“Then he comes and has a shot at me. I don't think he needs to bait like that.”
Its high…
“The reality is, when Wayne came to town, if he thought with his big head rather than his little head I wouldnt have had to rebuild the joint…”
Its straight between the posts!
(Memo to kids reading this. Brown was referring to the “big head” you have when you think things through, and the “little head,” you have when you dont. No, really!)
Watching at home, Phil Gould – he told us on 100% Footy – bursts out laughing, before turning the TV off, and thinking "that's not gonna do anyone any good".
And he was more or less right, I guess.
For of course Nathan Brown had to apologise, calling Bennett personally and all the rest. But, really, did he have to?
There was zero malice in it. He said it with a smile on his dial, and with all the panache of one who in the face of a big serve from a champion, manages to hit a cross-court winner, that no-one, least of all the champion, had seen coming. For yes, Your Honour, my client really was returning serve to Bennett who had started the whole thing in the first place!
Look, I get that Brown was in dangerous territory, as the comment fringes on family, and your humble correspondent has long been of the view that when family is insulted, all bets are off and the sledger has whats coming.
But, perhaps, Your Worship, I should have added a rider to it. For when there is no malice, and the family member concerned is only tangential to the true target of the sledge – the recipient – and its funny enough, I maintain it passes muster.
In terms of familial sledges, the best of the lot, I have previously noted, goes back well over a decade, and we have it on the authority of none other than Jason Akermanis that it is dinkum. See, when Brett Voss, playing for St Kilda, was lining up for a critical goal, late in game against Akermaniss Brisbane Lions, the man in front of Voss trying to put him off was none other than his older brother Michael Voss.
Just as Brett had composed himself and was about to commence his run, the older Voss piped up: "My Dad's slept with your Mum!”
It was true. It was undeniable. And Brett missed.
And then, of course there is the famous quip made by English fast bowler, Jimmy Ormond, as he made his debut in the Ashes campaign of 2001. On his way to the crease, he was greeted by our own Mark Waugh, who opined: “There's no way you are good enough to play for England.”
"Maybe not," Ormond replies, "but at least I'm the best cricketer in my family…"
Got him, yes! Clean-bowled by a yorking yorker from Yorkshire!
Rather more pointedly, while still with the Waughs, there was the occasion when Dean Waugh – a highly accomplished cricketer in his own right – was having a very bad day with the bat, and was constantly missing delivery after delivery, only for the bowler to finally stop mid-pitch, put his hands on his hips, and ask: "Mate are you sure youre not adopted?"
Boom-boom!
You get the drift. Let Brown go. In an anodyne age, filled with coaches who on a bad day can look, as Paul Keating once said of Malcolm Fraser – "Like an Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades" – Brown is a colourful character, of good heart, and sport needs more of them!
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Peter FitzSimons is an Australian journalist and author, based in Sydney. He is also a former Wallabies player.
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