A RIVALRY THAT NEVER GETS OLD
WINNING GOLD IS ALWAYS SWEETER WHEN YOU BEAT ENGLAND ON HOME SOIL
ELLEN Ryan is sitting next to Kristina Krstic on the team bus. It’s 6.30am. They’re best mates and partners in the Commonwealth Games pairs final at Royal Leamington Spa.
“I saw the netball and the hockey were on later today, and how close the medal table is between Australia and England,” Ryan says.
“I said to Kristina, ‘Jeez, mate, we’d better win this.’ For an Australian athlete, if you beat England in England in any sport, especially when you do it in England, I think that’s a pretty special moment.”
Friendly Games my foot. Ryan and Krstic share Rink No.1 with England’s Amy Pharoah and Sophie Tolchard from 8.30am. What comes next is two-anda-half hours of nudges and winks, shots given and taken, pokes and prods … while no words are exchanged between teams. Ryan steals the gold medal with a final bowl of such nerveless precision that Australia coach Karen Murphy immediately bursts into tears.
“Great game, mates,” she tells the English players as Ryan and Krtsic sprint up the green and leap into each other’s arms. They’ve spent every available moment standing side-by-side, whispering to each other like they have a secret, wrapping a loving arm around each other, shouting encouragement. You’ve got this, mate! You’ve got this! Australia is down a shot before Ryan’s last roll of the dice. She needs to knock England’s bowl out with a drive.
All or nothing. She stares at the jack and the head, looking for an opening. Maybe to the left? Nope. On the forehand? Not really. It’s truly a sport of centimetres rather than millimetres. What other sport requires a tape measure to be plucked from a player’s pocket to decide matters?
It’s riveting entertainment. Sporting chess. Ryan is blocked and snookered and staring defeat in the face. England’s pair is dancing on their toes, clasping their hands, hugging each other tightly – until Ryan conjures her knockout blow.
“I’ll tell you what these two are,” Murphy says.
“Best mates. That kind of mateship is invaluable when it’s as tense as that was. They know they have each other’s backs. They know they believe they can do it together.
“That kind of mateship is difficult to beat.
“It’s a true Australian mateship, and I think that’s held them in good stead.”
Ryan has let rip and hit paydirt. A little while later, they’re behind the grandstand when Krtsic tells Ryan, “We did it!”
Ryan has added the pairs to her singles gold medal. “I can’t believe what’s just happened,” she says, huddled under an Australian flag with Krstic as if they’re sharing a blanket on a cold night.
“It was a gold medal match and, on top of that, it was Australia against England.
“I love that whole rivalry. You see it in so many sports and it’s just such a famous thing.
“It’s not the reason why you want to win, but it does add some magic to it. I’m trembling and, right now, this feels too good to be true.”
AUSTRALIA and England have tightened on the medal tally.
The day has begun with Australia on 50 and England on 47.
Four battles will be crucial: the lawn bowls, the netball semi-final, the heavyweight boxing semi-final and the men’s hockey semi-final.
All of them are Australia versus England.
A bus and train trip gets us from the bowls to the netball at the National Exhibition Centre.
A woman bustles in carrying a Union Jack and wearing a T-shirt that says, “Eat. Sleep. Netball.” Wow.
There’s incredible noise in here. Full-on and a full house. An electrifying atmosphere. An intense atmosphere. An Ashes atmosphere.
There’s argy-bargy. It’s one of those rare yet challenging occasions when athletes struggle to hear themselves think, let alone communicate properly.
What a quick sport.
Fast hands and feet. Bullet passes. Flying elbows, players skidding across the floor, wrestles for the ball, crowd going berserk.
Turnovers to England are celebrated like everyone’s won the lottery.
Turnovers to Australia are treated like someone’s shot the dog.
Australia has them covered, winning 61-50 to partly avenge the gut-wrenching loss in the 2018 Gold Coast final.
Four spectators have been wearing Charles, William, Kate and Queen Elizabeth masks. They chuck them on the ground and say, “Bloody Australians!”
England coach Jess Thirlby is more sombre. “Losing is meant to hurt,” she says.
