Archive For 2019年4月25日

Port Adelaide’s retiring stalwart Dom Cassisi says it’s not all about him.

The much-admired Cassisi says Port arresting their slide and defeating Melbourne in Sunday’s AFL fixture at Adelaide Oval is more important than his farewell.

The 31-year-old says his failing body prompted his decision to retire after the match, but is adamant he’s got one more productive game in him.

“I obviously didn’t play last weekend and I’m feeling like I’m 18 again, I’m ready to go,” Cassisi said.

“I’ll just give it my best and hopefully we can get a good win, that is most important thing.

“It’s going to be nice to put the jumper on for one last time. I feel up to it, I feel like I have got one more good game left in me.

“But there is so much riding on this game, we need to get back to winning.

“It’s a crucial game for us. That is the over-riding thing, to get on the winner’s list again.”

The Power enter the fixture with four losses in their past five games, slipping from top spot to fifth.

And while keen to honour former captain Cassisi in style, Port coach Ken Hinkley said a victory was paramount against the 16th-placed Demons.

“That is the most important thing for us as a football club – we need to play well to make sure we get in the winner’s list and get our season back on track,” Hinkley said.

“It’s certainly not a long way off track. But the last couple of weeks have been a bit of stumble for us.

“We just need to make sure that we play well and hopefully we will deliver a performance that Dom will be proud of and part of.”

Cassisi’s return forced midfielder Kane Mitchell out of Port’s side, while Melbourne, seeking a fifth win of the season, dropped Matt Jones from their side.

Italian cyclist Vincenzo Nibali tightened his grip on the Tour de France by riding away to his third stage victory on the 197.

5km, 13th stage from Saint-Etienne to Chamrousse on Friday.

Nibali attacked 6.6km from home and put almost a minute into nearest rival Alejandro Valverde, who finished fourth on the stage but moved up to second overall.

Rafal Majka was second on the stage with Leopold Konig third.

Australian Richie Porte, who started the stage second overall, cracked on the final climb to finish 27th, losing almost nine minutes.

Nibali now leads Valverde by 3min 37sec while Porte dropped to 16th overall at 11:11.

Nibali proved he is simply too strong for the rest on a day when his Astana team looked vulnerable, with chief lieutenant Jakob Fuglsang crashing on a descent and Michele Scarponi struggling and dropping away on the penultimate climb.

But the Italian didn’t need anyone, responding first to an attack by Valverde on the final uncategorised climb and then riding away from the Spaniard.

He caught Majka and Konig before leaving them in his wake in the final 3km to win by 10sec.

The Astana leader said he hadn’t planned to ride away to a stage victory but once he saw Porte struggling he had concentrated on trying to break Valverde.

“It was very hot but the more you climbed the better it got. Still the heat is the same for everybody,” said the 2010 Vuelta a Espana winner and 2013 Giro d’Italia champion.

“I saw Porte had dropped off already, perhaps because of the heat, so my aim was to gain time on Valverde.

“I accelerated to get up to the two leaders and we were collaborating because we knew there was a long way to go to the finish and tomorrow (Saturday) will be a tough day.

“But there wasn’t great collaboration and I saw that Valverde and Pinot were coming back up to us so I upped the tempo and with that came the victory too.”

With Froome out of the race and Porte now out of contention, Team Sky manager Dave Brailsford said they would have to target stage wins.

“Let’s see how the next few days go, we can look to animate the race as much as we can and let’s go from there,” he said.

“He (Porte) is disappointed and when you’re disappointed it’s not the time to start analysing anything, just support the lad.

“It was just a question then of minimising his losses and keep on going.”

Young Frenchman Romain Bardet moved up to third at 4:24 after finishing the stage seventh, just 1:23 behind Nibali.

It allowed him to keep hold of the young rider’s white jersey ahead of Thibaut Pinot, who is up to fourth at 4:40.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde has warned that low inflation could damage growth in Europe and urged the European Central Bank to maintain a flexible policy.

The former French economy minister also urged caution over asset prices, which she said could be too high in relation to fundamentals.

“Obstinately low inflation can seriously undermine growth,” said Lagarde, who recently hinted that the 3.6 per cent global growth forecast for 2014 may have to be trimmed.

The “good news,” Lagarde said, was that “European economies are beginning to emerge from the crisis”.

But the downside, she warned, was that investors could be a little too optimistic on a region that is still saddled with high unemployment and public debt.

