The bloody moment that still haunts Joey Johns

Jamie Goddard, left, and Andrew Johns get into a brawl during game three of the 1997 State of Origin series in Sydney

It’s the one incident NSW State of Origin great Andrew Johns never wanted to see again.

Ever since his former NSW coach Tommy Raudonikis died last week, however, his infamous brawl with Queensland rival Jamie Goddard has been on constant replay.

Why? Because it was sparked by Tommy’s infamous “cattledog” cry, the call to start a fight during game three of the 1997 Origin game.

Johns ended up on the wrong side of the fight, flat on his back with his mouth a bloody mess. He’s never been able to live it down and said as much on Friday.

“In those days there weren’t as many camera angles but I’m pretty sure I won the first round on a split decision,” John said on his brother Matty’s Morning Glory radio show on SEN.

“The next round he got a couple on me but when they pulled us apart he started sledging me so that’s when I walked around the referee and that’s when he landed one flush on me — it knocked me out cold.

“My lip was split from my mouth to my nose so I go into the sheds and I’m getting stitched up by Dr Nathan Gibbs. I said, ‘what happened?’ He said, ‘You’ve been sin-binned’.”

“He puts 22 stitches in and then seven on the inside. Then I ring bugalugs over here (Matty) and ask if he’s watching the game and he’s hysterically laughing and says ‘nah, I was watching a movie’. But then says, ‘you’ll never live this down’.”

“I pass out and I’m out cold! This is before concussion protocols. I’m laying on the bench and I fall asleep. The next thing I know I had this smell of garlic, stale beer, Reschs, and Winnie Reds and I wake up and Tommy is that far from my face and goes, ‘You let me down you weak so and so. Get back out there!’

“I ran out on the field and I couldn’t put my mouthguard in because my lip was that swollen.

“Now I’m at home with the kids these days and I watch that cartoon dog Bluey and it still sends a shiver down my spine.”

Matty Johns revealed his son Cooper — who plays for the Melbourne Storm — was on a night out and a young girl approached him saying, “you’re going to hate me for saying this but I’m Jamie Goddard’s daughter”. He goes, “no just the opposite, you’re our hero!”

Crawf helps Bush Cats

Shane Crawford won a Brownlow Medal in 1999 and an AFL premiership in 2008 but his greatest football victory may just have come last weekend in his coaching debut for country Victorian football battlers the Ardmona Bush Cats.

Ardmona was on the verge of extinction in 2019 after a winless streak extending back to 2015 — the lowlight being a 401-point flogging. The other clubs in the Kyabram District Football League had voted to boot them and it was looking grim for the 100-year-old club which was broke and struggling to get players on the field.

Crawford discovered their plight and decided to turn things around, with fundraisers and player drives and finally, last weekend, his first game as coach.

Neighbouring club Violet Town won by triple figures but, just by being on the field, the Bush Cats were the real winners.

Crawford has enticed one of his former AFL adversaries, ex-Carlton tagger Anthony Franchina, to play and a bloke whose name you know but not as a football player. Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hooker once harboured a dream to play AFL but shelved it for loftier goals in athletics and plans to also play in coming weeks.

“The vibe at the club is so good,” Hooker told the Herald Sun. “There is such a positive bunch of people involved in the club that it would be a pleasure to help out, even in a small way.”

Crawford, who will turn 47 this year, may even play a game or two. That’s what I’m talkin’ about …

AFL legend Shane Crawford has taken on struggling country football team the Ardmona Cats. Picture: David Caird

Hot hand v cool head

Do you play better golf with a hot hand or a cool head?

In the same week the eternally unflappable Hideki Matsuyama won the Masters, researchers from Macquarie University reveal that keeping a cool head is key to victory.

Paul Crosby and Andrew Evans, lecturers in economics at Macquarie Business School, used data from 120 men’s and women’s professional golf tournaments over two seasons from the top US tours to study the impact of good and bad play on pro golfers’ performances.

The researchers tested for the existence of the so-called “hot-hand” effect — whether a good score on a previous hole had a positive effect on the score on the next hole and the “cold-hand” effect — whether a bad hole increased the chance of another bad one immediately afterwards.

“While we didn’t find evidence of a hot-hand effect, there is a statistically significant cold-hand effect, especially on a hole following a double-bogey (two shots over par) or worse,” Crosby said.

“Even the top pros display the lingering effect of recent bad play. The mechanism for this outcome could be a loss of confidence or composure, or other psychological effects.

“We found that our measure of a cool head (low sensitivity to prior performance) was related to better scoring, whilst a tendency towards streaky play (hot and cold hand) was related to worse scoring.”

Evans added: “It’s about not changing your approach to the next task when something goes wrong. Remember what you are good at and don’t let outside thoughts impact what you know you can do. Reset and do exactly what you trained for.”

When Matsuyama smashed an iron into the water on the 15th hole during an increasingly tense final round at Augusta National, he was able to recover and hold on for a one-shot win.

The photo of the week arrived early the next morning when the Japanese star was spotted at Atlanta airport waiting for an early flight to Chicago — his green jacket casually draped over the back of a chair. Masters winners are allowed to keep their green jacket for a year before they return it to Augusta where it is kept at the clubhouse for them.

Hideki Matsuyama at Atlanta airport with his green jacket draped over the chair next to him

Stat of the week

Beleaguered Bulldogs captain Josh Jackson is nothing if not resilient. Jackson’s first grade career started in 2009 and he has never missed a game through injury — until now.

A calf tear that could keep him out for a few weeks has ended his streak at 205 games. NRL stats guru David Middleton reports Jackson still finished well behind the record of Luke Douglas who played 215 consecutive games before he was suspended due to the Sharks peptides scandal but played his entire 263-game NRL career without missing a single game through injury.

BC’s tip of the week

The Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick on Saturday is the richest and most class-laden race in the world today. Brendan Cormick’s value play is to take Verry Elleegant and Sir Dragonet in the quinella.

His tip of the day, however, comes up at Caulfield in Race 7, No 4, Prophet’s Thumb. In a very competitive contest, Prophet’s Thumb is a specialist over 1100m and she has the services of superhoop Jamie Kah.

mcloughlins@
theaustralian.com.au