Matt Cleary Sports Writer @MCSportsWriter

@IamQadryIsmail @cameronpercy1 Maybe. But probably more that were other players, your RBs and TEs, to develop and upskill throwing / passing skills, and be confident in their application, it would seem to provide greater attacking options and variety. Aren’t there running players could throw the ball?

@caddietales Love it. I play golf couple times a week at Long Reef. Each day walk or run and have a swim at the likes of South Curly pool, pictured this morning here. Strong flat white after. That’s rich mate!

@Top100Rick Maybe. But I quite like him on DP World Tour. Like to see the best players take on variety of courses, particularly links courses. That style of golf, in wind and rain, demands so many types of golf shot, and the holding of nerves. PGA Tour is great. But too much point and shoot

@cameronpercy1 There's one called a Flea Flicker. But yeah they could play a little more "rugby". Adventure seems trumped by 1s and 0s facilitated by speed and power. I'm gonna ask someone I just e-met. Hi @IamQadryIsmail my fellow Aussies ask: why not more passing in Football?

Letter to Trump. The renowned Soviet and Russian director and writer Eduard Topol has penned an open letter to US President Donald Trump regarding Putin and his war. Here is the full text of the letter. Unfortunately, Trump will most likely not read it—by all appearances, he is accustomed to watching cartoons and does not absorb texts longer than two sentences: "Dear Mr. President! Dear Donald! As the author of fifty books and a dozen films about Russia, I believe I have the right to share this with you before your meeting with Putin. You should know that he cannot end the war against Ukraine—even if you were to hand over your Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Trump Tower in New York, and a dozen golf clubs to him. And this is not because he does not want to take a break from the war, but because he cannot. For he knows Russian history not from Medinsky’s textbook, but as it truly was: The return of Russian troops from Europe to Russia following the victory over Napoleon led to the Decembrist revolt against the Tsar in 1825. Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War led to the Revolution of 1905. The flight of a million Russian soldiers from the Russian-German front during World War I led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the February Revolution of 1917. The peace treaty Lenin signed with Germany enabled the Bolsheviks to execute the entire Tsarist family. The return of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February 1989 marked the beginning of the USSR’s collapse. Given these facts, Putin cannot end the war against Ukraine or send his troops home." Only the option of keeping almost his entire army in Europe as an occupation force in May 1945 saved Stalin from a coup in the postwar period. That is precisely why Putin dreams of occupying Ukraine, as well as the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and so on: to keep his army away from Moscow. He remembers how the 525,000 soldiers returning from Afghanistan in 1989 turned into "Afghan bandits" who terrorized the entire population of the USSR. And he knows what will happen when one and a half million soldiers return from the Ukrainian front—men who have learned to kill, loot, and rape professionally. The war against Ukraine has enabled Putin to get rid of two million of his most active opponents by forcing them to flee Russia; as for the remaining young Russians, he either sent them to the front or recruited them from penal colonies. Today, any war—whether against Ukraine, the Baltic states, NATO, or whomever else—is the best means of compelling Russia to submit to Putin and his junta. Unfortunately, none of your advisors will explain this to you before your meeting with Putin, but you can have my arguments verified by Jack Matlock and Michael McFaul. I do not want Putin—that bandit, thief, and murderer of millions—to continue with his brazen deception, his lies, and his misleading of my president. Of course, I am neither a military expert nor a political scientist, but I am a writer with a good memory. I remember how Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II drove the price of oil down to 9 dollars a barrel and supplied the Afghans with "Stinger" missiles, thereby halting Moscow’s conquest of Afghanistan and bringing about the collapse of the USSR. If you want to stop Putin and the imperial ambitions—shared by at least half of the Russian population—you must do the same: drive the price of oil down to at least 25 dollars a barrel and supply Ukraine with weapons that will help it defeat the aggressor. As for your desire for American-Russian business partnerships: in practice—and not merely in words—this might not happen for another hundred years, or perhaps never at all. If you would like to know why, give me a call; I would be happy to explain it to you. Sincerely, Eduard Topol t.me/MirovichMedia/…

⛳️🎙️ The Golf Club is LIVE. Excited to launch my new golf podcast with SEN. Tour news, courses, equipment, betting, stories and plenty of great conversations from across the game. Episode 1 is out now. 🎧 The Golf Club — on SEN. #TheGolfClub #SEN #Golf open.spotify.com/episode/1q9xRz……

Ep1 The Golf Club with Nick Davis and Matt Cleary in the can. Subscribe, like, listen here: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the…

The People! Show #1 of The Golf Club with Nick Davis and Matt Cleary is in the can, the bag, the aural history vault. Do listen, Subscribe, Like, Comment, give this Cleary bloke a raise, what a talent, etc etc. It is entirely your call. But we have a show! open.spotify.com/episode/1q9xRz…

@upthemilkpod I can't think of anyone, ever, certainly not a halfback who had a better debut. Kid owned it from the get-go, then killed em. Interesting talk topic for you guys next time: has there been a better debut by a halfback in NRL / NSWRFL / QRL / world! history? Sticky's debut for ref:

@ChristypDoran Carter Gordon back off. Ha. Me and the boys here been thinking we had 8 backs on

@ChristypDoran Who is off field for Wallabies backs??

@zanofc Haven’t been across it, Zane. How has it been working / not working? What was it meant to do? Give the team who gave up a try a turn and thus halt momentum / blowouts?

@theSportress Ah, the KB Cup tho! Or was it the Panasonic Cup. Regardless, tend to agree. Can’t see it flying up the flag. Be fun to talk to the punter who emailed PVL this latest flight of fancy.

@paulwiggins Mayhap they would. I didn’t think of it like that. Probably get a few opinions from scholarly types. Seems an eccentric very Brit thing. Why the 52 calls? Do we know?

Huzzah. It's up. It's a goer. It is a Thing. Here We Go Again, a book about the 80-year rivalry between Manly and Parra, will be published Feb '27. Huuuge thanks @9_Moley @MikeMeehallWood @ParraCave @1170sen @ManlyObserver For a signed copy, pre-order at: longroompress.com.au

@ABFit60 @SteveMascord @smh Man those were vexed times at Ridgemont High. Looks like only Illawarra's merger came off. How about Souths possibly merging with Sydney City Roosters. That would've made the Northern Eagles look like the Morris twins.

@ThatsSoVillage No-one beats this. Seriously - what about that. Old mate on his bum at the non-strikers, that's your new logo, even crest of arms.

@MikeMeehallWood A beautiful thing.