I don’t talk about sport much here because, mostly, it doesn’t fit. Still. As many of you know, Australia is currently leading ‘the stinking surrender monkeys’ four nil in the latest Ashes series. This is a simply a restoration of the normal order of things. Now, some people are starting to talk about how things will change when Australia next plays in an Ashes series. This will be in England in 2009. By that time a number of very important Australian players will have retired from the game, and new players will have been blooded to fill out the team.  The talk is that this will make Australia more beatable, give England a realistic chance of winner. I don’t think so, and here’s why. Despite losing champions from this champion team, what Australia does have is a champion system. It produces excellent players. We also have a deeply established culture of competitiveness, of professionalism, of pushing to win that has been embedded over the captaincies of Border, Taylor, Waugh and now Ponting. This just won’t ‘go away’. No matter how the personnel change in either the Australian or the England teams (and some of these stinking surrender monkeys will go too, don’t doubt that), Australia will take the field in 2009 believing it WILL win. That will be the difference.