A piece of "friendly fire" feminist flak blindsided me on Friday. It came from a woman I admire, the ABC Breakfast host, Virginia Trioli.

When I expressed on Twitter my outrage at Nick Kyrgios for his absolutely disgraceful sledge of Stan Wawrinka, putting into the public domain smutty allegation about the otherwise entirely private sex life of a 19-year-old woman on the ATP tour, Ms Trioli fired back on Twitter: "@Peter_Fitz But why is it 'the worst thing you can say' to imply that a woman has been with someone else, and not yours alone?'"

The answer is I didn't say that, particularly, only that it is truly appalling, and unforgivable, that this 19-year-old young woman should find Kyrgios making claims as to her private sex life, to use as a baseball bat to bludgeon an opponent with.

As to Kyrgios, regular readers of this column will know I have been a broad defender for 18 months. But no more.

"Sport," as the saying goes, "does not build character, it reveals it." And Kyrgios is now exposed as having none.

He and Bernard Tomic can go on the tour and whinge and whine and carry on for the next 10 years but, personally, I will take no pride in the fact that they bear an Australian passport, and I hope not to see them in Australian colours until such times as they prove themselves worthy of it.

At the moment they are both nothing less than national embarrassments. And if I was one of their sponsors, I would run screaming from the room, tear up the contract, and burn the clothes I was wearing at the time of signing it.

He is a toxic tosser, and there is no way around it. 

Hold kisses for Wallabies

No, you Kiwis. I am not going to cruel the Wallabies chances by publicly predicting their victory on Saturday night at Eden Park for the first time since 1986 – and you can't make me. I might be the Kiss of Death, but I don't just kiss on command. What I can say is that the Wallabies were superb last Saturday night, while the All Blacks just didn't quite look like themselves. If our blokes can hold up in the scrum, and sort out their woeful lineout, at least they can make a game of it. But ... go you good things!

All in the mindset

TFF is, and I mean this, a feminist, but took just a little grief from the sisterhood this week anyway. One bit of grief I expected, the other blindsided me. When I wrote on Thursday that maybe, just maybe, Ian Healy had a point – based on his 15 years in successful Australian dressing rooms – that WAGs on tour with the Australian Test team are not necessarily conducive to high performance, of course I took some flak. Twitter wrote back to me, more in sorrow than in anger, that I just don't get it. No, Twitter, you just don't get it. I grant you that in an ideal world, it would be wonderful if all of us could be with our spouses and kids all the time in the work place and still perform as strongly as ever. But, in the real world, it just doesn't work like that. And in the real world of cricket, can we be surprised that when the touring party – counting WAGs, kids, masseurs, managers, physios and all the rest – was 94 people, the team itself got a tad lost? Ah, but said the smarties, our team was strong enough, with the WAGs around, to thump the Pommies in the second Test! My point, precisely. That second Test showed there was nothing wrong whatsoever with the skills of our blokes. It was their mindset that let them down thereafter. And of course it was not just the WAGs that were the problem, but I can say for a certainty this: if my missus had come with me on rugby tours, and all the others had their wives, too, the experience would have been totally different, and there is no way known we would have had that same special feeling of "team" that we did. Fire, and sneer, at will.  But those are, just the facts, ma'am.

Warnie sunk the boot

Speaking of sledging, Shane Warne's very public sledge of erstwhile Australian coach John Buchanan this week – saying Buchanan should open a can of shut-the-hell-up and gorge himself, when it comes to his opinion of the young Michael Clarke – was not a surprise. Warne has pretty much hated Buchanan from day dot, when the new coach took the team on a "boot camp" in the Gold Coast hinterland to get them fit. At the end of a long day, running up and down hills, chopping wood, swimming rivers and all the rest, Warne found himself next to Buchanan as they pushed a car up a hill. Warne is exhausted, his head hard up against the number plate, busting for a bunger and so parched he can only get a few words out. But finally, he manages it all right. Through gritted teeth he tells Buchanan: "You're a dickhead, and I hate you." This, as the record will show, proved to be merely his opening remarks.

Way to go Buddha

Interesting news this week, that Uzbekistan's national carrier will soon be weighing passengers themselves, and not just their hand luggage, as part of a "flight safety" measure. It brings to mind my favourite yarn about former Wallaby prop Chris "Buddha" Handy, and the time he was in the back blocks of Queensland, about to get on a light plane back to Brissie after a speaking gig.

