ANYTHING BUT BORING A YEAR IN REVIEW
Reckon the 2017 year in sport lacked a little lustre? Try telling a Richmond supporter ...
CAMERON’S CROWNS: Cameron Smith entered the realm of legends with a scarcely believable year of rugby league.
Smith captained Queensland to one the greatest State of Origin triumphs ever — down 1-0 after a home-turf loss and without injured linchpin Johnathan Thurston, the Maroons came back to claim the series.
Smith also won the Dally M; was unlucky not to take the Clive Churchill medal as best-afield in Melbourne’s grand final win over North Queensland; and also passed Darren Lockyer’s all-time NRL games record of 355.
The inspirational captain then guided Australia to World Cup glory. And he collected his second Golden Boot as world player of the year to cap one of the most successful years by any Australian athlete, in any sport. While Smith dominated league, in the AFL it was a shy, tattooed man who broke new ground.
Richmond’s Dustin Martin became the only player to win the Brownlow Medal and the Norm Smith medal for best-onground in the grand final in the same season, as his Tigers drowned in the delight of ending a 37-year premiership drought. The unstoppable Martin polled the most votes ever in the Brownlow. He also collected MVP awards from the coaches’ association and the players’ association. Martin became a multi-millionaire in the process, rejecting massive cash offers from rival clubs to re-sign with Richmond for the next seven years in a deal worth more than $1.1m per season. While Martin counted his cash, other elite sportspeople scrapped with their bosses over coin.
Cricketers refused to play. AFL players threatened to strike. League and rugby union players lobbied for pay rises, as did the nation’s domestic soccer players.
Ultimately, player power won out.
The cricket dispute over a collective bargaining agreement caused most anguish — it went unsolved for 10 months and Australia A cricketers refused to go on a tour of South Africa. What coach would quit on the cusp of returning to the biggest stage in world sport? Ange Postecoglou, that’s who.
Postecoglou resigned as Aus- tralia’s men’s soccer coach after securing the nation’s spot in a fourth consecutive World Cup.
Postecoglou oversaw the most arduous qualification campaign ever — 22 games in 29 months, with more than 250,000km in travel.
But then he quit in a shroud of mystery, offering “it’s the right time for me” as justification — before revealing the week before Christmas he was heading to Japan to take control of J-League club Yokohama F. Marinos. Sally Pearson won the 100m hurdles at the world titles in London to lay claims as Australia’s bestever track athlete. Pearson has two world championships and Olympic gold from the 2012 London Games. She also has Olympic and world championship silvers. Her latest triumph came after a harrowing stretch of injuries — wrist, hamstring and achilles — which led some pundits to query if she was a spent force. The thought never crossed Pearson’s famously steely mind. The Australian Olympic Committee imploded in a swirl of bullying claims and a sour election campaign.
John Coates retained the AOC presidency, surviving the first challenge for the role in his 27-year tenure.
But the campaign of challenger Danni Roche unearthed skeletons in the AOC’s closet.
An independent review was scathing of the AOC’s workplace practices and Coates’ right-hand man, media director Mike Tancred, departed despite being cleared of bullying claims. Tennis brat Nick Kyrgios was the good, bad and downright ugly. He beat Novak Djokovic twice in a month and also downed world No.1 Rafael Nadal to showcase his immense talent, before making first-round exits at grand slams in Paris, London and New York. He then spat the dummy, walking off after losing the first set at the Shanghai Masters and was fined $40,000. Kyrgios’ tennis compatriot Bernard Tomic also copped a fine — a Wimbledon record amount of $20,000 — for saying he was bored during his first-round loss at the premier event. Ben Simmons is aged just 21. And only made his NBA debut in October this year. But already he’s been dubbed as potentially Australia’s greatest basketballer. Simmons is earning rave reviews for his displays with Philadelphia 76ers and has even been told by NBA legend LeBron James that he could be “better than me.’’ Boxer Jeff Horn took the WBO welterweight belt from the legendary Manny Pacquiao, an 11-times world champ, in a brutal battle in Brisbane in April. Horn’s triumph was a win for a good guys, completing a remarkable tale from bullied schoolboy to giant-killer. Sam Kerr morphed from an inhouse performer to a household name with stunning displays for the national women’s soccer team, the Matildas. Kerr’s backflip celebration when scoring became her trademark — and she netted plenty in a breakout year capped by winning the Asian Football Confederation’s women’s player of the year gong.
The 24-year-old also played a starring role as the Matildas won the Tournament of Nations.
Apart from Melbourne Storm’s and Richmond’s successes, Sydney FC took every domestic soccer trophy on offer — the ALeague championship, premiers’ plate and the FFA Cup. Surfer Tyler Wright won consecutive women’s world titles; Rekindling, ridden by Corey Brown, won the Melbourne Cup.