“We are seeing this in a certain number of indicators. We are also seeing this in the very positive orientation of markets, perhaps a little too positive in respect to fundamentals,” Lagarde said on Friday in a speech at the Robert Schuman Foundation in Paris.

Lagarde did not specify which European markets were overly optimistic.

“Monetary policy should remain supportive until private demand has fully recovered” and the European Central Bank “has achieved its price stability objective”, she said.

Last month, the European Central Bank cut its key interest rates, including taking one into negative territory for the first time, in a bid to help the region’s stalling economy emerge from the eurozone debt crisis.

Earlier this month, Lagarde had asked governments to boost public investment and help drive the global recovery.

With nine minutes to go, the ball surged into North Melbourne’s forward line once more.

The Kangaroos had been behind for three quarters but, as coach Brad Scott would later admit, were confident they could run over the line.

As the ball sailed in, Jarrad Waite was there.

He’d been everywhere all night.

And he would be at the other end less than a minute later, running past the entire North Melbourne team to grab Sam Docherty’s ball over the top and goal.

Castigated by coach Mick Malthouse earlier in the month, this could have been the last great game from the maverick forward or a game that earns a new contract.

Told by Malthouse earlier in this month he needed to “come to grips with what we’re trying to do”, the 31-year-old’s career looked not just in doubt but doomed.

But a late virus to Brock McLean handed him the chance to play against North Melbourne, and one he took.

This was a stirring win in front of a strong Etihad Stadium crowd of over 36,000 – and a fitting reward for Blues fans who have endured a miserable season.

Carlton had winners all over the ground.

Bryce Gibbs and Chris Judd starred in midfield while Waite, six-goal Lachie Henderson and Blues debutant Cameron Wood combined for 11 goals.

Scott said it was the marks that crushed his side.

“There was one statistic that stands out, for the opposition to have as many marks as they did tonight… it’s pretty hard to win a game of footy,” he said.

Carlton had 126 of them.

Defender Sam Rowe, who took six in defence, said the win was a key point on the journey.

“Every win’s a good win, but it’s nice to beat a team that everyone reckons is a very good team,” he said.

“We’ve got to take the approach that we’re 20-odd games away from playing finals next year.

“It’s very satisfying, we’ve been putting in the hard work.”

While Rowe conceded the Blues’ forwards would get the plaudits, it’s unclear whether Malthouse’s decision to draft Waite was tactical masterstroke or a last-minute plan B.

That’s because the gruff veteran, just two days after declaring he would improve his temperament at press conferences, again left in a huff.

Objecting to a question about whether he regretted arguments with journalists last week, Malthouse was off.

“Do you want me to go to confession or something? Have I murdered someone?” he said on his way out.

At least this time, Malthouse has the four points to go with the attitude.

The New York-based rights watchdog’s statement was issued as thousands of Christians were fleeing Mosul to escape an ultimatum by the Islamic State (IS) group that seized the city last month.

The organisation, which enforces an extreme version of Islamic law, and allied Sunni groups conquered Mosul and large swathes of the country last month and subsequently declared a “caliphate” straddling Iraq and Syria.

It recently started marking houses belonging to the thousands-strong Christian community and issued a statement urging them to convert, pay the Islamic “jizya” tax, leave the city or face death by noon on Saturday.

“ISIS should immediately halt its vicious campaign against minorities in and around Mosul,” HRW’s Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said, using the acronym IS was known by before it rebranded last month.

“ISIS seems intent on wiping out all traces of minority groups from areas it now controls in Iraq,” she said.

“No matter how hard its leaders and fighters try to justify these heinous acts as religious devotion, they amount to nothing less than a reign of terror.”

Other minorities rooted in the same province of Nineveh have suffered even more than the Christians, according to crimes HRW documented against the Yazidis, as well as the Turkmen and Shabak Shiite communities.

HRW said that 83 Shabak men from villages east of Mosul had been rounded up by IS between June 13 and July 10. Seven bodies were found.

It said 75 Turkmens had been kidnapped since June 23.

The rights group also said two were killed and 21 still missing from a confirmed total of 51 abducted from the Yazidi community, whose faith is inspired by the ancient Iranian religion Zoroastrianism and who are labelled as “devil-worshippers” by IS.

HRW said that some of the Sunni groups, including elements of the disbanded former ruling Baath party, that helped IS overrun the region appear to have briefly had a moderating influence.

It urged non-IS Sunni authorities and armed groups to “press the group to stop its targeting of religious minorities and desecration.”