From Diamonds captain Liz Watson: “The England-Australia netball rivalry has really started to develop. I guess it’s always been Australia and New Zealand, but obviously England four years ago at the Comm Games, that lifted the intensity.
“That crowd today was something else for noise, but we used it for our own energy today.
“And towards the end, we could start to hear our Australian friends and family up there and spot a few yellow shirts.
“It’s nice when you can silence the crowd.”
Still at the NEC, Australian Edgardo Coumi loses in the sweet science’s semi-final to giant
Englishman Lewis Williams. Boxing crowds are raucous at the best of times, and let’s just say Williams hasn’t suffered from a lack of full-throated support.
“It’s not necessarily a rivalry because I like the Aussie people, but sport’s sport, isn’t it? William says.
From Coumi: “He’s a good fighter, he was a better man on the day. I fought my heart out and left it all out there. It was a big crowd, it was roaring, and I feel like I proved to a lot of people that I’m not a pushover.”
IT’S 7.30pm and the Hockeyroos are warming up.
There’s a swarm of yellow shirts and increasingly energetic talk. Yes, boys! Bit by bit, boys! Build it up, boys! We’re on here, boys! The sun has shone on Birmingham as if it recognises the city’s attempt to put on a decent Games and wants to help out.
It’s slowly disappearing behind the University ground as the Australians make their entrance.
They get booed by another monster audience.
Elsewhere, Kurtis Marschall will win a ding-dong battle for the pole vault gold medal.
The three-gold lead at the start of the day will grow to nine, 59 to 50, leaving Australia just seven gold shy of being the first Commonwealth nation to 1000.
It’s been a phenomenal day: Aaron ‘Disco’ Wilson has won the men’s singles at the bowls; Olli Hoare has sparked flashbacks to the great Herb Elliott with a remarkable last-stride triumph in the 1500 metres to end a 64-year drought in the race; Jemima Montag has won the 10km walk before crediting her resilience to her grandmother Judith, a holocaust survivor; veteran diver Melissa Wu has partnered 14-yearold Charli Petrov to gold in the 10m synchronised platform event; Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith have twisted and turned to perfection to win the 3m synchronised springboard; Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva grabbed gold medal in the clubs final of the rhythmic gymnastics; and in para-table tennis, Yang
Qian won gold in an allAustralian final against
Lei Lina in the women’s 6-10 class.
A win for the Kookas will round off a day to be remembered.
The towering main
grandstand has about 3000 seats. I can see 15 yellow shirts. Behind me, Kenyan athletes are shouting for Australia. When I ask them why, one of them says, “Nice people and we like you!”
It’s a Saturday night crowd and they’re up for it. Everything’s a disaster or spectacular.
A penalty corner is awarded to England.
Hooray!
One goes to Australia.
They nearly riot.
The Kookas are unusually flustered. Desperation and desire is palpable in the England team.
What a quick and skilful sport this is. Australia trails 2-0 and the shock of Eleanor Patterson losing the high jump, and the disappointment of Rohan Browning toppling over in the 4x100m relay, is about to be matched.
The Kookas have won every gold medal since the sport was introduced at Kuala Lumpur in 1998, and captain Eddie Ockenden has never lost a Commonwealth match … but they’re in dire trouble.
Then Blake Govers converts a penalty corner to peg the deficit to 1-2. There’s a hush.
Jacob Anderson makes it 2-2. A bigger hush.
Daniel Beale smacks home the matchwinner, and the hush is permanent. England’s James Albery throws his stick on ground and kicks it.
There’s more booing. Music to the Australians’ ears. “One of the more timely goals of my career,” Beale says.
“They put a lot of pressure on us. You don’t want to go two-nil down, but we told each other there’s a lot of hockey to play.
“We can come back from anywhere. We always have that belief. No matter when we play and who we play, and no matter the circumstances of each game, we just go in and play with a winning attitude and make the best of every situation.
“We have a fierce rivalry on the field but then, after the game, it becomes a lot more friendly.
“For those 60 minutes we’re definitely no holds barred and going all out at each other but
there’s a lot of respect there.”