The draw for the rest of the shortened NRL season has last year’s grand finalists featured on Channel 9 just three times. I have lost count of the number of times over the years that I have been approached by Raiders fans complaining (and rightly so) about the lack of free-to-air television coverage afforded the Canberra Raiders. At times any...

On Wednesday, 13 May 2020, Keith Lyons, loving husband, brother, father and grandfather died at the age of 68. Professor Keith Lyons had a career spanning continents as a teacher and mentor in sports and education. Living in Australia for almost 20 years, Keith became an active member of the Braidwood community, working with the Braidwood and District Education Foundation...

I well remember that first Brumbies training camp at Jindabyne in the lead up to the start of the inaugural Super 12 season in 1996. In a bid to engage the media with the new team, the management invited us into the inner sanctum. I’m not sure how impressed the players were to have several journalists in the room as...

The George Bass Surf Boat Marathon, billed as the longest and toughest surf boat race in the world, is at times one of the more brutal sporting events I have witnessed. In late December, the 2020 George Bass race was cancelled two days into the seven-day competition due to the horrendous bushfires on the South Coast. The first leg began...

During the Super League war in the mid-90s in Canberra, uncertainty over the future of the code in our city was very real in the minds of supporters. As we raced from one meeting location to another, from Canberra to Queanbeyan to the airport, just trying to get a handle on the eventual outcome was just about impossible given the...

Alison Bai is experiencing an almost ‘normal’ life for the first time in over a decade, confined to Canberra because of the COVID-19 shutdown. As a professional tennis player, on average, Alison spends seven to eight months of the year on the gruelling international tennis circuit, travelling from tournament-to-tournament around the world. This could be perceived as a glamorous lifestyle,...

Noel Bissett loved telling the story about the day he refereed a game at Captains Flat. On that day an elderly lady brandishing an umbrella pursued him across the ground. The elderly lady in question was apparently upset with a number of Noel’s rulings that happened to go against the home team. For Noel, it was part of the fabric...

If there was a man to be feared on the football field back in the 70s it was David “Chook” Howell. Howell was tough in a time when the fight for premierships was a hand-on-heart backyard turf war, where players worked by day, lived by one set of colours and played the full 80 minutes in a game governed by...

It was just a split-second decision by Jindabyne teenager Josie Baff that delivered Australia its first gold medal at the Winter Youth Olympics in January this year. The 17-year-old's triumphant feat in the final of the women's snowboard cross at the 2020 event in Lausanne, Switzerland, on January 20, left spectators awestruck as the four finalists zigzagged their way through...

Luke Bateman was set to make his long-awaited return to rugby league after a year out and appear in the New South Wales Cup this season for the Mount Pritchard Mounties, a Canberra Raiders feeder club. However, as is common for almost everyone in 2020, he's had an abrupt change of plan. The NSW Cup season was cancelled entirely due...

Like most sports, the NRL has been doing everything possible to get back on the field, but the league is the first to actually telegraph a proposed date of return. As such, the NRL has generated significant debate and publicity during this interrupted season. Many objectors to the NRL's proposed resumption have questioned the motives of the league. Questioned is...

One of the region's biggest junior sporting tournaments, the Kanga Cup, has had to postpone what would have been its 30th birthday because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. Organised by Capital Football, the junior soccer tournament is held in Canberra in July each year. It's the biggest youth football event in the southern hemisphere and attracts thousands of aspiring players, along...

In the early days of the Raiders you could count staff members on two hands and the club was operating out of the Queanbeyan Leagues Club. The gym was located in the squash courts and the coaches were positioned in offices through the club. The players had jobs and trained at night at Seiffert Oval. As a journalist, if you...