Latest news with #Queensland
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Dolphins player makes immediate switch to Roosters to make room for Cobbo
The Sydney Roosters have signed Dolphins winger Junior Tupou with immediate effect, paving the way for the Dolphins to potentially land Selwyn Cobbo before June 30. Tupou was initially named on the wing for the Dolphins' clash with South Sydney on Saturday night, but he was replaced by Max Feagai in the 24-hour update on Friday. The reason for Tupou's withdrawal has since been revealed, with the winger making an immediate transfer to the Roosters. The Dolphins' decision to part ways with Tupou is believed to be a move designed around freeing up salary cap space in case the Broncos decide to release Cobbo early. The Dolphins announced on Thursday they'd signed Cobbo for 2026, but the Queensland club remain hopeful of bringing him on board this season. Under NRL rules, player transfers are only allowed before June 30, meaning the Dolphins are cutting it fine. The Broncos are playing hard ball with Cobbo and refusing to let him leave early, with coach Michael Maguire believing he still has a key role to play in 2025 despite dumping him to reserve grade. Speaking on SEN radio on Thursday, former Broncos player Denan Kemp revealed he'd been informed there's only one club Brisbane wouldn't allow Cobbo to join this season - and it's the Dolphins. The Broncos and Dolphins are arch-rivals and both based in Brisbane, making it unlikely Maguire's side would be willing to help out their cross-town counterparts. "I got it on good authority that there was only one club the Broncos said 'you're not allowed to go to early'. And it was the Dolphins," Kemp reported. "They literally said there was only one club." RELATED: Reece Walsh in State of Origin twist after Kalyn Ponga blow Ricky Stuart reveals stunning news about NRL star and wife Matty Johns said he wouldn't be letting Cobbo walk early either. "It's good to see that rivalry," Johns said. "If I'm Madge (Michael Maguire), I wouldn't let Selwyn go early either. At the end of the day, they've got Reece (Walsh) on one need to have depth in your squad. You can't just let quality players walk out the door." Tupou's move to the Roosters is a curious one considering a wing spot just opened up at the Dolphins with Jack Bostock suffering a season-ending ACL injury. Tupou has played 37 NRL games across stints with the Wests Tigers and Dolphins, and will take the roster spot vacated by Dom Young's move from the Roosters to Newcastle. But even with Young's departure, Tupou will still struggle to crack the Roosters' first-grade team. Mark Nawaqanitawase and Daniel Tupou have cemented themselves as the wingers, with Billy Smith and Robert Toia in the centres. Tupou might be used in Round 18 when the Roosters take on the Tigers, with Toia set to be in State of Origin camp with Queensland.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Cowboys told to worry about fixing errors, not Titans
Todd Payten has gone back to basics and told North Queensland players they must fix up their errors if they are to arrest their mid-season form slump. Sunday's clash with the last-placed Gold Coast looms as crucial in North Queensland's year, with the Cowboys in a freefall after entering the round in 12th. Payten's men have won just one of their last seven matches, letting in an average of 36 points per game and inviting pressure on themselves with errors in yardage. North Queensland have completed at above 75 per cent just twice in those seven games, while letting in 100 points alone in the past fortnight. Payten said he had made a point to not focus much on the Titans this week, instead putting it on his players to get their own house in order. "It seems like the more we talk about it the more it keeps happening," Payten said. "We burrow down on fundamentals, do some extra work at the start of training and individual stuff at the end of training. "It's about the individual, it's their responsibility when they have the ball and concentration. "This week it's been less information, just more around effort areas. And not a lot of vision. It's narrowing down on us rather than the opposition." Payten has recalled Jake Clifford to partner Tom Dearden in the halves for Sunday, moving Jaxon Purdue back to right centre. The Cowboys won only one of five since Purdue's move to the halves last month, but Payten suggested the switch back to centre was to fix issues out wide. Clifford is off contact at the end of this year, but won four of seven games and had one draw when partnered with Dearden in the halves earlier this year. "I want him to kick well and defend well," Payten said of Clifford. "It's a very similar message week to week with our halves and we know he can do both of those well."
