The Melbourne Storm upsetting what was supposed to be Canterbury’s big day was in the back of fans’ minds as a possibility, but James Graham biting the ear of an opposition player in the big dance? No one saw that coming. And not just any player, Mr Popular himself, Billy Slater! Even NSW people like him ... even mums who don’t like football! If all comedy is tragic, then Bite-gate was pure devastation. There was the unfortunate coincidence that Graham plays for a club whose mascot has, over the centuries, been made famous for its propensity to “bite”. A clipping from a Sydney metro newspaper, which remarked in its grand final preview that Graham “adds bite to this Bulldogs pack” went viral on Twitter after the title-decider. The fact he’s English put him offside with every non-Brit following the game. Even his countrymen lined up for his public hanging, including one larrikin who waited for Graham to arrive at NRL Central for his judiciary hearing wearing a Hannibal Lecter mask. The ultimate laugh was watching poor Graham try and refute suggestions – and very conclusive video evidence – that he bit Slater at all. He’s since admitted he did, apologised to Slater for his heat-of-battle brain explosion and copped a 12-week ban. Having Evander Holyfield-ear-biter Mike Tyson in town at the time looked scripted ... except it wasn’t.

Watching a superb athlete like Israel Folau trying to play Australian rules over the last two years was like witnessing a train crash ‒ which you know is coming ‒ in very slow-motion. Everything that everyone on both sides of the footy code divide predicted would happen did happen. He was clueless out there on those oval fields. Didn’t even look like belonging. He even kicked cross-legged like a rugby league player. That Folau took the $1m a year on offer from the AFL wasn’t really the big deal here. Who wouldn’t? Even his rugby league mates quoted in the media at the time of his signing with the Giants gave him a collective “good on him”. It was the fact the AFL and the Giants stuck with their “bearded lady” (as our scribe Matt Cleary called him in these pages upon his crossover) for so long that kept everybody amazed. It was Folau himself who eventually ‒ and prematurely ‒ ended all this nonsense, proving the integrity and pride of the man, and the fact that, for some, even a fat wallet isn’t worth the long-term humiliation waiting at the plate for modern-day code-hoppers. n

Several weeks after the release of USADA’s report into Lance Armstrong’s world champion doping history, and the subsequent withdrawal of his sponsors, and the removal of his name from the cancer awareness organisation he started, the man tweeted a photo of himself reclining on a lounge in his trophy room, surrounded by seven framed yellow winner’s jerseys from the Tour de France. “Back in Austin and just layin’ around,” he wrote. It was a powerful insight into the measure of the man: obviously calculated to inflame further the feelings of those disgusted by his deception. The implication was obvious: he couldn’t give a rat’s what anyone thinks of him. He’d gotten away with the biggest hoax in the history of sport. Armstrong’s toxic presence in the sport of cycling obviously qualifies him for any list of sporting villainy in history. But his performance since takes the cake. But not for the reasons he thinks it does. For those seeking some kind of justice, look no further than the image. There he is in his home – alone – believing that if he keeps his head down, the storm surrounding him will go away. Here is the news, Lance: it will. It’s been interesting to note that his Twitter comments have gone from a regular stream of several a day to just a dribble of late. Wow, one day last month he even had lunch with a friend. Stop the press.

Someone had to become the emblem for Australia’s letdown at the London Olympics, and unfortunately our men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team came in for the biggest underperformance. They came in as world record-holders, fastest qualifiers and hot favourites, with Aussie face-of-the-Games James Magnussen leading from the front. It was a pencil-it-in gold – and, boy, were we thankful that we used pencil and not pen. The team slumped to fourth, beaten out for bronze by France, and Magnussen’s customary air of ultra-confidence was suddenly replaced by his dazed look on the pool deck after the race. Australian relay teams had a proud history of going from underdogs (Mean Machine in 1980, the guitar-smashers of 2000) to victorious – from the more fancied position, the boys of 2012 were an utter disappointment. In the aftermath, relay heat swimmer Tomas D’Orsogna was openly critical of what he saw as the team’s juvenile behaviour in the lead-up to the Games. Here’s hoping the review into Australian swimming has something to say. }

Death, taxes and Mundine in our Ten Worst. You know it’s going to happen, the only intrigue is the method by which The Man chooses to enter the roll in any given year. This time around, it was a fairly typical, if deeply offensive, rant against newly crowned dual World Middleweight titlist Daniel Geale. Promoting their upcoming fight late last year, Mundine went in for his latest ham-handed Muhammad Ali impersonation, disparaging the authenticity of Geale’s Aboriginal heritage. Not content with having gone that far, he went after Geale’s wife and children. The worst thing about it was, if there was ever an opportunity for Mundine to take the high road and let results speak for themselves, this was it – he’s actually beaten Geale before. Mundine later apologised and talked it down as usual pre-fight puff, but for a guy who claims to speak for a people’s cause, he’s rather cavalier about invoking it. Lest we forget, he does actually box for a living, although his sole fight in 2012 will hardly live on in memory – a desultory win in the United States over 41-year-old Bronco McKart.

