Vengeful Aussies back Henman

Australian rugby fans are trying to prevent Jonny Wilkinson from winning the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award - by voting for Tim Henman.

It is believed that thousands of Aussie ex-pats have logged on to the BBC website and registered a vote for Henman to stop England's top fly-half winning.

Jonny Wilkinson is such an overwhelming favourite to lift the BBC trophy bookmakers have stopped taking bets on him.

Apart from scoring the winning points for England in the dying seconds of the Rugby World Cup final against the Australians, the 24-year-old is England's record scorer with an incredible 817 points.

By comparison Tim Henman, Britain's number one tennis player, has consistently underachieved.

The "anti-Jonno e-mail campaign" was launched in revenge for the hijacking of an Australian newspaper poll by England fans.

The Sydney Morning Herald found 79 per cent of 53,000 voters described the "soggy semifinal" as "scintillating."

But a tip-off by an Australian in London revealed that most of the votes had come from England fans.