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
From all-out brawls to eye-gouging and worse: a brief history of Lions Tour violence
Expect some conflict. Sit back and watch the claret flow. Take in some dust-ups and assaults, and hope the Lions get their retaliation in first. Bin the political correctness. The game against Argentina last Saturday at the Aviva Stadium was not like what may be coming down the line at the Lions, with a reasonable chance of some traditional brutality on the field. Why? Because that's the way Lions' tours always have been, a journey of character tests, challenges and physical melees, this first tranche of five episodes beginning on Saturday against Western Force in Perth before Queensland Reds, Waratahs, ACT Brumbies and an Australian and New Zealand invitational mix. The run-in games are, as history has shown, a softening-up process, a mincing machine where club players on the fringes of the national side, as well as those in Joe Schmidt's Wallabies squad, are playing to hold their place or earn their place. READ MORE The reputations of the touring players are there to be shredded, with folklore telling us nefarious methods come with the playbook. It has always been that way, and not just in the last century. From Duncan McRae raining down punches on Ronan O'Gara in 2001, to the tour-ending spear tackle on Brian O'Driscoll by New Zealand's Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu in 2005 and the gouging of Luke Fitzgerald at Loftus Versfeld in 2009, foul play has featured prominently on Lions tours. 'This is your f**king Everest, boys,' Jim Telfer told a room of bowed heads in the 1997 Living with the Lions documentary. [ Lions v Western Force: Kick-off time, team news, where to watch and more ] That's the way they have always set up, primed to play on the edge and it's the way the opposition have also been hardwired over the last 50 years or more. The most famous bout of thuggery was in South Africa 1974, although the plan for Lions players to punch their nearest rival had a gestation period of six years following the 1968 tour and a match against Eastern Transvaal. Derek Quinnell of the Lions is tackled during the brutal 1974 tour match against South Africa. Photograph: Allsport There Wales prop John O'Shea was the first Lion ever to be sent off for foul play. Pelted with oranges on his way to the locker room, he was blamed for the punch-up. His defence was that he had retaliated after an opponent attacked scrumhalf Roger Young. Leaving the pitch O'Shea was then hit by a spectator, triggering a tunnel brawl that involved reserves, officials and police as play continued. Then 1968 tumbled forwards to 1971 when the New Zealand touring squad travelled to Canterbury. The Lions won the match, but maybe lost in the battle when Irish prop Ray McLoughlin chipped a bone at the base of his left thumb and Sandy Carmichael was hospitalised with multiple fractures of his cheekbone. Carmichael, the first player to win 50 caps for Scotland, was doing what props do and bored into the opposition at scrums. For that, Alister Hopkinson, the opposing prop, landed a few punches on the Scot with the damaging shot that fractured his cheek bone in five places coming later via a backhanded fist that caught him in a lineout. McLoughlin's thumb injury occurred when a fight erupted with players from both sides pummelling each other near the touchline. Not the most accurate of blows, McLoughlin landed his shot on the head of Grizz Wyllie, breaking his left thumb. Grizz also punched Fergus Slattery as the Blackrock player unwisely held on to his jersey. The 1974 tour to South Africa was broiling before it even took off and its essence was the personality of captain Willie John McBride and his '99 one-in, all-in' spirit. Speaking to The Telegraph four years ago, former England forward Roger Uttley recalled the mood set by McBride when the squad had gathered in London. 'Before we had even left the country, we were gathered in the Churchill Hotel just near Marble Arch and outside we could hear the anti-apartheid demonstrations in full flow,' Uttley said. 'Willie spoke and you could hear a pin drop. 'Gentlemen. If you have any doubts about going on this tour, I want you to be big enough to stand up now and leave the room. I have been to South Africa before and there is going to be a lot of intimidation, a lot of cheating. So if you're not up for a fight, there's the door'. 'No one moved. I can still remember the silence and the hairs on the back of the neck rising.' The third Test in Port Elizabeth was the defining match of the series for its choreographed violence. Known as the Battle of the Boet Erasmus Stadium, Scotland's Gordon Brown punched his opposite number, Johan de Bruyn, so hard the Orange Free State man's glass eye flew out and landed in the mud. 'So, there we are, 30 players, plus the ref, on our hands and knees scrabbling about in the mire looking for this glass eye,' recalled Brown, who died from cancer in 2001. 'Eventually, someone yells 'Eureka!' whereupon De Bruyn grabs it and plonks it straight back in the gaping hole in his face.' After Brown's death, De Bruyn presented his widow with the glass eye in a specially made trophy. When another fight broke out, the Wales full-back JPR Williams sprinted over half the length of the pitch to deliver a right hook to second row 'Moaner' van Heerden. 'That's not something I'm proud of,' orthopaedic surgeon Williams said later. It wasn't always South Africa who transgressed, although the Springboks, of all the nations toured by the Lions, prided themselves on physicality. In 1989 the second Test against the Wallabies became the Battle of Ballymore when the Lions scrumhalf Rob Jones kicked off with Nick Farr-Jones at a scrum put-in. From there it was bedlam, with the commentary left to call it as it happened. 'They are all joining in now. There're punches galore. It's an all-in brawl,' the exasperated commentator said. 