EVERY now and then, the role of being Australian cricket captain is compared to the prime ministership, with John Howard himself once saying he felt he had only the second-most important job in the nation. It is a privileged position – practically an international diplomatic role – carrying a responsibility far beyond merely setting the field placings properly and leading the troops on the field. Which brings us to Ricky Ponting. With his extraordinarily petulant behaviour in recent times, if he were PM, he would surely be answering a knock on the door to find six or so faceless men come to give him the tap on the back, the message that it is time to go. Having such a tantrum in the dressing-room after an early dismissal that a TV set gets broken? Grown men don't do that. Hurling the ball down with rage after a minor misunderstanding over who was to catch the ball? If a 12-year-old did that, any coach worth his salt would stand him down for a week to teach him a lesson. But when you're Australian cricket captain, perhaps only the prime minister has sufficient authority to do it. The point is, it can't go on. With his 37th birthday appearing on the horizon, a lovely wife and child at home, and another reportedly on the way, Ponting could be forgiven, and admired, for thinking: “What am I doing here? I am tired of a life of young blokes, dressing-rooms, injuries, physios, press conferences, low scores, bus banter and all the attendant nonsense. I am too old for this. I want to go home to my missus and kids.” But he needs to act on it. Go home, Ricky, once this World Cup is over, and call it a day. You've had a fantastic career, and done enough. Go home. We'll all applaud warmly. But staying out there, behaving like a brat of a prat, and not getting many runs besides, is not doing anyone any good. Even if you're not embarrassed by that kind of footage, we are. WRITE STUFF

The well-known author Larry Writer has come out with a book, Bumper, about the legendary Newtown rugby league player and Sydney policeman Frank “Bumper” Farrell, chockers with anecdotes about his life and times on and off the field. Somehow the legend of Farrell looms so large in this town that I had always imagined him to be a giant, but Writer notes that, far from it, he was first knocked back for admission to the police force because he was too small! HEADLINE NEWS

Last week, TFF mentioned the News Of The World's fabulous headline after Eric Cantona did the flying kung-fu kick on the abusive fan: “The Shit Hits The Fan!” In response, several readers pointed out that a few years earlier, when a stroppy fan had king-hit Bernie Ecclestone (of formula one fame,) it was widely reported as the first use of the term, “The Fan Hitting the Shit”. One reader though still maintains the best headline of all was after Pat Cash beat Ivan Lendl in the 1987 Wimbledon final, when the Herald led with “CZECH CASHED". And finally, TFF's beloved Granny, Column 8, recently ran a yarn about a sausage dog named Tyson, after famed English faster bowler Frank Tyson. Seemed he had four short legs and his balls swung both ways . . . Thank you, thank you all! I'm here 'til Thursday! BIG IN JAPAN

In the midst of a nation in mourning, Fitzfile Mr X nevertheless went to a tiny Kyoto restaurant last Friday afternoon. The atmosphere was, as you would expect, muted, but he knew a few of the locals well enough to have some small conversations in broken Japanese about the latest news from the stricken earthquake area. But what's this? An old Japanese man who points to Mr X's Irish rugby jersey and asks about it. Mr X explains that, though he is Australian, he is of Irish heritage. “Ah, the Australian jersey is all black, yes,” someone else offers up. "No, no, no,” Mr X explains, “the Wallabies have gold jerseys.” The ancient one, pauses, scratches his brow. “Hmmm . . . the Wallabies?” “Hai!” says Mr X. Another pause. Another scratch. And then all of a sudden his face lights up, and he exclaims . . . “CAMPESE!!” UNI BUMMER

Meanwhile? Meanwhile, there was an interesting suspension of a champion basketball player, Brandon Davies, at Brigham Young University in Utah last week. His sin? Well, funny you should ask that. Because, according to the Mormon authorities at his uni, he really did SIN, and that is why he had to go. See, he had breached the school's “honour code”. Yes'm folks, he admitted to sleeping with his girlfriend. All students at BYU have to agree to “live a chaste and virtuous life”, and that means no drinking, no smoking, no tea drinking, no coffee drinking, no substance abuse and – above all – no ROOTING! I not only think it is fabulous but also that the NRL should introduce it immediately as the solution to all their ills. Mind you, after they make their comebacks due to the dreadful attrition rates in the regular ranks, it might get tiring seeing Jason Stephens and Andrew Ettingshausen turn up week after week to have a nice game of chess in the middle of the SFS – in lieu of a league game – but by gawd we'd get used to it! Team of the week

Brisbane Roar. Came back from two goals down late in extra time to win the A-League grand final.Sydney Boys High First XI. Convincingly beat the the highly regarded Scots College First XI for their first victory in the GPS cricket competition in two years.

