Sports
The Riverina is well known for the quality and range of its sports activity and many famous sportsmen and women have hailed from the Riverina. These include:
- Tennis champions Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong Cawley
- Cricketers Mark Taylor, Geoff Lawson and Michael Slater
- Rugby League players Peter Sterling and Laurie Daley and the Mortimer brothers: Chris Mortimer, Peter Mortimer and Steve Mortimer
- Australian rules footballers Haydn Bunton Senior, Paul Kelly and Wayne Carey
- Jockeys Arthur "Scobie" Breasley and Roy Higgins.
The "Wagga Effect" is a term that has been used frequently in the Australian media to describe the disproportionately large number of elite sportsmen and women that originate from the town. It is speculated that the phenomenon may arise in rural areas where the population is large enough to sustain the presence of a large number of sporting codes, but small enough to ensure that talented individuals are exposed to adult-level competition at an earlier age.
Unusually for New South Wales, Australian rules football is quite popular as the Riverina is south of the Barassi Line, and there are many clubs and leagues in the district, including the Riverina Football League, Farrer Football League, Hume Football League, Northern Riverina Football League and Coreen & District Football League. In addition, many clubs along the border play in Victorian leagues such as the Ovens & Murray Football League, Murray Football League, Picola & District Football League and the Golden Rivers Football League.
In the northern part of the Riverina, Rugby League and Rugby Union are both strong. Rugby League competitions in the district include Group 9, Group 17 and Group 20 Rugby League. Teams from Corowa and Finley play in the Goulburn Murray Rugby League. Rugby Union in the district is run by the ACT and Southern NSW Rugby Union, with clubs from Albury, Wagga Wagga, Temora and Hay competing in the Southern Inland Rugby Union.
Other popular sports in the Riverina include cycling, bowls, cricket, netball, tennis and horse racing. The Riverina is home to many racecourses and picnic race meetings are held regularly at places such as Corowa, Berrigan, Carrathool, Tumut and Lockhart.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“There be some sports are painful, and their labor
Delight in them sets off. Some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
Point to rich ends.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“In the end, I think you really only get as far as you’re allowed to get.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)