Who is our best sporting team?

EACH weekend The Chronicle sport team jumps on its Saturday Soapbox and voices its opinion on some pressing sporting issues.

This week the team talks about Australia’s greatest (current) national sporting team and the discussion may surprise you.

Jason Gibbs: Australia is a proud sporting nation. We have produced countless individual superstars and some of the best teams to grace the world stage.

In the early 2000s the Australian cricket team was one of the best teams in the world - in any code. In the 2002 they won the Laureas World Sports award for best team.

But things have fallen by the wayside for our cricketers - look at us now.

The Wallabies (rugby union) had their day long ago and while the Kangaroos (rugby league) are still dominant, sometimes they seem to be just an errant pass away from defeat.

So that leaves me with two options - the Diamonds (netball) and the Matildas (soccer).

The Diamonds sparkle, pardon the pun, every time they are on court. But New Zealand, England and occasionally even South Africa can give us a run our money on their day.

For me our best national team right now is the Matildas.

As well as their recent 3-0 domination of China the Matildas have beaten Brazil (three times), Japan (once) and America (once) this year.

If the women’s World Cup was held tomorrow the Matildas would have to be one of the favourites something we can’t say about the Socceroos.

Sam Kerr is a world-class talent, probably the best women’s player in the game right now, and she is just one part of a supremely talented team.

Under Alen Stajcic the Matildas play an attractive attacking style of football and deserve more of our praise and a greater share of our respect.

Madolyn Peters: I agree with Gibbo. The Matildas deserve more air time and more recognition.

I believe they could be one of Australia’s greatest national sporting teams if they were given the same rights as the men’s team, the Socceroos.

I think it’s something the AFL is starting to do really well as they work with the AFLW in order to promote both leagues.

Women’s cricket is also starting to gain popularity with more and more games televised.

Particularly with Australia just winning the 2017 Ashes against England.

I couldn’t seem to escape that news, I saw it everywhere I looked. However I haven’t seen a lot on the Matildas’ successful campaign and why not?

When I turned my television on a couple of weekends ago the first thing to come on was the Socceroos and Honduras game.

Last weekend I turned it on and the Women’s Rugby League World Cup was on and I was able to sit down and watch Australia dominate England.

I would like to see that happen for the Matildas in the near future.

Where I can turn on my television and the women’s team is at the forefront of sports media on free to air TV.

Perhaps the onus is on sport fans as well to support their team in any form they can.