"How much do you weigh?" the Rex Airlines person behind the counter asked.

"Why?" Buddha asked.

"We need to know how much petrol to put in the plane."

"I'm 250 kilos! FILL IT UP!"

What they said

Nick Kygrios to Stan: "Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend, sorry to tell you that mate." The end.

Stan Wawrinka in reply. "So disappointing to see a fellow athlete and colleague be so disrespectful in a way I could never even imagine. What was said I wouldn't say to my worst enemy. To [stoop] so low is not only unacceptable but also beyond belief." I agree with every word.

Christos Kyrgios, the brother of Nick, reportedly, on MMM Grill Team, in a comment that did not get to air, before they, rightly, cut him off: "She likes Kokk ... " Hilarious, Christos.

Michael Clarke announces his retirement to Shane Warne: "It's the right time. Hopefully I'll get a microphone and sit beside you in the commentary box if Channel Nine will have me."

Clarke to colleague Andrew Webster, over the years, as revealed in Andrew's column yesterday: "Why don't they like me?" Well, this week a lot of them gave him an answer.

Andrew Symonds, started it off on the Today show – thank you, I know – with a head-high: "To me [Clarke] wasn't as natural leader as we've had in the past. It was very easy to fall in behind a Steve Waugh or Ricky Ponting when asked to do something. They were the sort of men that didn't need to say a great deal.  Michael's got a completely different style ... "

Matt Hayden: "I'll never forget the day that Justin Langer couldn't go bat-pad because he had head injuries. We needed someone and usually it goes to the youngest in the side. [Clarke said — 'If I have to wear that, I will hand my baggy green back'."

Courier-Mail on how after deciding to retire, Clarke joined teammates in a hotel bar. "[But he] ended the night drowning his sorrows with former teammate Shane Warne rather than any of the current side." 

The brother of the rugby league player James Ackerman recently killed by a shoulder charge gone wrong, takes issue with a league great who has called for it to be legalised once more: "Someone get the message out there to tell Peter Sterling to arrange a meeting with my family. I'd like him to look at the pain in my mother's eyes and to tell her face to face why he thinks the tackle on my brother should not be banned."

Scotty Stevenson in the NZ Herald, in his pre-Bledisloe review: "This is a nation of men who like to punch unsuspecting sea creatures, and English cricketers. This is a nation of men who hail as their hero a murderous gangster with a penchant for wearing a kettle barbecue on his noggin." Shhh. I think he's on to us.

Team of the week

Michael Clarke. And now, the end is near, and so he faces the final curtain. The forthcoming Test will be his last, after a decade and a bitty in the side.

Wallabies.  Play the All Blacks later today in Auckland for the Bledisloe Cup, after a great win to the Goodies, last week at the Olympic Stadium.

Argentina.  Fine win to the Pumas in South Africa.

Chloe McCardel and Mark Sowberby. The first is the 30-year-old Australian ultra-marathon swimmer who  became the first Australian to complete a triple-crossing of the English Channel. The latter is a 51-year-old Brissie businessman who crossed it once, but raised a squillion for charity in doing so. Bravo to both.

Andrew Blades. Knocked 'em dead, and donated one of his own signed Wallabies jersey, at the St Andrews Cathedral School rugby lunch last week.

Manly Sea Eagles. Call them "butter". They're on a roll. Have climbed off the mat to start swinging, and may yet embarrass the Sea Eagles board, who sacked coach Geoff Toovey, by making the finals!

Trevor Bayliss. Took English cricket from the outhouse to the penthouse. England wins back the Ashes.

Brad Milosevic. Won the City2Surf in 42 minutes and 15 seconds.

Richie McCaw. The All Blacks skipper will receive a world record 142nd cap at Eden Park on Saturday night.

Manly and Eastwood. Playing off in the Shute Shield grand final today at Concord Oval.

Sekope Kepu. The Wallabies front rower's superb try against the All Blacks last Saturday raised for the Cauliflower Club – 700 x $50 = $35,000 for the Rugby Charity! (We are rugby's answer to cricket's Primary Club, which puts in $5 for every Golden Duck by a Test player.