Clan-Members » representative and a former specia

Canterbury have condemned Newcastle to a club-record 14th straight NRL loss at Hunter Stadium, outclassing the hapless Knights 28-14 to move back into the top four.Newcastle lost 13 straight games in 2005, but their 2016 counterparts - winning just once this year and on track for a second-straight wooden spoon - have displaced them in the record books as the worst-performed team in club history.Bulldogs halfback Moses Mbye scored a try, set up another and kicked six goals from as many attempts on a wet Saturday afternoon to inspire the visitors to their sixth win from their past seven games.Canterbury (30 points) climb to third, at least temporarily leap-frogging Canberra (29) and North Queensland (28) who are yet to play this weekend. The Raiders take on Cronulla at Shark Park on Saturday night and the Cowboys travel to Leichhardt Oval on Sunday to face the Wests Tigers.Newcastle led 2-0 in the 12th minute courtesy of a penalty goal by former NSW Origin halfback Trent Hodkinson, playing against his old club for the first time.The Bulldogs eventually adjusted to the slippery conditions and responded with two tries in four minutes midway through the half to take a 12-2 lead.Hooker Michael Lichaa scooped up a Mbye pass and stepped past Jarrod Mullen to score in the 21st minute, then Josh Morris took a pass from twin brother Brett to touch down four minutes later. Mbye converted both tries then added a 36th-minute penalty goal for a 14-2 lead at the break.Newcastle created few genuine scoring chances and made life difficult for themselves with sloppy handling and a lack of discipline in the ruck, conceding five penalties while earning only one.Hodkinsons 40-20 kick in the 43rd minute provided a solid platform for the Knights to mount a second-half resurgence.Mullen took advantage two minutes later, bouncing out of Mbyes tackle and firing a one-handed pass for winger Brendan Elliot to score in the corner. Hodkinsons sideline conversion cut the deficit to 14-8 and the crowd of 13,318 found their voice.Elliot crossed for his second try just three minutes later, regathering Hodkinsons chip kick to score in the corner and Hodkinson converted from the sideline again to level at 14-14.The Bulldogs regained momentum in the 54th minute when Sam Kasiano charged down a Mullen clearing kick. Mullen tried to recover the ball but lost it in James Grahams tackle and Mbye was on the spot to pick up the crumbs and score next to the posts, then converted for a 20-14 lead.Mbye added a penalty goal in the 73rd minute to stretch the margin to 22-14, then Sam Perrett scored in the corner and Mbye converted. Air Max Flair Pas Cher France . Rinne played two periods in his first game since left hip surgery in early May. Gabriel Bourque scored 3:07 into the second period and Austin Watson tallied 5:15 later for Nashville. Air Max 120 Pas Cher . Datsyuk will miss Tuesdays game against New Jersey and could be sidelined longer, while Cleary will likely miss at least the next three games. Its been an injury-plagued season for Datsyuk, who has suited up for just 39 games. http://www.basketairmax90pascher.fr/ . The native of Mont-Tremblant, Que., captured a World Cup downhill event Saturday, his second this year and fifth career victory on the circuit. Air Max Tavas France . Most important, perhaps, it went off without a hitch. Organizers poked a little fun at the now-infamous opening ceremony gaffe that saw only four out of five snowflakes open up into rings, leaving the Olympics logo one ring short. Air Max Plus Pas Cher France . Jane Virtanen scored two, and Alex Roach and Elliott Peterson rounded out the offence for the Hitmen (40-15-6). Brady Brassart chipped in with three assists. Colton McCarthy scored twice, Brayden Point had a goal and two assists, and Jack Rodewald also scored for the Warriors (15-35-9), who were 2 for 5 on the power play. Nature of play sounds like a pretty harmless phrase. But for all those involved in the inquest into the death of Phillip Hughes it has taken on a sinister quality none will ever forget.It was these words that caused the New South Wales coronial inquest to veer into truly awful territory at Sydneys Downing Centre court complex this week, pitting cricketers against one another and causing the Hughes family to bitterly decry the conclusion of a process that had started out with faint traces of optimism.Before the inquest began on Monday, the familys representative, James Henderson, stated that they hoped perhaps there will be a positive that comes out of Phillips death. That may be, but this week has not felt like it.When the inquest began with an opening statement by the New South Wales coroner, Michael Barnes QC, he stated that proceedings were not about apportioning blame. That may have been the intention, but this week has not felt like it.Mainly because of those three words, nature of play. Cricket Australias own investigation of Hughes death, conducted by David Curtain QC, had carefully outlined terms of reference that did not include issues surrounding the laws of the game nor how it was played on the day Hughes was hit. It had been generally understood that this was the most tragic of accidents, in a game where the hardness of the cricket ball will always necessitate some risk.Sean Abbott, the unfortunate man to bowl the ball that struck Hughes, had concluded exactly that in his statement to the inquest: I know there is a suggestion that the laws of the game be changed so that bouncers should not be bowled, but the same cricket ball will be hit and flying around whether bouncers are bowled or not. There will always be risks in the game.Yet the inclusion of reference to the nature of play in the brief outlined by the coroner opened up what has been repeatedly called a Pandoras Box. Inquests, of course, are devised to determine what remedies may