The Australian Football League (AFL) grand final today between the Sydney Swans and the West Coast Eagles should be a close affair. You could almost bet on it, and thousands of Australians will.
In a rematch of last year's Australian Rules football final, the Swans meet the Eagles in today's championship match before an expected crowd of 100,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
League officials say up to 45 million people are expected to watch on television around the world, while betting agencies say the Eagles are slight favorites after some late splurges on the Western Australian team.
Preparations for the match continued as Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he had concerns that the AFL final and the National Rugby League championship match tomorrow could be targets of terrorist attacks, although there was no evidence to suggest that any were planned.
"Like everybody else I worry about the potential, and I hope and pray nothing happens," Howard told Southern Cross Radio in Melbourne yesterday.
"I don't believe it will. I know all precautions are taken, but you ask me the question. Of course [I am concerned]," he said.
"There is absolutely no advice, no suggestion, no intelligence warnings indicating that this won't be anything other than a fantastic weekend," Howard said.
Sydney leads the West Coast 3-1 in playoff matches, but three of them were decided by four points or less. That's a small margin considering Australian Rules teams -- where kicked goals are worth six points -- often exceed the 100-point mark.
The last time they met, three weeks ago in Perth, Sydney beat West Coast by one point -- 13.7 (85) to 12.12 (84).
The Swans have picked the identical squad throughout the three-week playoff period, playing with the same 22 players. West Coast defender Jaymie Graham was the only player dropped from either team ahead of today's match.
Graham, who had played 24 of the Eagles' 25 previous games this season, was omitted to make room for returning defender David Wirrpanda.
Eagles coach John Worsfold said the team had to go with its best players.
"That is just what has got to happen -- you can't play 23," said Worsfold. "We just get on with the job."
Daniel Kerr, Andrew Embley and Ashley Hansen have returned from injury for the Eagles, while backup ruckman Mark Seaby has also come back into the side.
Sydney flew to Melbourne on Thursday without ruckman Darren Jolly, who stayed behind to be with his wife for the birth of their first child, a daughter born early yesterday.
Jolly flew to Melbourne in time for yesterday's grand final parade through the streets of downtown Melbourne.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier