Silver Lining To Sporting Year

Newcastle Herald

Wednesday December 29, 2004

Herald chief sports writer STEWART ROACH

WHETHER it was in the Olympic diving pool, on the fairways of Augusta National or in the dirt of America's supercross championship, the Hunter was a player in world sport during 2004.

The region's sporting pedigree was nowhere more obvious than in Athens, where the Hunter provided a record 19 Australian Olympians and three Paralympians.

The Olympic standouts were silver medallists Suzy Batkovic, Mathew Helm, Ryan Rowland-Smith and Natalie Ward.

Basketballer Batkovic, who honed her skills at Broadmeadow Stadium, was the European Player of the Year and helped Australia to Olympic silver alongside Lauren Jackson.

She is poised to dominate Europe again in 2005 while playing in Spain and could take the step across to the American Women's NBA.

Baseballer Rowland-Smith also peaked at the right time, pitching in the Olympic Games final loss to Cuba but doing enough to earn an American Major League contract for 2005 with the Minnesota Twins.

Brisbane-based Helm also collected a silver when he produced the dive of his life in the 10-metre individual platform event. Helm also won bronze in the pairs.

Ward continued her remarkable Olympic Games record with a silver medal in softball.

The other Hunter competitors in Athens were sailors Chris Nicholson and Gary Boyd; soccer players Cheryl Salisbury, Joanne Peters, Danielle Small and Ryan Griffiths; sprinter Joshua Ross; cyclist Olivia Gollan; equestrienne Rebel Morrow; boxer Jamie Pittman; shooter Tom Turner; judokas Jessica Malone and Martin Kelly; swimmer Justin Norris; and hockey forward Julie Towers.

But the Hunter highlight from Athens was wheelchair marathon man Kurt Fearnley.

The 23-year-old perennial placegetter again thought he had blown his hopes of a gold medal when he heard the hissing of air escaping from his left back wheel five kilometres from the finish.

But Fearnley, who had already won the 5000m, drained every ounce of sugar in his blood to hold onto gold.

Eliza Stankovic won a silver in the 800m wheelchair event, in which fellow Hunter Paralympian Christie Dawes also competed.

Outside the Olympics, Kurri Kurri motocross star Chad Reed rose to the pinnacle of his sport by winning the prestigious American Supercross Championship.

Reed, who is a superstar in the US, made a cool $6.5 million through sponsorship and prizemoney to wind up a surprise fourth on the list of Australia's top sports earners in 2004.

The Herald Hunter Pirates enter the new year still with a strong chance of making the National Basketball League play-offs after a remarkable improvement under coach Adrian Hurley in their second season.

Their 7-11 record, after just two wins in their debut year, augurs well for the future of the club.

The Hunter Jaegers had an outstanding rookie season in the national netball premiership.

The team started training in January and finished tied for fifth, narrowly missing the play-offs.

Ali Tucker won the NSW player-of-the-year award, and skipper Raegan Jackson was voted equal players' player of the year with Melbourne Kestrals star Janine Illitch.

Stand-in captain Danny Buderus was the standout player for the Newcastle Knights in an ordinary NRL season for the club.

Buderus took on the responsibility when Andrew Johns suffered a season-ending knee injury in the third match of the season then played through the pain of a foot problem to also lead NSW to State of Origin success and stand in as captain again in Australia's end-of-season international series.

He also won the Dally M medal as the NRL's best and fairest and the Knights and Rugby League Players Association players' player awards.

The Knights finished 10th on the premiership table with 10 wins and 14 losses. They lost Australian representatives Ben Kennedy (Manly) and Timana Tahu (Eels) for the 2005 season, and club stalwarts Robbie O'Davis and Matt Parsons retired.

In the Real NRL, Western Suburbs held out a fast-finishing Northern Blues side to win the grand final 32-28 and clinch the minor-major premiership double.

It was the Rosellas' fifth premiership in the past eight seasons.

Eastern Districts came from behind to overpower Wanderers and win the Newcastle and Hunter Rugby Union premiership double with a 22-20 grand final victory.

It was the club's sixth premiership and first since 2000, and they lost only one game during the season.

Cardiff Hawks won their second Black Diamond Cup to become the first two-time premiers in the Australian rules competition since the Newcastle and Central Coast competitions merged.

Cardiff beat Terrigal-Avoca Panthers 16.13 (109) to 15.9 (99).

New father Jim Cresnar celebrated Father's Day in September by helping Broadmeadow Magic win the Northern NSW soccer premiership 3-1 against Weston.

Cresnar had played in seven previous grand finals without winning, including when Magic were beaten in extra time by Edgeworth last year after leading with six minutes to play.

The Northern NSW Pride women's side produced an outstanding turnaround, from wooden spooners last season to their first grand final, where they lost to Queensland Sting.

Katie Gill was the leading goalscorer in the competition.

