The potential is there, but the motivation and enterprise is spasmodic at best. More can and should be done befitting the largest inland city in the state. The sports hall of fame has the foundations to provide new thrust but it needs sustainable funding and a new location close to the city along either the Sturt Highway or Olympic Way routes.

Above all, cohesion is essential to bring together the sports potential of our city.

The situation is far from all doom and gloom; indeed, at a recent function at Robertson Oval visiting cricket officials from Sydney and one from England were high in their praise for the nets named after cricket coach Warren Smith, ranking them as the finest non-turf nets complex anywhere.

However, pointing to the amenities block in the middle of the three Bolton Park ovals, the visitors remarked how much the venue would be greatly enhanced with a well-designed pavilion similar to the village green type construction at Dubbo’s Victoria Park or Albury’s new $1.8m facility at Urana Road.

On a recent tour our colleagues stopped at the Captains Walk in Cootamundra (where, incidentally, a radio journalist from Melbourne’s Fox FM was interviewing people enjoying its features), and the nearby home where Sir Donald Bradman lived as a child; Bowral’s world class Bradman Museum and on to Nowra where Shoalhaven councils and the local turf club are planning a $250,000 bronze statue to be called Archers Homecoming.

The statue will recognise Archer, the Nowra-bred winner of the first two Melbourne Cups (1861-2), his trainer Etienne de Mestre (the second most successful trainer in cup history) and jockey Johnny “Cutts” Dillon.

The organisers are seeking donations from a $2 coin to $5000 (which will give the donor recognition on a plaque at the base of the statue).

Which raises a question for Wagga’s civic leaders, what has happened to Warren Smith’s proposal for a statue (preferably centrepiece to a brand new Hall of Fame) of Scobie Breasley, Wagga’s famous jockey, whom many, including this column, rate as easily the city’s premier sportsperson?  

As a Melbourne supporter of the Archers Homecoming project said, “Nowra is sitting on a tourism gold mine and doesn’t even know it”; the same might apply to Wagga.

It is not just sport’s personalities we should focus upon.

While Wagga’s Gold Cup is a given, the column learned this week that Wollundry Rotary’s recently established Gears and Beers festival may attract close to 2500 cyclists next year, not counting those who might come just to sample the craft beer and cider at the festival.

Cowra was also on our recent tour list and what the town achieved from being a WW2 site of the famous Cowra Prison breakout and now has a multi-million dollar spin-off from the Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre is nothing short of brilliant.

If Wagga council wants any more encouragement a visit to Nowra’s Fleet Air Arm museum should inspire a similar project here given the city’s rich history through Kapooka, Forest Hill and Uranquinty tri-service establishments, not to mention the nation’s only field marshal, Sir Thomas Blamey, was born here.

When do we get cracking?