The round-up October 5, 2007

October is a transitional month for sport in Australia. It’s not quite hot enough for summer sport, and winter sport is finishing up. The footy seasons are over, with the NRL and AFL not returning until March. The Rugby World Cup is thriving in mainstream print media coverage, and the cricket is also slowly infiltrating the news. Tennis won’t play a big part until January, when the Australian Open begins, and the A-League is quietly reported on as the season continues on.

So, in the winter season of 2007, how well did women’s sport in major codes around Australia get covered in the Sydney print media?

Rugby Union
There was only one article on women’s RU to be found, and it wasn’t necessarily on the professional aspirations of female players. It was a well written fluff story that gave us the only information available in the mainstream media about the 2007 Women’s RU season. Despite the fact that’s perhaps not contributing to the image of highly skilled female players, the fact that a major Sydney newspaper would run an article on it is great progress. It’s also a simply great story.

Rugby League
As expected, there was nothing to be found on females playing the game. Add to that the very slowly updated web pages for the Sydney Metropolitan Women’s Rugby League and Australian Women’s Rugby League, which also have no indication of where or when games are played, it’s a frustrating feat to find anything about anything on women playing RL.

Soccer
Soccer (or football for those who are easily angered) hit the jackpot in coverage stakes, with heightened interest after SBS began broadcasting the Women’s World Cup. There were at least 20 to 30 articles mentioning the Matildas, many which included great reporting of games and excellent articles about issues facing women, including interest from the United States in recruiting Australian players. While it never reached the levels of hysteria that the male World Cup does, it had a great impact on women’s soccer and has also pushed for a national league.

Netball
Netball is the traditionally fairly well reported on women’s game – although a lot of attention is given to the regular season, finals time regularly features a couple of print articles a day leading up to the trophy game in the major metropolitan newspapers. Men don’t play the game professionally, which also contributes to this. It is generally considered a ‘female’ game, however many would argue against boxing any sport into such a category.

Australian Rules Football
AFL made a surprise appearance in the Canberra times, with a blurb on the AFL Women’s National Championships, which were held in Canberra in July. It was unsurprisingly nowhere to be seen in Sydney papers.

There were also a couple opinion pieces being penned during the past few months, one of which was written by high profile News Ltd. sport journalist Rebecca Wilson. Even she says:

“I am one of the sports journalists in this country who often feel a little ashamed about the tiny bit of attention we give women’s sport.

With the possible exception of tennis, big money, media and crowds stay away in droves from most sport that involves women.

That’s in spite of the fact that so many of our extraordinary sporting moments have been provided by females.

The media is saturated with stories (often written by women) of our macho footy, tennis and cricketing heroes.”

 

And she is right.

Generally speaking, especially because of the Women’s World Cup, a lot more media coverage was given to females playing sport. Unfortunately, the World Cup doesn’t happen every year. Lets hope that one or two journalists have picked up on the huge amounts of stories to be found in women’s sport, and get cracking to bring us the good stuff.

The bat and ball sports. September 28, 2007

The Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars, Australia’s national women’s cricket squad, are keen to continue their dominance in the world game with the international women’s program recently announced.

The titillating summer of cricket for the women’s team will look something like this:

2007-08 Women’s International Program
Twenty20 International
Friday 1 February: Australia v England, Venue TBC

One-Day Internationals
Sunday 3 February: Australia v England, MCG
Monday 4 February: Australia v England, MCG
Thursday 7 February: Australia v England, Drummoyne Oval, Sydney
Sunday 10 February: Australia v England, SCG
Monday 11 February: Australia v England, SCG

Test Match
Friday 15 – Monday 18 February: Australia v England, Bradman Oval, Bowral

Tour Matches (50 Overs)
Monday 28 January: England v Australia U21, Venue TBC
Wednesday 30 January: England v Australia U21, Venue TBC
Thursday 31 January: Australia v Australia U21, Venue TBC

Source: Cricket Australia

This will be followed by a trip across the Tasman for the annual Rose Bowl Series against traditional rivals, the New Zealand White Ferns.

The Southern Stars will be hopeful of continuing their winning streak after taking out this year’s Top End Series, beating New Zealand 3-2.

The Top End Series, played from the 19th to the 29th of July in the Northern Territory, kicked off with a thrilling 20/20 match which saw the Australian team win by only one run. Five One Day International’s (ODI’s) followed, with Australia wrapping up the series in the fourth ODI at Gardens Oval in Darwin with their third win.

Matthew Slade, Cricket Australia’s Communications Adviser, says the Top End Series was successful in raising the profile of women’s cricket in the mainstream media.

“The Top End Series provided a good example of the potential for women’s cricket. The debut of Ellyse Perry at the Top End Series was a good story and provided opportunities for women’s cricket to gain exposure in the major media markets,” he said.

“There was coverage on TV and in newspapers when Ellyse became the youngest person to play cricket for Australia [male or female].”

Along with the victories, women’s cricket in Australia has also been buoyed by the announcement that New South Wales will host the Women’s World Cup in 2009, where Australia will attempt to defend their title against India, England, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and the West Indies, and two other nations who will qualify after a tournament to be held in Pakistan next year.

