\u201cPeople think this is just for fun until the first ball is bowled,\u201d Fleming said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce these athletes cross the boundary line, they want to win. I\u2019ve seen it first-hand in New Zealand, and I know just how fiercely competitive these footy players become.<\/p>\n
New Zealand sporting icons Richie McCaw and Stephen Fleming catch up after the Black Clash in 2021. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
\u201cTeam Rugby has beaten Team Cricket twice in the Black Clash, and there\u2019s absolutely no reason Team Footy can\u2019t do the same in Australia. <\/p>\n
\u201cAustralians are fiercely passionate about cricket, rugby league and AFL. Bringing those sporting worlds together creates something completely unique, and I think Australian fans are going to love it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Behind the banter and the big names is a successful commercial model that Duco and Fleming now hope to replicate across the Tasman.<\/p>\n
Duco announced today that top Australian cricket names Usman Khawaja, Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey would play in the match for Team Cricket, along with a sporting \u201cwildcard\u201d, Australian tennis star and three-time major champion Ash Barty.<\/p>\n
They would compete against \u2018Team Footy\u2019 featuring former NRL stars Sam Burgess and Johnathan Thurston and former AFL stars Dale Thomas and Joel Selwood.<\/p>\n
Fleming will coach the Team Footy side.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Black Clash event at Mount Maunganui drew an audience of 928,300 on TVNZ. It featured Jesse Ryder, Lou Vincent, Grant Elliott and Kyle Mills for Team Cricket and Kieran Read, Jordie Barrett, Ofisa Tonu\u2019u and Hussey for Team Rugby. Team Cricket won by five runs.<\/p>\n
Duco Events said it had worked with the Queensland Government via Tourism and Events Queensland, Cairns Regional Council and Tourism Tropical North Queensland for the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy securing events that attract visitors from across Australia and overseas, we\u2019re creating opportunities for tourism operators, supporting jobs and ensuring the benefits of a growing visitor economy are felt right across the State,\u201d Tourism Minister Andrew Powell said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Duco Events owner David Higgins. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Duco owner and founder David Higgins said he was excited about the extension of the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are sure Australian fans will love the novelty of watching superstars from cricket, NRL and AFL competing head-on in this sporting extravaganza. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst Gold Clash is a commercial event, we have also opted to appoint three not-for-profit organisations who will each receive a funding donation from us each year. The selected organisations will be announced in the coming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand\u2019s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPeople think this is just for fun until the first ball is bowled,\u201d Fleming said in a statement.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2840,4765,1135,7022,3019,274150,8231,3685,77510,2082,4241,33443,2936,296,225,1073,111,139,69,1962,213,2224,223,13020],"class_list":["post-557259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-across","tag-annual","tag-australian","tag-black","tag-clash","tag-duco","tag-event","tag-events","tag-evolves","tag-for","tag-gold","tag-heading","tag-insider","tag-into","tag-market","tag-media","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-special","tag-sports","tag-tasman","tag-the","tag-version"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}