The NSW First XI. I am reliably informed that for the first time in the history of the world, in their recent Sheffield Shield match against Western Australia (yes, it still goes on), the first seven in the batting line-up were mollydookers. Step forward: Phillip Hughes, Dave Warner, Usman Khawaja, Phil Jaques, Simon Katich, Scott Coyte and Ben Rohrer. Italian rugby team. Beat France 22-21 at the Stadio Flaminio in their Six Nationsclash. Eric Grothe jnr. We will all soon be seeing more of the retired Parramatta NRL star in the media world. He is a real talent. Christchurch Earthquake Relief. There’ll be a fund-raiser for the Christchurch earthquake on March 25 at Easts Rugby Club, with an All Black theme. Contact Marie msigg@stvincents.com.au for details. Motza Punters Rugby Union Football Club. The group of mates who all resided at StAlberts College, University of New England a decade ago entered a team in the Armidale Rugby Knockout Carnival to raise money for a new wheelchair for their friend and fellow old Collegian, James Horsbrough. And despite limited fitness, and no preparation, they finished third and raised the princely sum of ten grand! What they said

Rugby league fan Soliman Naimey who is of Sri Lankan ethnicity, on whether he taunted Benji Marshall by calling him a “black c---”: “Look at my skin colour – what do you think?” A fairly conclusive defence on that charge, I would have thought ... unless he was channelling Timana Tahu?Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd on his chances of resuming the prime ministership at the expense of Julia Gillard. “It’s more likely for me to be captain of the Broncos.” Just so long as you don’t say you’re better than Darren Lockyer, or there will be hell to pay! David Morrow on Grandstand 702’s coverage of Newcastle’s thrashing of Penrith last Saturday, at the finish of the game: “One game doesn’t make a swallow.”Young British taekwondo competitor Aaron Cook, is also a champion tickboxer: “The next 18 months are the most important of my life. Winning a home Olympics would tick all the boxes, and I will then hopefully go on to be one of the greatest of all time.”Either Kevin Sheedy: sees the glass 99.99 per cent full; has actually consumed a few too many; or he needs to buy some new ones. But he DID find the upside of the GWS team losing their first four games by a total of more than 400 points: “We probably got half a season’s worth of improvement and experience ... From an education and a playing point of view, we won.” You can’t make this stuff up! French coach Marc Lievremont is tres unamused after his players lost to Italy in the rugby’s Six Nations. But he knows where the blame lies: “Do I feel responsible for that? No, [the players] betrayed us, they have betrayed me and they have betrayed the French national team shirt. In terms of the tactics deployed, it defied belief. I did not recognise anything in their performance that we had worked on.”Hang on, he’s still not finished. Tu disait, Marc: “Do you really think that I told them to play as they did against Italy? I was ashamed. I do not have the impression we asked them to walk on the moon. I do not ask for complicated things. This match was an hallucination. I do not want to clear myself from the blame but they invented things on the pitch. They are lacking in courage. They are good guys but cursed with what is obviously cowardice.”British sports presenter Alice Plunkett: “I’m joining you from the paddock here where two horses were accidentally electrocuted ... Today we have three more live races for you.” A gleeful young ABC sports reporter after Canberra beat Cronulla: “The Raiders are now second on the ladder.”Israel Folau on playing Aussie rules: “You’ve got to talk a lot more than league and let your teammates know what’s happening. I’m not really a talkative person so I’ll have to pick that up as soon as I start playing more games.” Hello, AFL marketing department. Yeah, Andrew Demetriou here. Listen, I think we need to have a little chat ...

pfitzsimons@smh.com.au