The Matildas’ agonisingly tense penalty shootout victory over France on Saturday night provided a moment of national sporting euphoria not seen since Cathy Freeman at the 2000 Olympics.
The exhilarating, white-knuckle three-hour epic in Brisbane was among Australia’s most-watched sporting events since Freeman’s run more than two decades ago.
Pollies get on board with the Matildas after their win over France.Credit: Jozef Benke
Sports Minister Anika Wells summed up the mood best, captured bawling her eyes out as she joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on the Lang Park turf to greet Australia’s new defence minister Mackenzie Arnold.
French President Emmanuel Macron, whose relationship with Australia has been sub-par in recent times, was magnanimous enough to make good on his bet with Albanese and back the Matildas in their semi-final against England.
Who knew all it took was beating the French at football to repair that sunken relationship?
Even the AFL, typically hostile to any other football code encroaching on its turf, was swept up in Matilda Mania, with punters at the MCG ignoring a trivial clash between Carlton and Melbourne to watch the shootout.
“My god, that was the closest I’ve ever been to standing up,” former Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott joked from the G.
If only the league had put aside its provincial mentality sooner, Saturday’s match could’ve been played in front of 90,000 fans at the nation’s largest sporting cathedral.
On Sunday morning, as blood pressures simmered down, and Australia woke up to the best kind of hangover, the banalities of politics made their slow, tedious return. On ABC’s Insiders, Nationals Leader David Littleproud decided to play “Captain Killjoy”, standing with the miserable scolds in the small business sector who are valiantly fighting against a public holiday should the Tillies win it all.
Who cares?
STARTING GUN
CBD was too overwhelmed with its own World Cup hangover to fathom hitting the pavement on Sunday morning. So hearty congratulations to all who made it out for the City2Surf, in particular former Wentworth MP Dave Sharma, who blitzed the 14-kilometre run in just 59 minutes and six seconds to top this column’s leaderboard.
He bested Liberal moderate colleagues Chris Rath, who sped through in an hour and four minutes, Senator Andrew Bragg, who finished in an hour and 11 minutes, Manly MP James Griffin, in a respectable 1 hour and 13. Kudos to Griffin adding “MP” to his name so we could distinguish him from another, slightly faster James Griffin.
It was slim pickings on the Labor front: Chris Minns might have fired the starters’ gun but he wasn’t game to take to the asphalt himself. His predecessor Kristina Keneally posted a time of one hour and 44 minutes, and while Industrial Relations Minister Sophie Cotsis apparently competed, we couldn’t find her time online.
Voice Yes campaign media manager and former Liberal staffer Benn Ayre was not too far behind in an hour and 22 minutes – but with ground to make up, clearly. And he bested Kevin Rudd’s former comms director Lachlan Harris by three minutes. Mazel tov.
And a big shout out to our boss, Nine publishing managing director James Chessell, who ran in a blistering 1:00:33. That’s leadership.
PLIMER’S PRIMER
Between maintaining the rage as a prominent climate change denier, regular conservative talking head and business associate of Gina Rinehart, rogue geologist Ian Plimer has found time to write a trilogy of children’s books.
The Little Green Book focuses on some of Plimer’s favourite topics, including why net zero is a lie, attempting to answer a question posed to the geologist by the late Prince Philip in a 2018 letter complaining about wind turbines.
Released next week, with volumes for primary schoolers, teenagers and “twenties and wrinklies”, the books are described by publisher Connor Court as “the perfect gift for all the grandchildren”.
Plimer sits on the board of Rinehart’s Roy Hill mine, and was appointed by the billionaire to chair Warrego energy after her Hancock Prospecting acquired a controlling stake in the gas exploration company.
Plimer isn’t the only goofy Sky News guy with a book in the works. Rowan Dean, one of the network’s regular provocateurs has a new tome in the works on Australia’s favourite recently deceased comedian – The Many Lives of Barry Humphries.
Described as “an affectionate tribute” written by “one of the last people to spend time alone with his friend Barry”, it sounds like a stark tonal shift from Dean’s screeds about the dangers of wokeness and the demise of western civilisation.
The book, published by Connor Court’s rival in the conservative book scene, Wilkinson Publishing, is set to hit shelves in November. Just in time for Christmas!
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correction
An earlier version of this story said the Matildas’ win was the most-watched sporting event since Cathy Freeman’s win at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. In fact, Lleyton Hewitt’s 2005 Australian Open final loss had higher viewership than the Matildas game.