Slade says that the World Cup will be another opportunity to boost the profile and playing numbers of women in cricket around the country.

“Hosting the Women’s World Cup in 2009 provides a great opportunity for the promotion and development of women’s…Cricket N.S.W in partnership with Cricket Australia will work extremely hard to ensure the event is a successful advertisement for women’s cricket,” he said.

The domestic competition kicks off on November 17 with the New South Wales Breakers taking on the South Australia Scorpions.

In other bat and ball sports, the Australian National Open Women’s Softball Team, ranked third in the world, will be vying for the Asian Cup in October. The competition will be played from the 4th of October to the 17th in Beijing, China.

The media blackout. September 23, 2007

If women’s sports didn’t have enough trouble getting covered in the mainstream media, they have to deal with journalists like this guy…

WOMEN’S soccer is a joke. People walked across the street in order not to watch it in Adelaide last week. Women’s cricket is not much better. Netball is OK, sometimes, when there is nothing else on. But women’s basketball is not.

Gymnastics? Jumped-up school sport. Women’s tennis? Don’t get me started. Women runners, jumpers, throwers, cyclists and swimmers do their best, but it is, by definition, second-best. Women’s triathlon is a yawn. Women’s golf is nothing more than a set of gimmicks. Women’s AFL is embarrassing. If women insist on playing sport at all, it should be beach volleyball. – Greg Baum, August 5, The Age.

Obviously to most, this is unbelievably sexist drivel. However, if you were to open a newspaper or switch on the T.V news on any given day, Baum’s feelings are widely reflected.

Many would argue, quite obviously, that the lack of coverage of women’s sport is natural. The only major Australian women’s sport code is Netball. Women are the afterthoughts of such codes as the Australian Rugby League [ARL] , the Australian Football League [AFL], the Australian Rugby Union [ARU], Football Federation Australia [FFA] and Cricket Australia, all of which are commonly the most televised sports in the country.

We can’t report on what we can’t see.

This has been proven with the amount of articles written about the Australian women’s soccer team (The Matildas). While hardly anyone knew the Women’s Word Cup was being played (let alone existed), the initiative of SBS to provide televised matches, albeit only Australian ones, equaled a great deal more media interest in the event – today, for instance, there was at least one article in each major newspaper on the Matildas and their success, making it to the quarter finals of the Cup. They will face Brazil tonight.

This is just one of the great achievements in Australian women’s sport in the past couple of years. Women have excelled in such fields as:

• The Australian Women’s Cricket Team winning the 2007 Top End Series [which will be covered in depth in a later blog].
• The Kookaburra’s (women’s hockey) coming runners up in the 2006 World Cup.
• 48,054 women getting involved in AFL in 2006.
  
• Sydney hosting the 2007 Women’s Rugby League Nationals.

Plenty of events feature the skills and sporting prowess of the female gender, proving they are just as entertaining to watch as their male counterparts. If women’s sport is ever going to be taken seriously in Australia, the mainstream media needs to take a step in the right direction and be our eyes and ears. We don’t need to see the game on our 42 inch televisions. We can feel it through words and photographs.

They need to care enough to bring the game to us.

The soccer, otherwise known as football. September 12, 2007

The Stanmore Hawks and Easts in action.

The under 18’s Stanmore Hawks girls soccer team, the first girls soccer team in the history of the club, reached it’s second consecutive winter grand final since it’s induction into the Canterbury District Football Association.

The girls had a solid season but showed signs of frustration as they went down in the grand final 3-1 to a fired up Eastern Suburbs (Easts) team at Lambert Park, Leichardt, on Father’s Day.

Their coach and former Stanmore Hawks President John Kavalaris said despite the loss, his team had a lot to build on for the 2008 season.

“I’m very proud of the girls. You know, last year was our first year and we won it, and I’m just proud of them for making it this far again,” he said.

Shaking hands before the game.

It seemed that the boisterous crowd was going to be in for a lopsided score, with Easts sinking their first goal in the 5th minute, taking advantage of an open goal.

But the Stanmore girls were ready for a tough fight, and held out Easts at 1-0 through to the second half, despite Easts holding the majority of the ball and having three more shots at goal.

Stanmore were unable to capitalise on end of half possession and the fiery nature of the game seemed to get the better of them as time progressed, with the only yellow cards awarded both going to Stanmore players. Easts managed to block the push and shove out of their minds and scored their remaining goals in the 28th minute of the second half, and then again in the 35th minute after some poor defence by Stanmore.

Easts after their first goal.

Stanmore scored their only goal through striker Jackie Stopps, who bamboozled the keeper with her penalty kick right on full time.

Midfielder Maria Vrahimi said the expectation of a victory may have effected Stanmore’s Play.

“I’m really quite disappointed to be honest. I don’t really think we played like a team, and our frustrations got the better of us.

“We were just all over the place,” she said.

Stanmore kicking off.

However Vrahimi is pleased that the club has begun to place more importance on females playing the game.

“They’ve been great this year. They brought in a professional tactics coach just for us,” she said.

