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Just off Australia’s largest container port lies a sickle-shaped neighborhood with a scent so distinctive that passing taxi drivers will sometimes roll down their windows for a whiff of the rich and unmistakably beery aroma.

Bitterness in the right place, with a full beery back.

It happened in a tournament of 53 teams, at a time when the selection process seemed much more raffish and maybe even beery.

But when my father picked up the telephone on the sixth or seventh ring, his voice, beery and irritated, gave me a hard, dry feeling in my throat and I hung up.

Even the humble, beery gathering to watch the game at home is deemed ill advised.