The State of Origin decider will kick off tonight at 8:05pm. Here’s an excerpt from Phil Gould’s final word ahead of the decider in 2012 to get you in the mood:

“Back in 1980, when they played that first game, many thought it would be a gimmick. They said it wouldn’t work. They said it certainly wouldn’t last. But when Arthur Beetson ran out onto Lang Park in a Maroons jersey to captain his state for the first time, he just knew something special was going to happen. History shows us that Beetson inspired a band of young Queenslanders to defeat their more illustrious New South Wales rivals. And on that night, the spirit of Origin was born.”

The spirit of Origin will be well and truly alive in Sydney tonight.

9
The number of Australians teeing off in the Evian Championship, the fourth women’s golf major of the year, tomorrow (AEST). Minjee Lee will lead the Australian contingent fresh off her third major title at the Women’s PGA Championship last month. Lee is also a former champion at the tournament, having won the Evian Championship in 2021. The tournament is held in Evian-les-Bains, France.

"After the first set I was looking at my box and thinking, 'book the tickets, we are about to leave'.”
The world’s top-ranked women’s tennis player Aryna Sabalenka after she beat Germany’s Laura Siegemund to advance to the Wimbledon semi-finals for the third time. Sabalenka lost the first set before winning the second and coming back from being broken twice in the third set to defeat Siegemund. The Belarusian has now made the semi-finals at 10 of the last 11 majors she has played in. Sabalenka will play against the American 13th seed, Amanda Anisimova. In the men’s draw, defending champ Carlos Alcaraz and American fifth seed Taylor Fritz will meet in the first semi-final after winning their respective quarter-finals overnight.

A brace is a term used in football (soccer) to describe when a player scores two goals in the same match. The term was originally used in England in a hunting context and is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “two things of the same type, especially two wild birds that have been killed for sport or food,” e.g. a brace of pheasants.  

🏉 The AFL Integrity Unit is investigating a “heinous and inappropriate” threat made towards Carlton Blues coach Michael Voss. According to CODE Sports, the threat referenced Voss’ death, but is not being treated as a legitimate death threat. Pressure has mounted on Voss as Carlton has had a dramatic drop in form this season. The Blues have won six of 16 matches and sit in 12th position after making the finals last year. Voss has coached Carlton since 2022. The incident comes two weeks after the outside walls at Carlton’s training ground were vandalised following a heavy loss to Port Adelaide. 

🏉 Wallabies playmaker Noah Lolesio has been ruled out of the upcoming British and Irish Lions Tour after undergoing surgery on Tuesday night. Lolesio was stretchered from the field during the Wallabies' 21-18 victory over Fiji on Sunday. He underwent a spinal fusion procedure for whiplash yesterday despite reports from the Wallabies camp that he had been cleared of any significant damage. Lolesio’s absence will leave coach Joe Schmidt with a decision to make regarding who will start at five-eighth for the Wallabies when the Test series against the Lions begins on 19 July. 

⚽ Chelsea is through to the final of the FIFA Club World Cup after defeating Brazil’s Fluminense 2-0. Brazilian striker João Pedro starred in his first game for Chelsea, scoring both goals. To add salt to the wound for Fluminense, Pedro is a former player. He said: “I am happy to score my first goals for Chelsea but also I know this tournament is very important for Fluminense. I can just say sorry but I have to be professional. I play for Chelsea and they pay me to score goals." Chelsea will play the winner of tomorrow morning’s match between two European heavyweights, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain. 

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The Matildas scored a last-gasp goal in stoppage time to beat Panama 3-2 last night in Western Australia. It marks the end of new coach Joe Montemurro’s first international window while in charge. There will be two more before Australia hosts the Asian Cup in March next year. 

With Montemurro making eight changes to the side that lost 1-0 in the first match against Panama on Saturday, the Matildas got off to another shaky start, conceding a goal in the opening half. A second-half double from Michelle Heyman gave the Matildas a 2-1 lead before Panama struck back in the 83rd minute to level the scores. In stoppage time, Charli Grant saved the day for Australia with the second international goal of her career. 

The recent international window of two two-match series against Slovenia and Panama yielded some unconvincing results for Australia’s national team. That can be partly explained by the absence of many of the Matildas’ best players. Sam Kerr, Mary Fowler, Steph Catley, Caitlin Foord, Katrina Gorry, Cortnee Vine, and Clare Wheeler were all either on leave or injured for the entire window of four matches, while Mackenzie Arnold, Ellie Carpenter, Alanna Kennedy, and Kyra Cooney-Cross were all unavailable for the series against Panama. 

Montemurro said: "Today I was a little bit disappointed because there were things I thought we got rid of over the last three games. Obviously, we've got some more work to do.”

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The fourth stage of Le Tour de France, the world’s toughest cycling race, was raced overnight. Defending champion Tadej Pogačar won the stage.

If you have little to no understanding of what that means, don’t worry! I thought it’d be helpful to give you an update and a bit of an explainer as to how it all works.

This edition of the tour started with 184 riders. Every rider is part of an 8-man team, and 23 teams are competing. 

Although cycling may seem like an individual sport (there are no tandem bikes here, as much as we’d all love to see that), winning the Tour requires lots of teamwork. Each team elects at least one leader, and the other riders (‘domestiques’) work together to protect their leader’s position in the race, often letting their leader almost literally ride on their coattails so they can preserve energy.  

The winner of the Tour is the cyclist with the lowest accumulated time after 21 stages. The leaderboard for the lowest accumulated time is called the general classification (GC). 

The yellow jersey is worn by the GC leader after each stage and kept by the overall leader at the end as the competitors ride into Paris, where the final stage concludes after three weeks of racing. 

The yellow jersey is the most sought-after prize of the Tour, but it is not the only symbolic jersey on offer. 

The green jersey is worn by the leader of the points classification. Every day of the tour has a certain number of ‘points’ on offer, with flat, long days holding the most points and shorter hill climbs with less. As a result, sprinters usually win this jersey because of how many points are on offer for nailing the stages featuring a decisive sprint. 

The polka-dot jersey is awarded to the leader of the mountains classification. Each mountain climb portion of a stage is allocated a certain number of points, based primarily on their classification from easy to extremely hard. Riders who finish in the first ten positions at the top of a climb score points, and the rider with the most ‘mountain climb points’ wears the polka-dot jersey. 

The white jersey is awarded to the rider under the age of 26 who is highest in the general classification. 

Slovenian rider Tadej Pogačar, who won the tour in 2021, 2022, and 2024, is the favourite to win this year’s race. Pogačar won stage four last night after outsprinting Dutch rider Mathieu van der Poel. 

Van der Poel was the winner of stage two and is the current holder of the yellow jersey, although he is tied with Pogačar in the general classification. Two-time tour champion Jonas Vingegaard, who is the most likely candidate to challenge Pogačar in this year’s tour, is eight seconds behind the two race leaders. 

Tonight, the riders will race in Stage 5, a 33-kilometre individual time trial that begins and ends in the French city of Caen. On this stage, riders will start individually, and the fastest rider to complete the course wins. Apart from the stage winner, the time trial is also an opportunity for riders to contest the general classification. Among the favourites are Italy’s Filippo Ganna and Olympic time trial champion Remco Evenepoel, who is another potential contender for the yellow jersey. 

You can watch the Tour de France on SBS On Demand.