Welcome.

If you are a sports nut like I am then the world never ever gets really boring. Tour de France, test cricket, British Open golf, TriNations, Formula One, you name it, flick the switch and there it is. Having recently moved to Ettalong on the Central Coast, a little over an hour from Sydney (provided the F3 is accident free or the roads minister is concentrating solely on his job) I was delighted to be asked to be the patron of Woy Woy Rugby Club. Grass roots rugby at its best. Passionate people playing the game they love for the thrill of doing so. Woy Woy's major sponsor is the recently refurbished Patonga Hotel, reason enough to take the job.

Our mid-season sportsmen's dinner, held at this wonderful venue last Saturday evening, was a very successful affair, well attended despite the cold. A large number of our successful second grade side of 2000 were among those who were entertained by Tatafu Polota-Nau, current Waratah and Wallaby hooker, who is due for an operation on his ankle which has kept him out of the TriNations tests. He proved a humble though imposing young man who approaches grass roots and international rugby with the same enthusiasm. His refusal to take even travelling expenses for his first trip to Patonga is typical of his nature.

Mine host Robert Osborne was there as were two of the all-conquering Woy Woy Under 11s, Daniel Maclean and Daniel King, thrilled to meet Tatafu while attending their first senior's dinner. It's most exciting that Woy Woy Junior club has almost 200 players and great to see kids being taught not just how to play this wonderful game but how to enjoy the comradeship of boys their own age in a disciplined and respectful society. They will be Polota-Nau fans forever.

Tatau was most upbeat about the Wallabies' future, through to the World Cup. Though they were a bit hot and cold against the Northern hemisphere nations, who invariably struggle at the end of a long season, their real worth will be shown in the TriNations beginning this Saturday evening in Brisbane. New Zealand looked very ominous in their two demolition jobs on the Springboks but the Boks are tough nuts and will be desperate to leave for home with some points. The Wallabies are firm favourites with sports' bookmakers, no doubt influenced by the Boks' ordinary form in New Zealand and their poor record in Brisbane.

Though the northern hemisphere teams had limited success against the big three earlier this year, don't for a moment believe all the exciting rugby has been played " Down Under."  Many Heineken Cup and Magners League matches were excellent. Strangely the most negative tactics I saw came from some of the French teams, including Stade Francais and Toulon. the sides for which Mark Gasnier, Sonny Bill Williams and Luke Rooney were playing. Sonny Bill showed tremendous skill for Toulon despite often having to wait for a chance to show his wares. He is certainly ready for international Rugby. How he fares getting into the All Blacks will be interesting. Australian coaches Scott johnson and Michael Cheika led their sides, the Ospreys and Leinster, into the Magners League final on May 29. The match was a  beauty with the Opreys deserved winners.

Next year's Rugby World Cup will provide a magnificent series make no mistake. The poor old New Zealanders have already been installed favourites to win at almost " Phar Lap" odds. The pressure on them to deliver remains endless. Australia will have a very good side, infinitely stronger than the one which dipped out in the quarters in 2007. Will Genia is a magnificent find, already the equal to any halfback in the game. Berrick Barnes, a rookie in Marseilles, is now a seasoned international player. Adam Ashley Cooper, also a rookie then, is now among the world's best. Quade Cooper's progress has been a revelation. The tight five, struggling throughout the 2007 Cup, look much more robust and talented. Two world class hookers in Tatafu Polota-Nau and Stephen Moore have two wonderful young props in Ben Robinson and Ben Alexander and we find David Pocock, potentially George Smith's equal, replacing this very great payer. Don't despair too early.

While we are talking Rugby, it is rather amusing to hear the bleating of the league players who are losing some mates to the Rugby code and even to AFL. They should be made aware of the legion of Rugby players plucked from the Wallaby test teams since the very first Wallaby tourists after the second world war. Outstanding men like Trevor Allan, Ken Kearney, Arthur Summons, Kevin Ryan, Dick Thornett, Michael Cleary, Phil Hawthorn, Ray Price and Mick O'connor took the option to secure their futures, along with fifty, yes fifty, others. Australia still went on to win the Bledisloe Cup, Tri Nations and two World Cups, a little bit more difficult to win than the league's equivalents. The reality is that some players will be attracted to other codes and other countries but life goes on and new champions always emerge. I will stay out of the Storm fiasco, except to say the AFL must be laughing.

Those of you who like a punt will have noted young Blake Spriggs, son of the very successful country jockey Dale Spriggs and nephew of a great mate of mine, the wonderful bush poet Murray Hartin, rode five winners on an eight race card in Sydney last week. This is only the third time it has been achieved on a metropolitan track in Australia. Jay Ford, who rode winners at Gosford during the week, did so a few a seasons back. Wayne Harris was first to achieve this feat, at Randwick, in December 1979, the same year he became the first of apprentice to win the Golden Slipper. While three apprentices have now won five in a day on city tracks only Darren Beadman has joined Wayne as an apprentice Slipper winner. Until Wayne on for Bart Cummings few even got a ride. Sadly Wayne Harris, who has been looking after Blake's riding engagements and advising him on his rides, was is very ill and saw young Blake him perform his magic on TV from St. Vincents Private Hospital where he is laid up with severe back problems. His biography, Riding On Courage, which I wrote ten years ago, is as relevant now is was then.

I am still looking for a publisher willing to trust my latest book which tells the story of two of Sydney's greatest wartime sports champions. With international and national sport abandoned during the war, boxing and horse racing experienced halcyon times. The darling of the race crowds was Flight, a little filly, sold for a song at the 1941 yearling sales, who went on to become the greatest stake winning mare in the history of Australian racing. Eighty thousand fans came to see her attempt to win the 1943 Doncaster Handicap with nine pounds (four kilograms) over Weight For Age, an impost no filly was asked to carry before nor since. Her battle with the mighty Queenslander Bernborough in the WFA Chipping Norton Stakes in 1946 remains one of the greatest races ever seen at Randwick. The boxing sensation was Vic Patrick who thrilled crowds for almost a decade as he won a reputation as the finest fighter we had seen since Les Darcy, twenty five years earlier. They shared the most essential qualities of all champions, talent and boundless courage. You deserve to read about them. We will keep on trying. there must be a God, even in publishing.

The aim of this site is to flog a few of my books as well as a couple of classic DVDs which put you on tour with the Wallabies in an era which will sadly never come again, as well as to promote my guest speaking appearances. You can also buy a CD of my sporting verse.

While I am probably best known as a rugby man (happy with that) I have a genuine love of most sports, the result of being indoctrinated by trips with my late father to see the great sporting champions of my childhood, Don Bradman, Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller, Clive Churchill, Frankie Stanmore, John Bromwich, John Treloar, Vic Patrick, Ray Revell, Aub Lawson et al. My poems will testify to this.

I’ve been described as a punter, poet, coach and raconteur and that about sums me up. I also enjoyed a wonderful career in the Australian film industry which you will see if you care to read the About Fab page. The industry continues to struggle but dedicated and talented people always manage to keep it going. The film game, like sport, lives on passion.

Now that you've found me - stop by occasionally and see what I'm up to and please - tell your friends about this site. I look forward to getting to know you.