Who knows the most about northern Tasmanian sports? It's these guys: Josh Partridge, Ryan Bentley, Ben Hann. Welcome to episode 109 of The Examiner's longest running, unmissable sports podcast, The Pressbox. In this episode, we discuss the upcoming Macquarie Point Stadium vote. Video shot and produced by Phillip Biggs and Paul Scambler
00:00Welcome, one and all, to that episode of The Press Box. My name is Ben Hand.
00:11Joining alongside me once again is Josh Partridge and Ryan Bentley here for episode 109.
00:18And we've got my big episode for you guys today, but before we get into any of that,
00:22it's time for everyone's favourite segment, numerology.
00:25So, boys, we've obviously had a lot happening in sport over the past week,
00:32but probably none more so than the Ashes, the first test held in Perth at the Perth Stadium,
00:40I was about to call it the Wacker just then.
00:42And we saw, well, what was probably a performance reminiscent to a performance we may have seen
00:49in years gone past at the Wacker by Adam Gilchrist.
00:52Travis Head obviously scored the second fastest ton in Ashes history to give Australia a pretty remarkable two-day win
00:58when probably earlier in that day it didn't look like they were going to win.
01:02But that got me thinking about Adam Gilchrist's famous fastest ton at the Wacker,
01:08I believe it was 57 balls that he did his in, Paul Monty Panesar.
01:12Adam Gilchrist will be the subject of today's numerology.
01:15So, he played 96 tests and 13 T20 internationals, so that obviously equals 109.
01:23His highest IPL score, also 109.
01:27So, there we go, 109, a massive number in Ashes cricket and, of course, the press box now as well.
01:36We will leave cricket now just for a little bit.
01:39Ryan has some very important news to share with us.
01:42We've got plenty going on with the Tasmanian Devils.
01:45It might be off-season, but this is just about the biggest part of the Tasmanian Devils' existence.
01:50Yes.
01:51Yeah, it's pretty much the defining point of whether it will exist or not.
01:54The Legislative Council is set to start debating the stadium on December 3.
02:00We're not a politics podcast, so we won't be going into the inside-outs of the podcast of the politicians and what they're doing.
02:06But, simply, there needs to be three yes votes from Independents.
02:11If it is the pass, if it passes, Tasmanian Devils, we succeed.
02:15Happy 2028 AFL, we'll be awesome.
02:17If it doesn't go through, then, yeah.
02:20I don't know.
02:24But the going with it's going to all happen at the moment, which is why the Devils announced the new VFLW head coach, Georgia Walker, coming across from GWS's AFLW system.
02:34Pretty cool story about her.
02:35She was a gun player and then suffered a concussion at 19 and that ended her playing career.
02:41So, she put all of her eggs into coaching and management and has worked her way up to the point where now she can coach the Devils VFLW team.
02:48Yeah, exactly right.
02:49Hopefully, a long future at the Devils, I suppose, we'll see in just a week.
02:55In terms of back to cricket again, there was plenty of cricket going on between all levels of cricket, Josh.
03:03But, I think we're probably going to go through the grand final.
03:06Elephant in the room, I was obviously in that game, Josh.
03:09I won't be speaking on it too much, but I'll get you to speak about what happened.
03:14Well, Ben wasn't just in this game.
03:15So, this is the Greater Northern Raiders versus Kingbrook in the CTPL one-day grand final.
03:21Ben wasn't just in it.
03:22Ben was player of the match in the grand final, taking 5 for 15?
03:27I believe that is correct, Josh.
03:28Yes.
03:28To win the game for the Raiders, taking three wickets in the final over.
03:32So, he played okay.
03:34Well done.
03:35But, no.
03:36All jokes aside, it's a massive win for the Raiders, obviously.
03:39They've only claimed the T20 final before in the men's program.
03:44So, a really big win for the program.
03:46And to go through that undefeated as well really sets them up for the two-day season
03:50and to potentially get into the two-day semifinals and finals as well,
03:55which is massive for the program itself.
03:57Absolutely.
03:58And I do think probably needs to be a few other people mentioned as well.
04:02I thought Cooper Anthony's batting performance, scored 67, was immense, held the innings together
04:07in that the late order hitting from the two North West Coast left-handers,
04:11Braden DeVries and Sam O'Mahony, were crucial.
04:13And not to mention Jono Chapman's little cameo there.
04:16He just came out.