On a national scale, the Australian women’s soccer team (the Matildas) won their first round clash with Ghana in the Women’s World Cup 4-1.

The FIFA Women’s World Cup got underway in China on Sunday the 10th of September, with 16 teams in four divisions playing for World Cup glory on the 30th of September.

The Swifts down Phoenix in thriller. August 26, 2007

The Phoenix and The Swifts warming up before the game.

The National Netball League’s Commonwealth Bank Trophy (CBT) came to an end with a bang on Sunday the 19th of August 2007, with the Sydney TAB Swifts beating the Melbourne First National Phoenix 45 to 37 in a highly engaging grand final.

Both teams singing the National Anthem.

From the first goal, which came 20 seconds into the match, the Swifts looked well on target for winning their first consecutive title during the 11 year history of the CBT.

The Swifts held the lead with 16-10 at the first period and 27-19 at the main break, with Phoenix Captain and Goal Attack Sharelle McMahon admitting that the Phoenix’s slow start was a factor in the loss.

“It was a really tough match. Unfortunately, we didn’t get off to the start that we would’ve liked,” she said after the match.

The third period sent some hearts fluttering in the mostly yellow and blue adorned 8000 strong crowd, with the Phoenix closing the gap to just four goals midway through the period, the Swifts only managing to hold onto their lead with some aggressive defensive work by inspirational Captain and Goal Keeper Liz Ellis and the heavily strapped Goal Defence Mo’onia Gerrard.

Reliable veteran Goal Shooter Catherine Cox and Goal Attack Susan Pratley also proved the difference in the final result, with their 22/26 (85 per cent) and 23/25 (92 per cent) respectively eclipsing the percentages of the Phoenix’s Goal Shooter Sharelle McMahon 23/30 (74 per cent) and Goal Attack Abby Sargent 14/23 (61 per cent).

The Swifts accepting their medals.

While the action on the court was undoubtedly exciting, the post match celebrations an commiserations were particularly poignant as the CBT met a controversial end. The Phoenix were forced to forego a home court advantage as minor premiers this year to play the finals series at Sydney’s Acer Arena.

A pep talk after the game as the CBT comes to an end.

2007 is the final year in which eight Australian teams (The Medibank Adelaide Thunderbirds, the AIS Canberra Darters, the McDonald’s Hunter Jaegers, the Melbourne Kestrels, the Melbourne Phoenix, the Perth Orioles, the Queensland Firebirds and the Sydney Swifts) will compete for the CBT. From April 2008, Netball Australia and Netball New Zealand will combine to be part of the Tasman Trophy, which will feature five teams from each country battling it out.

In the new competition, the likely teams are to come from New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia in Australia and Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Southern in New Zealand.

Netball New South Wales Marketing and Communications Manager Kath Tetley says that even though the state will be down to one team in the Tasman Trophy, players from the Sydney Swifts and Hunter Jaegers will not be automatic shoo-ins.

“The most important thing is that philosophically Netball New South Wales has said that we have a great pool of talent in this state,” Tetley said.

“We were able to field two highly successful Commonwealth Bank Trophy teams and we’ll be recruiting first and foremost from the talent that‘s in New South Wales.

“The Tasman Trophy has allocated one team to New South Wales in 2008. At the moment we’re referring to that team as Team N.S.W because we are going through a brand evaluation process…so we’re deciding upon whether we will move ahead with one of their names, or whether we will brand new next year,” she said.

The Tasman Trophy could prove to be a lucrative move for both the state Netball Associations and Netball Australia. With Fox Sports in Australia and Sky TV in New Zealand buying television rights to the games, Netball moves into a semi-professional state, with senior players able to earn up to $25,000 a season, compared to the few thousand they earned a season during the length of the Commonwealth Bank Trophy.

Compared to the salaries of male sports stars in Australia such as NRL player Sonny Bill Williams, who is worth $400,000 a season in the National Rugby League, the Tasman Trophy is a meagre step in recognising Netballers are professional full time sports people.

The Sydney Swifts, 2007 winners of the Commonwealth Bank Trophy.

The sport chromosome. August 17, 2007

Welcome.

I have to make an admission right off the bat.

I love sport.

Love it, with every fibre of my being. However I (sadly) was never blessed with the athletic gene, for which I blame my parents.

So, while other kids mercilessly mocked my lack of hand/eye co-ordination, I took to what some may call a “fanatical” fixation with all things sport, which I’m guessing is shared by a large part of the nation.

I read the newspaper back to front; watch everything imaginable on television; trawl websites for information; get into heated debates on forums; and am a handy NRL (not that I’m playing favourites) tipper.

However, as I’ve been getting on in years, I’ve begun to notice that the Australian media is severely lacking in their reporting of female sports and athletes. Which, as a female myself, saddens me greatly.

So I’ve decided this is my opportunity to do something about it. Tune into this blog for a running commentary on a selection of female sports over the time frame. For August and September, I hope to bring a thorough, well rounded look at the female superstars in Australian sport, and also examine Sydney mainstream print media attitudes towards females in the games that Australia loves.