Merewether captain Simon Moore was the Newcastle District Cricket Association players' player after leading Newcastle to the Country championship. He also skippered NSW Country and Australian Country and topped the district batting averages.

But Hamilton-Wickham turned the tables on defending champions Merewether, winning their third final in five years.

On the greens, East Maitland's Brody Pitham won the inaugural singles gold medal at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Bendigo, Clayton Parker (Wallsend) finished runner-up to world champion Steve Glasson in the Australian indoor singles championship at Tweed Heads, and the Waratah sextet of Andrew Smith, Wayne Smith, John Parkinson, Todd Rizzoli, Jason Pietraszek and Kelly Strong made their way into the Guinness Book of Records when they bowled continuously for 571/2 hours.

Pitham was also the inaugural NSW Junior Bowler of the Year.

Tenpin bowler Ann-Maree Putney again represented Australia to make the quarter-final play-offs in the world titles in Singapore.

Tennis professionals Rachel McQuillan and Trudi Musgrave both suffered serious injuries in 2004 to keep them away from the circuit.

Musgrave had a full knee reconstruction and is back practising and hoping for a wildcard into the Australian Open next month before basing herself in England for 2005.

On the golf circuit, Charlestown's James Nitties finished 2004 on a high note, winning almost $120,000 in three major tournaments soon after turning professional.

Nitties, the New Zealand amateur champion, also won the Mundurah Easter Classic and the Malaysian Amateur title during the year before helping the Asia-Pacific team beat Europe in the Bonallack Cup in Rome.

Nitties also led Australia in the Eisenhower Cup world amateur event in Puerto Rico in October for 13th place in the individual event before turning professional.

He finished second to Peter Lonard in the Australian PGA Championship at Coolum and finished 17th on the Order of Merit.

Former Muswellbrook club and Australian amateur champion Kurt Barnes, 23, also came of age in the professionals ranks, winning the Queensland PGA title, leading the Australian Open field and finishing 34th on the Order of Merit.

Toronto-based Nathan Green retained his playing card for the American Nationwide Tour and the Australasian circuit, but Port Stephens professional Cherie Byrnes missed retaining her American LPGA Tour ticket. She is still qualified for the European tour.

In surfing, Travis Lynch will start the new year on a high note after qualifying for the world junior championships at North Narrabeen starting on Saturday, while Josh Blair (Swansea-Belmont) again qualified for the Australian Ironman series after a two-year break and finished sixth in his first race of the summer.

Swansea-Belmont's Lisa Wright became the club's first individual world champion when the 19-year-old won the open flags event at the world titles in Italy in September.

On the water, Wangi Wangi sailor Nathan Outteridge became only the second skipper in history to claim three consecutive world youth titles in July when he won the 420 class in Poland, partnered by Iain Jensen, from Fishing Point.

Broadmeadow racehorse trainer Kris Lees collected his first group 1 victory when County Tyrone won the AJC Metropolitan.

Paul Perry continued to excel at the Melbourne Spring Carnival, producing Fastnet Rock for two group victories at Flemington.

Former Kurri Kurri teenager Casey Stoner continued to turn heads in the world 125cc motorcycle world championship by riding fast and crashing and will step up to the 250cc class next year.

A few Hunter athletes should be keen to put 2004 behind them.

Eleebana 20-year-old Nick Flanagan is certainly one of them.

Flanagan hit the heights in 2003 when he won the US Amateur golf championship, regarded in the golf world as almost the equivalent of the four major titles.

Unfortunately, the brilliance he showed in 2003 did not resurface in 2004 under the pressure of tournament play on the US PGA circuit, where he received invitations to the prestigious Bay Hill Classic and Memorial Tournament before playing the greatest tournament of all, the US Masters at Augusta, then the US Open and British Open.

He missed the cut in all of them.

Those magical skills he honed at Belmont Golf Club did not completely disappear, but they deserted him when he needed them most.

Justin Norris, the fresh-faced and frizzy-haired swimmer from Stockton, did not reach his peak in Athens and finished without a medal.

Boxer Jamie Pittman also had a disappointing Olympic debut in Athens but has the potential to make the grade in the professional ranks in a sport set to boom again in 2005.

The most intriguing Hunter sports story of 2004 was undoubtedly the mystery of Terry Venables's appointment as coach of Newcastle United for the inaugural A-League soccer premiership.

United announced his signing in July and continued to insist they had their man, even when Venables himself made no public comment on the matter and his London-based manager reported that no deal had been agreed.

The saga dragged on for five months before Venables wrote in an English newspaper column this month that he would not be coming.

Nevertheless, United gained admission into the streamlined A-League with seven other clubs and have recruited strongly.

Former Socceroos striker Ante Milicic will spearhead the club's campaign when the A-League kicks off in the second half of 2005.

© 2004 Newcastle Herald

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