G'day sports fans,

“I’m sitting there and some guy goes, ‘Aye, Cooper Johns’, and I just look back and there’s this big, old bloke and I go, ‘Hey mate’,”

“He goes, ‘You need to go to the solarium mate, you need to get a tan you were in your dad’s shadow that long’. - Cooper Johns (on a quality sledge).

In today's edition of Sport Journal:

🏉 NRL comeback plan in fresh doubt

🏏 The tale of Clarke's greatest knock

⛳️ Missing the Masters

🏉 NRL

NRL comeback plan in fresh doubt

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has put the NRL’s plans to resume on May 28 in serious doubt, stating that any decision made on the competition resuming will be based on the support of doctors.

Palaszczuk said she has not spoken to the NRL about rebooting the competition. She said she would wait for advice from healthcare professionals.

She also said she would not give NRL sides from Queensland exemptions to travel to NSW.

“They would not meet the criteria, and secondly – as I said – we would need to have clear health advice.

“And I say to all the sporting organisations, let’s just take a break, let’s get this ‘flattening the curve’ under control.

“And then we can talk to the health officers about getting advice.

“Let’s not rush this. Let’s take this slowly.” (Fox)

🇦🇺 AFL

⚽️ Football

Nigeria star blames sex for ruining incredible 1998 World Cup campaign

1994 saw the Super Eagles qualify for their first-ever World Cup, where they outperformed most expectations by managing to make it out of the group stage in the USA.

Four years later, Nigeria returned to the world’s greatest stage, but were again serious underdogs. Ranked 74th in the world.

Just like four years prior, few expected Nigeria to make it far in the tournament. Then they came from behind twice to stun Spain 3-2 in their opening match, and all bets were off.

Paraguay had drawn with Bulgaria. Six days after their opener, Nigeria would again claim victory with a 1-0 win over the Bulgarians.

When Paraguay drew 0-0 with Spain, Nigeria’s promotion to the Round of 16 was guaranteed with the final group game still to come.

Many fans across the world enjoyed their aggressive, creative football on the pitch, featuring stars like Jay Jay Okocha – and their excess of character off it.

But their confidence and popularity became a curse, as defender Taribo West has now told Nigerian publication The Punch.

He says the players were tired after sleeping with fans the night before their Round of 16 clash with Denmark. The Super Eagles were a shadow of their former selves, and were summarily demolished 4-1.

"what I know is that some players sneaked women into camp, I saw that. The women were Africans who came to watch the tournament and fell in love with our team, because of the way we played in the group stage. So, it was easy for these players to woo them to their rooms.”

“That is why on match day, you could see a lot of the players didn’t have the strength to curtail the Danish players. They were tired after overworking themselves the night before with the women.”

EPL Transfer gossip

🔁 Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy will sanction the £200m sale of England striker Harry Kane, 26, to Manchester United to ease the club's financial concerns. (Mail)

🔁 Manchester City are set to beat Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona to the £97.5m signing of Argentine striker Lautaro Martinez, 22, from Inter Milan. (Sun)

🐴 Racing

Australian racing legend Might And Power dies aged 26

Retired jockey Jim Cassidy has joined the tributes for Might And Power, the horse who captured the public's imagination with his breathtaking wins in Australia's biggest races.

The 26-year-old popular resident of the aptly named Living Legends retirement home died in the early hours of Sunday morning after a bout of colic.

Might And Power's performance to lead all the way in the 1997 Caulfield Cup and win by 7-1/2 lengths stands as one of the great moments in racing.

Might And Power, who completed the big three of Australian racing in the 1998 Cox Plate, helped mark a resurgence in Cassidy's fortunes after he was disqualified for giving tips in the Jockey Tapes affair.

"It's well publicised, the jockey tapes," he said.

"I was rubbed out and trainer Jack Denham gave me a lifeline."

I found Might And Power in a 1900 metre race at Canterbury and he lived up to expectations.

"It's very sad. He was a horse that gave me so many thrills and brought me back from exile.

"He had a will to win like Usain Bolt, like Richie McCaw leading out the All Blacks.

