The fullback showed some - but not quite enough - expertise in trying to shove the arm of the wincing Irishman back into its socket.

"I've practised it a little bit at training, actually," Barry admitted yesterday. "I've tried to get the technique right but I need a little bit of practice … It wasn't painful for me - Tadhg I'm not too sure about."

Turns out that Barry was thinking more of the team. "The problem is when he's like that we're a man down in defence," he said. "So if we were able to get him back on board it might help us a bit. I just spoke to Tadhg about how Nathan does it. His shoulder is that stuffed anyway I couldn't do any more damage."

Despite Barry's best intentions, Kennelly was forced off the turf for further "treatment" but returned five minutes later.

  He ain't got it, by Geeves YOU have to wonder if the fish were still biting.

The Australian cricket team earned a day off yesterday after blitzing Bangladesh by 180 runs in their opening one-dayer in Darwin. Allround outdoors type Andrew Symonds was banished from the tournament after he gave himself the day off to go fishing instead of attending a team meeting on Friday.

Australia's newest recruit, paceman Brett Geeves, reckons sending Andrew The Angler home had no impact on the team. Was it because they were only playing minnows of the sport?

  Closing time for Grumpy HIS nickname may have been Grumpy but he will be sadly missed. Parramatta and South Sydney rugby league legend turned publican Brian Hambly died on Saturday.

The 71-year-old packed plenty into life. Renowned for his on-field toughness, he played 18 Test matches as a backrower after making his first-grade debut as a teen in 1956. He spent three years with the Rabbitohs before a captain-coaching stint in Wagga Wagga then being enticed to Parramatta in 1961 for a then record transfer fee of £2500. Hambly retired from the game seven years later and became a publican. He was named on the centenary list of the 100 greatest players.

  Give Pete a chance JOHN LENNON copped one helluva caning when he compared the popularity of The Beatles to that of Jesus.

Springboks coach Peter de Villiers should pray that peace gets a chance after likening his rugby plight to the passion of the Christ.

De Villiers was feeling the heat after the South Africans managed one win from five Tri-Nation Tests before their record whipping of the Wallabies early yesterday.

But after the victory he hit back at critics of his experimental, more expansive game plans, accusing them of unpatriotic motives bordering on the biblical.

"The same people who threw their robes on the ground when Jesus rode on a donkey were the same people who crowned him and hit him with sticks and stuff like that," he said.

"And [they] were the same people who said afterwards how we shouldn't have done that, he's the son of God.

"So that's exactly what we do. You have to look at history, it's repeating itself - and I'm not saying that I'm God."

What are you saying, then?

  BRENDAN FEVOLA Brendan Fevola's headline-making season has ended in the shadows of another AFL goal-kicking machine, Buddy Franklin, but they're all still talking about Fev.

When Hawthorn's Franklin kicked his 100th goal for the season late in the second quarter on Saturday, he became the first player since 1998 to kick the ton, shifting the focus to Carlton's Fevola, who started the match needing eight goals for his own individual century milestone.

At half-time Fevola hadn't kicked a goal, but with four in the third quarter the dream was alive. Team rules went out the window as Carlton players tried to get the ball to Fevola at all costs and that meant Hawthorn, despite having the match sewn up, put their efforts into making sure Fevola didn't share the stage.

Fevola kicked three goals to fall agonisingly short on 99.

Carlton coach Brett Ratten was one who didn't find it amusing.

Asked about the Hawks smothering Fevola, Ratten replied: "Maybe we could have done that at the start [on Franklin]." Pressed on the subject, Ratten said: "They were only 70 points up "