'It was [initially] between the half backs, but everyone joined in.' The wasn't much French referee Rene Hourquet could do about it, and when Dai Young later aimed a boot at Steve Cutler in a ruck another free-for-all kicked off. With the century turning, three tours in a row in 2001, 2005 and 2009 would see three Irish players targeted in different violent ways. In 2001 Ronan O'Gara's came up against New South Wales Waratahs midway through the second half. The images are of a kneeling McRae raining down the punches. Replays show that between the glancing blows and the fully landed punches as he held O'Gara with his left arm, the Munster outhalf took 11 shots resulting in eight stitches around his left eye. O'Gara's running commentary to the doctor as he was getting stitched in the changing room said it all. Duncan McRae, left, and Ronan O'Gara during that 2001 Lions game in Sydney. Photograph: Adam Pretty/Allsport 'F**king cheap shots,' he said breathing heavily as the doctors carefully pulled his face together. 'Caught me with the first one. Couldn't f**king defend myself. F**king trying to look after the ball.' The spear tackle on O'Driscoll four years later might come across as the most calculated act. It took just over 40 seconds in the 2005 first Test against New Zealand in Christchurch to end his participation in the match and the tour and to sideline him for seven months. Calculated how? Well, the ball was with New Zealand lock Ali Williams 30 feet away when Umaga and Mealamu almost cartoonishly turned the Lions' centre upside down and rammed him into the ground dislocating his shoulder. 'It happened in slow motion and I knew I had to get my head out of the way,' O'Driscoll said on Irish television after the tour. 'My shoulder took the brunt of the fall.' In Umaga's book Up Close, published in 2007, in a classless comment he called O'Driscoll a 'sook' or crybaby. In the 2009 tour to South Africa, the Lions lost their first Test match, making the second vital to save the series. On the day the Loftus Versfeld Stadium bristled with hostility. 'The South African fans appeared to be waving as our bus approached, but as we got closer we realised they were all doing the 'w****r' sign,' Welsh prop Adam Jones write in Bomb, his 2015 autobiography. Again, the match was brutal, physical and unforgiving and as Fitzgerald found out it quickly became insidious. Less than a minute in Springbok flanker Schalk Burger gouged the Irish winger. 'Luke said he had to pull Burger's hand off his eyes. That's not sport, that's not the way we play. It is not the gentlemanly thing to do – it's disgusting,' Wales and Lions' scrumhalf Mike Phillips said afterwards. And Burger's punishment? A slap on the wrist. He sat it out for 10 minutes. With the Lions, that's the way they roll.
News.com.au
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Angela Jones receives praise from Rob Heathcote after bringing up 100 winners for season at Eagle Farm
As star young Queensland jockey Angela Jones cracked her 100th winner for the racing season, trainer Rob Heathcote had the words of another top trainer ringing in his ears. Jones, who hails from country Charters Towers and had her family watching trackside at Eagle Farm, produced a typically cool ride to score the first race on Amuseantes for Heathcote. It didn't take Jones long to raise the bat for her ton of national winners this season, after she started the day on 99.5 winners. After watching Jones produce an ice-cool ride to steer Amuseantes ($14) to victory in the QTIS 3YO Fillies Plate, Heathcote was full of superlatives. 'I heard Tony Gollan interviewed about Angela Jones maybe four or five months ago, when she had just given one of his horses a brilliant steer,' Heathcote said. 'Tony said something about Angela that has always stuck with me. 'He said that not only is she an enormous talent, she is a beautiful person. 'And that just comes through in her riding. 'She never panics, she never gets high anxiety and she is so patient and beautifully balanced. 'I mean look at that ride (on Amuseantes), she won that race for me.' Angela Jones lands an early blow on Tattersall’s Tiara Day, slicing through the field aboard AMUSEANTES for Rob Heathcote. Could this be the start of a massive day for the rising star? ðŸ�† #QLDisRacing — RaceQ (@RaceQLD) June 28, 2025 Jones was thrilled to score her 100th winner, but it was a surprise to her that it came in the first race. 'This filly was one of the few maidens in the race, so I didn't think she could win today,' Jones said. 'But she probably should have got her maiden out of the way by now and she did everything right today.' Meanwhile, James McDonald said he wished the Group 1 JJ Atkins was still to come after the dominant win of Chris Waller 's two-year-old colt Autumn Boy in the Listed Tatt's Stakes (1400m). The JJ Atkins has already been run and won – by Queensland colt Cool Archie – but McDonald is sure Autumn Boy would have been hard to beat if he had contested it. Autumn Boy, a young son of former Group 1 champion The Autumn Sun, started favourite in the Tatt's Stakes and didn't have the easiest run but was still too good. Autumn Boy 'leaves' them chasing in the Listed Tatt’s Stakes for the two-year-olds... and remains unbeaten! ðŸ�‚ @cwallerracing @mcacajamez @BrisRacingClub — SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) June 28, 2025 McDonald is predicting the youngster can go onto big things in the spring after he made it two from two. 'He is a beautiful horse, he is lucky the JJ Atkins is not in another two weeks as he could have been winning that,' McDonald said. 'He is a very promising horse and he is only going to get better and better.'
ABC News
3 hours ago
- Sport
- ABC News
NRL live updates: Broncos vs Warriors, Dragons vs Eels, Dolphins vs Rabbitohs — blog, scores and stats
Brisbane is showing glimpses of its very best following two impressive wins, but faces a stern test against the Warriors, who are hunting redemption following last week's loss. Later, St George Illawarra Dragons will host the Parramatta Eels, then the Dolphins host the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Follow the live blog below, keep up to date with all the latest stats in our ScoreCentre, and tune in to our live radio coverage.
