Highs Lows Of Australia apos;s Sporting Year

Unrivalled excellence. Off-field power plays. Breakouts, comebacks, walk-offs and beat-ups.

Australia's sporting year had them all.
Here's some of the top sport stories of 2017:

CAMERON'S CROWNS

Cameron Smith entered the realm of legends with a scarcely believable year of rugby league.

Smith captained Queensland to one the greatest State of Origin triumphs ever - down 1-0 after a home-turf loss and without injured linchpin Johnathan Thurston, the Maroons came back to claim the series.

Smith also won the Dally M; was unlucky not to take the Clive Churchill medal as best-afield in Melbourne's grand final win over North Queensland; and also passed Darren Lockyer's all-time NRL games record of 355.

The inspirational captain then guided Australia to World Cup glory.

And he collected his second Golden Boot as world player of the year to cap one of the most successful years by any Australian athlete, in any sport.

DUSTY'S DREAMTIME

While Smith dominated league, in the AFL it was a shy, tattooed man who broke new ground.

Richmond's Dustin Martin became the only player to win the Brownlow Medal and the Norm Smith medal for best-on-ground in the grand final in the same season, as his Tigers drowned in the delight of ending a 37-year premiership drought.

The unstoppable Martin polled the most votes ever in the Brownlow.

He also collected MVP awards from the coaches' association and the players' association.

Martin became a multi-millionaire in the process, rejecting massive cash offers from rival clubs to re-sign with Richmond for the next seven years in a deal worth more than $1.1 million per season.

PAY OR PLAY

While Martin counts his cash, other elite sportspeople scrapped with their bosses over coin.

Cricketers refused to play.

AFL players threatened to strike. League and rugby union players lobbied for pay rises, as did the nation's domestic soccer players.

Ultimately, player power won out.

The cricket dispute over a fresh collective bargaining agreement caused most anguish - it went unsolved for 10 months and Australia A cricketers refused to go on a tour of South Africa.

ANGE'S ANGST

What coach would quit on the cusp of returning to the biggest stage in world sport?

Ange Postecoglou, that's who.

Postecoglou resigned as Australia's men's soccer coach after securing the nation's spot in a fourth consecutive World Cup.

Postecoglou oversaw the most arduous qualification campaign ever - 22 games in 29 months, with more than 250,000km in travel.

But then he quit in a a shroud of mystery with nobody really sure why.

He offered only "it's the right time for me" as justification - before finally revealing the week before Christmas he was heading to Japan to take control of J-League club Yokohama F.

Marinos.

PEERLESS PEARSON

Sally Pearson won the 100m hurdles at the world titles in London to lay claims as Australia's best-ever track athlete.

Pearson has two world championships and Olympic gold from the 2012 London Games. She also has Olympic and world championship silvers.

Her latest triumph came after a harrowing stretch of injuries - wrist, hamstring and https://telegra.ph/LeBron-James-Family-Foundation-To-Expand-By-Launching-New-Community-Center-03-07 achilles - which led some pundits to query if she was a spent force.

The thought never crossed Pearson's famously steely mind.

WRINKLED COATES

The Australian Olympic Committee imploded in a swirl of bullying claims and a sour election campaign.

John Coates retained the AOC presidency, surviving the first challenge for the role in his 27-year tenure.

But the campaign of challenger Danni Roche unearthed skeletons in the AOC's closet.

An independent review was scathing of the AOC's workplace practices and Coates' right-hand man, media director Mike Tancred, departed despite being cleared of bullying claims.

NICK OFF

Tennis brat Nick Kyrgios was the good, bad and downright ugly.

The good: he beat Novak Djokovic twice in a month and also downed world No.1 Rafael Nadal to showcase his immense talent.

The bad: first-round exits at grand slams in Paris, London and New York.

The ugly: spitting the dummy and walking off after losing the first set in match at the Shanghai Masters - an act which cost him a $40,000 fine.

BORING BERNARD

Kyrgios' tennis compatriot Bernard Tomic also copped a fine - a Wimbledon record amount of around $20,000 - for saying he was bored during his first-round loss at the world's premier tournament.

BEN'S BREAKOUT

Ben Simmons is aged just 21.

And only made his NBA debut in October this year.

But already he's been dubbed as potentially Australia's greatest basketballer.

Simmons is earning rave reviews for outstanding displays for the Philadelphia 76ers and has even been told by icon LeBron James that he could be "better than me".

HORN SOUNDS

Boxer Jeff Horn took the WBO welterweight belt from the legendary Manny Pacquiao, an 11-times world champ, in a brutal battle in Brisbane in April.

Horn's triumph was a win for a good guys, completing a remarkable tale from being a bullied schoolboy to a boxing giant-killer.

Horn's achievement earnt him the Sport Australia Hall of Fame's The Don award for most inspirational athlete.

FLIPPIN' SENSATION

Sam Kerr morphed from an in-house performer to a household name with stunning displays for the national women's soccer team, the Matildas.

Kerr's backflip celebration when scoring became her trademark - and she netted plenty in a breakout year capped by winning the Asian Football Confederation's women's player of the year gong.

The 24-year-old also played a starring role as the Matildas won the Tournament of Nations.

WINNERS ARE GRINNERS

Apart from Melbourne Storm's and Richmond's successes, Sydney FC took every domestic soccer trophy on offer - the A-League championship, premiers' plate and the FFA Cup.

Surfer Tyler Wright won consecutive women's world titles; Rekindling, ridden by Corey Brown, won the Melbourne Cup.

But the Wallabies failed to win back rugby union's Bledisloe Cup for a 15th straight year.