Who is the highest profile person of Australia’s winter sports season? Is it the next big thing with a bulging highlight reel, the retiring great with a CV as long as a Gary Ablett kick or an international superstar doing us proud on the global stage? None of the above. It’s a grumpy 70-year-old man who hates the media but somehow seems to find himself at the centre of every major story in his sport.
We speak, of course, of South Sydney and Queensland Origin coach Wayne Bennett.
According to data from Streem real-time media monitoring, which looked at the most mentioned figures in leading newspapers and sports websites from March 1 to October 26, Bennett tops the chart — way ahead of anyone from any other football code and just ahead of his bitter rival, former Broncos coach Anthony Seibold — surely the man who rode the biggest rollercoaster of 2020.
Yes, Bennett just keeps getting the wood on poor old “Seibs”.
Storm captain Cameron Smith was by far the highest profile player of the study, with 38 per cent more media mentions than second-placed Latrell Mitchell, who admittedly finished the season injured. Penrith halfback Nathan Cleary finished third.
Streem media analyst Conal Hanna said ongoing speculation about Smith’s playing future would ensure he remained in the headlines in coming months.
“But for the second year in a row, it was Bennett and Seibold who had the NRL’s highest profiles,” Hanna said.
“Seibold tended to be more prominent in stories, appearing in the first 100 words 49 per cent of the time compared to Bennett’s 37 per cent.
“But Bennett was just involved in so many different story threads, having breached the NRL bubble, been linked to yet more Broncos rumours and returning to coach Queensland in State of Origin, not to mention the Rabbitohs’ late season charge.”
Meanwhile, Geelong may have lost the AFL grand final but it did have the most high-profile player of the year — Patrick Dangerfield. Dangerfield edged out Norm Smith medallist Dustin Martin and retiring Cats teammate Ablett to be the highest profile AFL figure of the season.
“Dangerfield’s role as president of the AFL Players Association brought a lot of publicity this year, due to negotiations about how to continue the season,” Hanna said.
Collingwood’s Nathan Buckley was the highest profile coach.
The respective bosses of both codes, St Peter V’landys and Gillon McLachlan, were well ahead of everyone in the pandemic-struck season but we prefer to talk about players and coaches.
Surprisingly, AFL figures are well behind their NRL counterparts on media mentions, which we have previously attributed to parochial coverage. Dangerfield gets plenty of attention in Victoria but not as much elsewhere. Likewise, West Coast and Freo players dominate the WA landscape but barely rate a mention outside “The Big State”.
Showing some ticker
Over on that cesspool of sadness, anger and hate, otherwise known as Twitter, we can reveal there was plenty of sadness, anger and hate.
Did lockdown make Victoria the angriest place in Australia? It’s possible. A study of Twitter use by footy fans of both major codes revealed sadness to be the emotional sentiment of most tweets in the month leading up to the AFL and NRL grand finals (fans tweeting as their team was knocked out of the race, perhaps?) but that AFL fans were more likely to express anger on Twitter than NRL fans.
If only you could put a heart-rate monitor on them all to see how angry they are. Actually, someone in England did just that in an effort to find out who had the most passionate fans.
Two hundred people from each English Premier League team supporter base wore monitors during two of their teams’ games.
Turns out Burnley FC fans are the most passionate, with a 90 per cent increase in heart rate while watching their team play — going from 71 beats per minute to 135 after kickoff.
According to the study, the least passionate supporters are Everton’s, only averaging a 40 per cent increase across both matches — 81 BPM to 113 BPM.
Manchester United fans are the most stressed during their team’s games with their heart rate averaging at 147 throughout play.
The least stressed fans are fans of Southampton, recording the lowest BPM throughout their team’s games at an average heart rate of 111 BPM.
Of course, none of this could be true. Perhaps Burnley fans just eat more bacon sandwiches, while Evertonians stick to water cress and kale.
Giants let punters down
So who were the most reliable footy teams of the season and who let you down most often? With some help from the TAB, AWAAT can reveal the Western Bulldogs and GWS Giants were the AFL teams to let punters down most in 2020 — both clubs losing five games each when they started as favourites.
The AFL’s punting pals were the Brisbane Lions, who won 87.5 per cent of games as favourites (14 from 16), ahead of Geelong and West Coast (both 84.6 per cent).
In the NRL, the least reliable team were the Sydney Roosters who lost a whopping seven games out of 21 they were rated as favourites in their failed premiership defence. Next worst was St George Illawarra which blew its favouritism status five times out of the 10 the bookies had them on top.
The biggest upsets of the year came early in AFL and late in the NRL. In round two, the Suns defeated West Coast at odds of $5.50. Carlton defeated Geelong a week later at $4.50.
In the NRL Canterbury scored the two biggest upsets of the season. In round 19, Canterbury flogged the Rabbitohs for a $7 payout — the biggest upset of any footy code this season. The Bulldogs’ round 11 win over Newcastle was the second biggest at $5.20, tied with the Warriors’ round 12 win over Wests Tigers.
Rare air for new No 10
You don’t need stats to tell you Wallabies debutant Noah Lolesio has a huge task ahead of him at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night but we’ve dug one up anyway.
The 20-year-old is only the third Wallaby this century to make his Test debut wearing the No 10 jumper.
Matt Toomua did so in 2013 when Australia lost the Bledisloe Cup opener 47-29 in Sydney. Sam Norton-Knight’s Test debut was in the No 10 jersey as Australia defeated Wales 29-23, again at the Olympic stadium in 2007.
Otherwise, our Test five-eighths of the past 20 years have started on the bench or in another position — for instance, Bernard Foley started on the bench in 2013, Berrick Barnes did the same in 2007. Matt Giteau also came on as a reserve against England at Twickenham in 2002 in a heartbreaking 32-31 loss.
Lolesio can take some heart from the Wallabies’ greatest five-eighth Mark Ella, who played in the No 10 jumper as a Test debutant in 1980. He, too, took on the All Blacks in his first Test, as the Wallabies scored a famous 13-9 win at the SCG. It is worth Lolesio reading Ella’s column elsewhere in this section for some good advice.
BC’s tip of the week
Brendan Cormick says: “It’s Victoria Derby Day and Hit The Shot (R7, No 6) has a sense of timing about him. The bet of the day, however, looks to be the filly September Run (R6, No 14), even though it’s October.”
mcloughlins@theaustralian.com.au
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