"He just broke their hearts."

Winners are grinners: Gai Waterhouse is the gift that keeps on giving!

The Waterhouse & Bott team wouldn't want this Autumn to finish, another G1 with Con Te Partiro!

🏏 Cricket

‘Stick that where the sun doesn’t shine’: The email from selectors that fuelled Clarke’s greatest knock

617 minutes, 468 balls, 39 fours, 329 runs - a masterful display from Michael Clarke which broke records but almost didn’t happen. 

Clarke has made the stunning admission that before his famous 329 not-out appearance, he was on the brink of being dropped.

It was read out to him in an email - one he was not supposed to receive.

“I drove to the team hotel, had breakfast there and saw Mickey Arthur and he asked if he could speak to me,” he told Sky Sports Big Sports Breakfast .

“As we were driving he read an email to me that was sent to him from the chairman of selectors at the time.

“He read it to me and long story short, it pretty much said that I’d been out of form, they were worried about my own individual form being affected by the captaincy and I think if he makes no runs we’re going to have to have the conversation about dropping him.”

While it is the kind of revelation that could have easily led to the unravelling of most, Clarke took the criticism as a personal challenge to go out and prove the selectors wrong - and he did just that.

“I respected Mickey Arthur for having the courage to read it to me even though he didn’t want to because he didn’t want to make life any more difficult for me in the lead-up to an important Test match and put any more pressure on me,” he said.

“But as captain of the team it was the right thing to do and was certainly something I wasn’t aware of.

“To be able to walk out onto the SCG and make 300, that was very special for a number of reasons but to sort of say ‘stick that where the sun doesn’t shine’ was one of the reasons.”

⛳️ The Masters

This weekend would have been The Masters 2020 😢

As always it was scheduled for April, but has been postponed until 12-15 November as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Here's a couple of bits to keep you going golf fans.

The Masters Champions Dinner Quiz: Can you name the winner from their dinner? (answers at the bottom of the mail)

1. Wiener schnitzel and spaetzle (Bernhard Langer, Craig Stadler or Fuzzy Zoeller)

2. Cheeseburger, fries and milkshakes (Phil Mickleson, Tiger Woods or Zach Johnson)

3. Mac and Cheese (Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth or Patrick Reed)

"In your life, have you seen anything like that?!" - Tiger's chip in on 16 in 2005.

🏉 Rugby

Agustin Pichot launches bid to become World Rugby chairman

World Rugby vice-chairman Agustin Pichot says it is time to "redefine the future of rugby" after announcing his last-minute bid for the most powerful job in the sport.

The Argentine will challenge current chairman Bill Beaumont, who is standing for re-election, in next month's vote.

Pichot, 45, sees the coronavirus crisis as an "opportunity for the global realignment" of the game.

"We cannot miss the opportunity," said the former Pumas scrum-half.

"We all fight for and believe in a fair, equal and more inclusive world.

"It is time to make these dreams a reality for our sport."

Since becoming vice-chairman in 2016, Pichot has been an outspoken critic of rugby union's perceived inequity, with the likes of the pacific islands and other 'tier-two' nations blighted by their financial weakness and a lack of exposure.

We'll be back on Wednesday!

If you can't wash your hands, use the 'tizer

Master Quiz answers:

1. Bernhard Langer: The German was one of the first players to really personalise the Champions dinner menu in 1986 with popular foods from his native country. He chose wiener schnitzel (breaded veal) and spaetzle (egg noodles) followed by black forest cake.

2. It was Tiger Woods. It’s no coincidence that the youngest winner of the Masters essentially served a kid’s meal. “Hey, it’s what I eat, it’s part of being young,” said Woods, who was 21 when he won the first of his five Green Jackets in 1997.

3. It was Bubba Watson. In 2013 Bubba kept it simple with that American staple mac and cheese, with grilled chicken and cornbread. Pudding was confetti cake. And after he won for a second time, he served it up again in 2015. "It’s the same meal because it’s from my mom,” Watson said.

A little extra 😆