic racism. Can Eddie McGuire start the process of doing better?

John Barnes retired from a 200-plus-game AFL career thinking it had set him up for a comfortable future. Instead he now suffers from epilepsy and watches debilitated from the sidelines as former greats succumb to CTE brain injuries.

In the world of sporting KPIs, those of Stacey Marinkovich, the new coach of the Australian Diamonds netball team, couldn’t be more clear – wrest back the game’s most coveted trophies from England and New Zealand.

The Australian Open is shaping up to be a very different tournament in 2021, with dozens of competitors forced into strict hotel quarantine. While some players have taken to social media to vent their frustration, others say the move has only widened a gulf that has always existed between tennis’s stars and the rank and file.

A quarter-finals appearance at the US Open was Alex de Minaur’s best on-court performance to date, but the world No. 23 rates making it through the mental challenges and disruptions of 2020 as his biggest achievement.

Cricket at a grassroots level was already struggling before the pandemic, but lovers of the game are confident it can rebuild against the backdrop of a Covid-safe summer.

For AFL recruiters, scouting future footy stars is tough at the best of times. Now coronavirus has made the usual game of speculation and conjecture that much trickier.