Waltzing Matilda

Who said that Australia was struggling in the Asian soccer championships? The pedestrian, unacclimatised performances on the road; the shock losses to minnows at home? Well, yes, but that's the men's team's problem. The Mighty Matildas have no such baggage, and have taken the Asian title in style, beating North Korea on penalties in China. It was a gutsy performance against a North Korean side that plays, in the style of the country's diplomatic and naval activity, how shall we put it - for keeps. The Matildas were missing key players, in particular star striker Sarah Walsh, but overcame their injury list, atrocious conditions and the nerve-freezing memory of botching a penalty shoot-out in the final four years ago to prevail. It must be mentioned that the Matildas were extremely fortunate that the linesman's flag stayed unelevated when 16-year-old Samantha Kerr (sister of West Coast star Daniel) slotted home Australia's opening goal, upon which it is easy to imagine a certain white cat being thrown in disgust from a certain Supreme Leader's lap. (If he can control the weather with his moods, it would have been a filthy night in Pyongyang.) But having subsequently conceded an equaliser, the Matildas were razor-sharp in the penalty shootout, and Tom Sermanni's team deserves bountiful congratulations. Now over to you, Pim.

The importance of culture

All sporting organisations aspire to create an ethos: a way of doing things in which communal expertise and knowledge become habitual to all individuals. "Our culture" has become a sporting cliché, but when you see something like the way in which Melbourne Storm goes about its business (aside from the obvious), you can't help but admire it. They don't have Bellamy, Slater, White, Smith or Inglis: no problem, the back-ups slide smoothly into place and take over, because they have prepared as if they are the first-stringers. Football-wise, the club appears to have internalised the principles of kaizen (Japanese for ‘improvement' or ‘change for the better'), a philosophy or set of practices that focus on continuous improvement of processes in any organisation, based around all members buying into a philosophy of constant effort to improve all the functions of the organisation, incrementally. Maybe the Harvard Business School should drop Boeing and Toyota as its kaizen case studies and look at Melbourne Storm.

Great Weekend for the Tigers

I was watching Springbank playing Learmonth on Saturday in the Central Highlands League - a trip that is an annual tradition - and the former lit up a gloomy Western Victorian day with some champagne football. When we left the locals were gearing up to sing "Oh, We're From Tigerland" with some gusto, but it would have been positively insipid compared to the version belted out in the visitors' rooms at AAMI Stadium in Adelaide a few minutes later. Richmond used inclement conditions that nullified any skill discrepancy and a fanatical level of commitment against a team not prepared to match that to record Damian Hardwick's (and seemingly half his team's) first win, in front of a deeply unimpressed Port Adelaide crowd (and coaching staff). It is good to have it confirmed that an AFL team cannot go through a season without at least one win: and of course, Hardwick and his Tigers won't want to settle for just the one win. To stretch the Tiger analogy, special mention to the Bangladesh Tigers, whose effort at Lord's to push the Test against England into a fifth day - with a statistical chance of an unlikely win - has been appropriately sterling, after being on the end of 505 from the English to open proceedings, powered by a double-century from that classic English flat-track bully, Jonathan Trott.

Thanks for nothing, New Zealand

So you were peed off at giving up a last-gasp winner to Australia at the MCG, loudly resentful at a couple of shocking tackles more in line with the nether regions of the English Championship than an international, and still suffering national psychosis over the fact that an Australian cricket team decided to throw all decency and self-respect out of the window three decades ago. But your idea of getting us back, by beating Serbia - soon to be Australia's opponent in the real stuff in South Africa - is too fiendishly Machiavellian for what are supposed to be friends and neighbours. With the Serbian crowd, government, nation and diaspora pretty unambiguous about how it expects better efforts than that from the national team, the 15th-ranked Serbs have been left in no doubt about their need to get their act together. Damn! We needed them to save that sort of abject, internal-strife-riven, half-interested performance for Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit on June 23.

What is the correct etiquette for commiserating with opponents' injuries?

Apparently the German press has been more than slightly peeved at the unsporting way that some Australians have expressed the perfectly understandable sentiment that playing Germany without captain Michael Ballack is a different proposition to playing Germany with its talismanic leader in the full bloom of his undeniable puissance. Not to mention the fact that first-choice goalie Rene Adler and midfielder Christian Traesch are also out of the side through injury. Of course Australians would like to play Germany's best side, to make a win more meritorious. But it is what it is, and a weakened Germany means that the gap between the teams has narrowed. (While I'm on the subject, Ghana has injury problems too: superstar Michael Essien - Ballack's Chelsea teammate - is already out of the tournament, while goalie Richard Kingson and defender John Mensah injured, and of course the Serbians are all undergoing intensive treatment for badly wounded pride.) Objectively, while we naturally wish all these injured players the best, their absence is good for Australia. Besides, we didn't injure them: although had we played them in a friendly at the MCG, we'd have done our best.