04:16Absolutely.
04:17And just gave it all.
04:18He does best in grand finals, doesn't he?
04:20And they got, the Raiders got to 260 and then, yeah, I think, you know,
04:25Zach, led by Zach Kirk and Kingbrook batted really well.
04:27And it was probably that spell between Chapman and Oliver Wood that a classic Westbury
04:32is what sort of came to mind, hit the stumps and be able to find those crucial breakthroughs.
04:37Really, really...
04:38Until someone else did the crucial breakthroughing.
04:41Pointed up.
04:43I did the easy part.
04:45I suppose, yeah, as you say, it's massive for the program.
04:48And hopefully the Raiders can, you know, build from that and find even more success.
04:54But that does lead us on, though, to what is the landmark segment of the show.
04:59And that is, of course, Haney's Hard Hitters.
05:06So I'm going to take us back to the Ashes, back to the numerology.
05:09It's a bit of a...
05:09The segment's going to follow a bit of a theme today.
05:11And we've seen that first test.
05:14It's probably a little bit late for this segment.
05:16But it's always better to be, you know, a profit in hindsight.
05:21Ryan, what's going to be your Ashes prediction,
05:24plus leading run scorer and leading wicket taker?
05:27I'm going to say 4-1 Australia.
05:29I think it's going to come off one game for England,
05:31where it's just going to go off and they'll score 600 runs.
05:33Adelaide Oval would be my bet for that.
05:36Leading run scorer.
05:38I'm going to go Steve Smith.
05:39He's good for it.
05:39He's always good for it.
05:40Up for an Ashes.
05:41He might captain another couple of tests.
05:43Seems to like it.
05:44So, he'll go well.
05:46And, well, I'm just going to back the frontrunner at the moment.
05:50Mitch Stark.
05:51He took a bunch of wickets in the first test
05:53and he'll continue to do so, I'm sure.
05:54Brave selection.
05:55John, what's your prediction?
05:57I'm going to follow Ryan on the latter half of that.
05:59I think I said it before the first test,
06:01but I'll just go away.
06:02He went all right in the first test.
06:04So, Mitch Stark will be the leading wicket taker.
06:06Runs, I'm going to go slightly different.
06:07I'm going to go with Manus.
06:08I think, obviously, he played pretty defensively in that first inning.
06:12But in that second inning, obviously, he came on the back
06:15of kind of Travis Head's little momentum
06:16and played with some really aggressive flair
06:19and played a fair bit of good cricket there.
06:20So, I think if he takes a bit more of that into it,
06:23I think he could certainly be one to watch.
06:25That's a brave thing, isn't it?
06:27But Australia, 3-1.
06:29I think it's going to rain somewhere at some point.
06:32Probably Sydney has lead, usually.
06:34But the forecast for Brisbane doesn't look too great either
06:36in the coming days.
06:38So, yeah, we'll go 3-1.
06:40Yeah, I think.
06:41I think you guys have plenty of merit to what you guys said.
06:44I'm going to say for the leading run score,
06:46I think Harry Brook is going to score a lot of runs.
06:48Might not necessarily result in England victories,
06:50but I think he is just an awesome batter.
06:54Wickets, I think, as you say,
06:55there's no way you can go past Mitchell Stark.
06:57He's a pink bowl test enjoyer,
07:00and he already has 10 wickets to his name,
07:02or even more.
07:04So, he's going to do very well for a prediction.
07:07I'm actually going to go 4-0 Australia.
07:08So, I do think England maybe have a little bit
07:12to come back from after that first test.
07:14It will lead us very quickly now
07:16onto the segment that wraps the whole show together,
07:19the one that certainly, it is not the same without,
07:22and that is, of course,
07:23Josh's local hero of the week.
07:25There's been a lot of internal to-ing and fro-ing
07:30as to what I'm doing here.
07:32I'll be completely honest,
07:34but I am going to give the local hero of the week
07:36to the man to my left, Ben Ham.
07:38Oh, wow.
07:39I think if anyone else had done what Ben did
07:41over the weekend, it would be a shoo-in.
07:43So, congratulations, Ben.
07:46This is obviously the most important thing
07:49you've received this week.
07:50Absolutely.
07:50So, well done.
07:50That's exactly right.
07:52No, you shouldn't have done that,
07:53but that's okay.
07:55We'll move right along fast.
07:57And that is all the time we have for this week.
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