🏉 Essendon Enter Clarkson Campaign

Oh hello, it's Tuesday, 16 August. In today's newsletter, we cover human behaviour, the laws of physics, linguistics, natural science and some sports news. It's like if David Attenborough was really good at Ninja Warrior. Now that's a good TV show idea... but he is 96. Hmmm. We'll revisit that at a later time. For now, enjoy the stuff below.

⏱ 1,192 words = 5 minutes

👀 Golf is a funny game.

THE MAIN GAME

🏉 Clarkson reportedly on the Bombers' radar

If you thought this week in AFL land was gonna be all about the last round of the regular season and the juicy finals match-ups, well, Essendon has entered the chat:

Golden points: Following the Bombers' 84-point loss to Port Adelaide on Sunday, the Essendon Board met yesterday and some serious stuff went down.

• President Paul Brasher resigned, effective immediately. Replacing him is former Channel 10 sports boss Dave Barham.

• One of Barham's first acts as prez was to launch an external review into the club to complement the internal review that was ordered by Brasher earlier this year.

• The reason for the reviews is because of the poor results this season. The Bombers played finals last year but have won just the 7 games this season and sit in 15th place.

• Head coach Ben Rutten has kept his job (as per the internal review recommendations), but it's now being reported that the Bombers are going after 4-time premiership winner Alastair Clarkson for the top job.

• Clarkson has interviewed for the vacant coaching roles at North Melbourne and GWS Giants, but only North has offered him a job, which is reportedly a contract of at least 5 seasons.

• But Clarkson said last year he'd like to coach a big Melbourne club and Essendon is one of those.

They said it: "...over the past two decades, on-field success has eluded us. We need to change this. We need to place a laser-like focus on our football performance above everything else. We need to build a platform, that will bring us sustainable success," new Essendon president Dave Barham.

What's next: Well, anything could happen today. Reports say the Roos want an answer from Clarkson by Wednesday/Thursday. Other reports say if Clarkson says he's in at the Bombers then Rutten could be gone today. Tell you what, if that happens we'll report it in Wednesday's newsletter.

QUICK SINGLES

🏉 NRL: 2 Newcastle players have got some explaining to do after a Knight out. Star player and captain Kalyn Ponga and teammate Kurt Mann were filmed leaving a toilet cubicle together at a Newy pub on Saturday night. Ponga's dad says his son was just crook and Mann was in there looking after him, but just in case there's more to it, the Knights and NRL are investigating. This calls for Gareth Keenan!

⛳️ Golf: Cameron Smith has withdrawn from this week's BMW Championship. Smith has been battling a hip injury so he's decided to rest up for the season-ending Tour Championship later this month. Only the season's top 30 golfers qualify but Smith has done more than enough to make it and compete for the $26 million major prize.

🏄‍♀️ Surfing: Surfing returns to a location that loosely means "place of skulls". Sounds fun! The Tahiti Pro in Teahupo'o (pronounced tear-hoo-poh-oh or sometimes cho-poo) is known for its massive waves and razor-sharp coral, so it's high-risk, high-reward. So dangerous are the conditions, the women's event was cancelled for 16 years but it's back in 2022 and there are plenty of Aussies in the mix.

🏏 Cricket: Not satisfied with ruling the Commonwealth, Cricket Australia now wants global domination. What we mean by "global domination" is CA would like cricket to be in the Olympic Games. That's part of the new 5-year plan CA released yesterday. It figures if cricket can be part of the biggest global sporting event there's a good chance it'll help the game grow which benefits everyone. Brisbane 2032 is the goal but cricket could be in earlier at LA.

LEFT OF FIELD

🏉 NRL: If you were outraged, upset and gobsmacked about NZ Warriors super fan Calley Gibbons aka Roger Shoey Vasa-Scheck being banned for doing a harmless shoey on Friday night, we have an important update for you! The Warriors confirmed yesterday that Gibbons has in fact not been banned and will be in his usual spot with his shoe at the ready for the Round 25 games against the Titans next month. More than 10,000 people signed an online petition to unban Gibbons after a security guard booted him out and told him he'd been banned for life. But that is not the case, so raise a glass - or a shoe - to celebrate this wonderful news.

📽 Highlight reel: Physics be damned! This tee shot from Will Zalatoris, on the 3rd playoff hole no less, somehow danced on the top of a stone wall and didn't go in the water. His playing partner and playoff rival Sepp Straka wasn't as lucky. It didn't really matter as both players had to take a drop but Zalatoris held his nerve to win his 1st PGA Tour title.

📸 Photo finish: When life imitates (electronic) art. Matildas captain Sam Kerr shared this pic of her with France's Kylian Mbappe with the caption "2v2, who's taking us?". These 2 are on the global cover of the insanely popular video game FIFA 23 this year.

THE POLLING BOOTH

Monday's result: 63.86% say drinking a beer out a shoe is literally the worst way to enjoy a cold one.

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING (THAT'S NOT THE COMM GAMES)

• ⚾️ 10:00am - MLB - White Sox v Astros - Guaranteed Rate Field, Chicago - Foxtel, Kayo

• 🏏 11:30pm - The Hundred Women - Originals v Fire - Old Trafford, Manchester - Foxtel, Kayo

THE MANAGER'S OFFICE

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