It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … We’re referring to the various sporting fortunes of Australia and Britain right now. On one hand, the Brits have won Wimbledon, the Tour de France and the Lions series, while giving Michael Clarke’s boys a nasty touch-up in the Ashes. On the other, we’ve won, well … Seventeen-year-old Melbournian Feliks Zemdegs was recently crowned Rubik’s Cube World Champion in Las Vegas. (Actually, for a full rundown of our recent world champions, check out our “Honour Roll” on page 24 of our September 2013 edition.) Nonetheless, it’s been a hungry winter for Australian sport.

All of which has made our domestic footy codes all the more attractive. Say what you will about our cricketers and rugby players, our cyclists and tennis players but, gee, the Hawks and the Rabbitohs are world-class teams. We’d like to see the Poms put one over them …

So you can imagine our horror, as we assembled our lists of the toughest men in the AFL and NRL, the hard-men who’ll define this month’s finals series, when we discovered that the first man on our rugby league list was – you guessed it – Sam Burgess, a Pom (page 48). Hell, his little brother George wasn’t far behind, either. Still, we can assure you there’s not a single Brit on our AFL list (page 54). And thank god for that. The day that a Pom is considered the toughest man in Aussie rules is the day to raise the Union Jack over the MCG, place a sombre hand over our hearts, and croak out a mournful rendition of God Save The Queen. Surely then, our humiliation will be complete …

Of course, there’s more than footy finals dominating the news this month – there’s also a looming election. And one of the hot-button issues of this election is asylum seekers, with both the Coalition and Labor straining to trumpet a tougher border-security policy. But, while lives are lost at sea and hordes of asylum seekers are corralled behind barbed wire, foreign athletes are fast-tracked through the immigration process and shuttled into our national teams. Witness the incredible rise of former Pakistani leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed. Is this well-managed immigration? Or is this gross political expediency? Check out our lead feature on page 40 and make your own call.