Back in July, a Swiss court document was released which showed that former FIFA president Joao Havelange and former executive committee member Ricardo Teixeira had received vast kickbacks from the marketing company to whom they’d awarded broadcast rights: around $1.5 million to Havelange and $12.5 million to Teixeira (Havelange’s son-in-law) up until 2001. FIFA, at the behest of current president Sepp Blatter, had funded an extended legal battle to keep the report confidential. When it failed, Blatter attempted to take credit for the report’s release. He also admitted he knew about the bribes at the time, when he held the role of FIFA general secretary, but didn’t think they were illegal. So what did Blatter do about it? Back in 2006 he created an Ethics Committee – this, he said, was a “direct result of the ISL case”. What has he done since then? This year he announced that instead of just one ethics committee, there are now two: an adjudicatory body and an investigatory body. The man is beyond a joke: under his presidency, FIFA did nothing to sanction Havelange or Teixeira. In fact, FIFA did everything in its power to have the prosecutions stopped, then attempted to bury the findings. This from the man who says he encourages transparency in sport, but still refuses to reveal what he earns from his position ... Own goal.

They really need to put something in the Olympic oath about manipulating results. It came to a head in London over the badminton net, when a top-ranked Chinese women’s team lost in a match with no rally longer than four shots. Hours later, a highly-seeded South Korean team lost, then an Indonesian pair. Jeering crowds at the arena were onto them – the Chinese loss meant they avoided playing the second Chinese pair in the semi-final rounds, and thus keeping the chance of a Chinese gold-silver sweep alive. One of the players, Yu Yang, was blunt: “We’ve already qualified, so why would we waste energy?” A South Korean coach used the they-did-it-first defence, criticising the Chinese. The badminton federation reacted by disqualifying eight players, and Yu quit the sport on the spot with one hell of a drama-queen valedictory: “Goodbye Badminton World Federation, goodbye my beloved badminton. You have heartlessly shattered our dreams.” Perhaps the worst thing about it all, conveniently and quickly forgotten by Olympic officials – tanking in the Games is hardly limited to badminton.

Quade Cooper is sorry, apparently. Sorry he called the Wallaby camp a “toxic environment”. Sorry he tweeted that being a Wallaby was “destroying him as a person”. Sorry he said he’d turn down Test jerseys in the future. But most of all, he appears sorry he was hit with a $50,000 fine for his outbursts. And sorry the ARU then offered him a significantly reduced contract. So what does he do? He announces his football career is on hold. For now, he is favouring the option of getting into the ring to pursue a boxing career. Yeah, that’ll work, Quade. If you can show the world you can take repeated punches to the head and deliver a few yourself, that will really reinforce to the rest of us that you’re just a misunderstood and under-appreciated genius who has been unfairly treated by all those rugby toffs. Knock yourself out. }

The tennis prodigy had a year worthy of a Hollywood child star, made worse by the disappointment of Australian tennis supporters desperate for a star to guide them. After an upwardly-trending 2011, Tomic’s regression on the court was only exceeded by his problems off it. There was a litany of first-round losses that looked uglier than the scorelines indicated – when John McEnroe called out Tomic for “tanking” in a US Open loss to Andy Roddick, he was saying what a lot of people were thinking. That loss led to a bizarre press conference confrontation between Tomic and an Australian journalist, but his strained dealings with the media became secondary to run-ins with the law. Police had to be called in to break up a brawl in a penthouse hot tub; a few days later, he was found guilty in magistrates’ court of traffic offences earlier in the year. An exasperated Aussie tennis community was engaging in group therapy by year’s end, questioning Tomic’s maturity, commitment to the game and his relationship with his father-coach. John Newcombe put it best: “Bernie’s out in the real world and I don’t think he’s come to that conclusion.”

It was a tough year on rugby league’s whistle-blowers, with some openly questioning whether the refs could keep up with what the modern game has become. Refereeing is a tough gig, particularly out there in the middle of a rugby league game, and the officials deserve some sympathy for what they cop. The people in the booth, however ... Even with the benefit of replays, slow-motion and various angles, the number of times they got it wrong in critical situations last season left players and fans baffled. Beginning with Greg Inglis’ non-knock-on try that sealed the first State of Origin match, to the Kieran Foran bat-ahead that swung the Manly-North Queensland semi-final, errors were being made that viewers at home could pick up without having to lean forward in their couch. League cognoscenti suggested putting non-refs in the box as a way of improving the system – honestly, they could get better results by having the mass of TV viewers render decisions via a mobile app vote. The NRL’s officiating overhaul for 2013, led by former coach Daniel Anderson, will be tested the moment a ref draws a rectangle with his fingers.