If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Aussies love a sports hero. On the international stage, Australians are hardwired to support our fellow countrymen when they represent us. We cheered on as Steven Bradbury and his blonde tips won a gold medal by default.

We replicated John Aloisi’s Suns out Guns out celebration when he sent us to the world cup for only the second time in our history.

Hell, we convinced ourselves Sam Worthington was a real actor, all because he grew up in Warnbro, WA. Coincidentally, ‘Warnbro’ is also what you do when someone asks you how that new Sam Worthington movie was.

“Hey man how was-“

“Just don’t”

So for a nation so dedicated to its own, our latest batch of young guns has left us…wanting. With Tomic and Kyrgios performing the double act of Ass and Hole we have few options left with which to scratch our patriotic itch.

Enter this bloke.

Matthew Dellavedova the Australian hero

This is Matthew Dellavedova, our nation’s lord and savior, destined to drag us out of the bitchy, unsportsmanlike purgatory we have endured for too long. Bench warmer for the Cleveland Cavaliers, ‘Delly’ starred in the 2015 NBA finals after most of his team got injured. In Bradbury-esque brilliance he stepped up, drank his pregame coffee and shut down the league MVP after everyone had counted him out. While the Cavs were unsuccessful in their quest for the title in 2015, the legend was born, but he was far from done.

Cut to next season and Delly signs a team friendly deal to stay with Cavs, then proceeding to work his ass off just like he has his entire career. Look at this kid.

He doesn’t look like he can make the cut for his school team; he looks like the uncoordinated potato that gets five minutes a game because his parents complained to the coach. His athleticism didn’t take him to stardom, his manic work ethic did.

Even after all his work he is still leagues behind the athletic freaks of the NBA. For Delly to win, he must embody the truly Australian ideology, ‘if the ref doesn’t call it, it must be legal’. As a result, Delly has been crowned the ‘Dirtiest player in the NBA’, which hasn’t made him liked by the rest of the league.

However, to the Australian public, this is pretty much the greatest thing. From Brad Haddin sledging the New Zealanders for ‘being too nice’ to Michael Clark telling James Anderson to brace for a ‘f-ing broken arm’, Australians get around an ultimate competitor.

On the court Delly is a maniac, however what we as a nation love about this beardy weirdo is how he is off the court. After signing with the Milwaukee Bucks for $38 million dollars, the first thing he does is thank the city that paid him peanuts for years.

He then proceeds to suit up in the green and gold and become the leader in the Boomers locker room. The man is as humble as they come, something best showed in the finals after party. After unseating the greatest regular season team in NBA history, surrounded with the richest of the rich and thousand dollar bottles of champagne, we see this in the crowd. Our hero with a can of Corona.

Then in Rio, where the Olympic village is currently uninhabitable, the US athletes chose to stay on a private yacht. Compare that to Delly and where he is staying.

No complaints, no whingeing. Just a smile that he’s proud to be there, proud to represent all of us, an Aussie kid’s picture of support proudly displayed on the wall.

No drama. No tantrums. Just Corona in a can. Just Delly.

by Ben Carroll – contributor