be applied to prevent similar deaths in future, and the coroner is obliged to investigate thoroughly and fully. This most high-profile of inquests was set on the path it took this week from the moment the family questioned how the game had been played, creating - in the words of Greg Hughes - an unsafe workplace for his son.The Hughes familys concerns about the number of bouncers their son faced that day were linked to their apparent disgust at some of the sledging allegedly directed at him, namely the threat of Ill kill you supposedly uttered by Doug Bollinger. All tumbled out at the inquest.What followed was one of the most vexing episodes witnessed in Australian cricket. Convened ostensibly to try to establish how to make the game and its players safer, the inquest instead turned into the most painful and hurtful dredging through the past imaginable. Very little was witnessed in terms of discernible benefits or remedies beyond those already recommended at the start of the week by Kristina Stern SC, counsel assisting the coroner.Instead, players and officials were subjected to cross-examination that at times stretched the bounds of credulity. Crude links were drawn between cricket tactics, verbal exchanges and the freak blow to the side of the neck, from a short ball in a Sheffield Shield game at the SCG on November 25, 2014, that resulted in the arterial injury leading to Hughes death two days later in St Vincents Hospital.So it was that Brad Haddin, captain of New South Wales on the day, had the ethics of his tactics questioned. So it was that Bollinger, exemplar of the angry fast bowler, was asked to justify why he bowled and spoke the way he has always done. So it was that David Warner, who sat at Hughes side as medical staff tried frantically to get him breathing, was questioned on sledging. And so it was that Tom Cooper, Hughes batting partner that day, housemate, and close friend, was made to feel in some way responsible for not stepping in to prevent the events that unfolded.For Cooper, iit was a particularly cruel experience.ddddddddddddAt the SCG wake that followed Hughes death he had spoken to Jason, Hughes brother, at a time when all may have been a blur. A few days later, Cooper was a pallbearer at the funeral, in Macksville. Yet a little less than two years later he was being accused of relaying Bollingers sledges to Jason Hughes, his evidence pitted against the late submission of another pallbearer, the Mosman club captain Matthew Day.All this seemed at best peripheral to events on the day Hughes was hit, and at worst a sickening re-traumatisation of the players involved. There is a compelling argument to be made that none of the players should have been asked to appear at the inquest at all.Haddin, Bollinger, Warner, Cooper and Abbott had already delivered statements based on interviews with Stern and CA counsel. Once the officiating umpires, Mike Graham-Smith and Ash Barrow, plus the long-time international umpire and ICC training manager Simon Taufel, had all stated to the inquest that they did not consider the nature of play to be outside the laws of the game, the players testimony was irrelevant, other than to heighten the visibility and drama of the inquest.Others were drawn into questions that seemed a long way from relevant. The former New South Wales administrator Donna Anderson found herself being asked about instances of sledging in Sheffield Shield matches, despite never having taken the field as either a player or an umpire. The CA head of sports science, Alex Kountouris, was heavily questioned regarding an internal report he had prepared on the incident.At the same time the media covering the inquest found themselves reliving the same problems that arose in the hours and days after Hughes was hit. Issues of appropriate and sensitive coverage of such cases, that lie at the juncture of sport, police rounds and court proceedings, have tested the limits of reporters, editors, cameramen and photographers. Numerous players are known to have checked out of following all media this week, with good reason.There were some recommendations that can be viewed as constructive pending their inclusion in Barnes findings, to be released on November 4. Players and umpires may find themselves being subject to mandatory first-aid training, and clearer communication between participants on the field and medical staff off it may save critical minutes in the moments after any instance of serious injury. And the wording of laws relating to the use of short-pitched bowling is likely to be revisited on Taufels recommendation.Yet none of these findings would have been any different had none of the players been asked to speak at the inquest. Nor would they have changed much at all if matters of sledging and team plans had not been probed with considerable thrust by Greg Melick SC, the Hughes familys legal representative and a former special investigator for CA. Melick represented his clients with zest, left with little choice but to pursue the lines opened by the coroners brief.The overwhelming sense around the Hughes inquest this week is that it has been an enormous amount of pain and conflict for very little additional benefit. At its centre has been a grieving family, their suffering no less vivid than it was in the days following the ball that fatefully struck Phillip Hughes on the side of the neck. All that was brought horribly home by the sight of Greg, Virginia and Megan Hughes making abrupt exits on the final day of the inquest, in the midst of a closing submission by CAs legal counsel, Bruce Hodgkinson.There had been talk, whispered in quiet corners, of a gulf between the Hughes family and the cricket community. Now that talk has been replaced by awful and very public reality, of the sort that leaves any chance of resolution and peace further away than ever. Largely because of three small words. ' ' '