Saints Gone????

Being an avid Saints fan I am shocked at the way the once mighty Dragons have fallen in a heap lately for no apparent reason. 3 weeks ago people (not me) were saying they were unbeatable and were a shoe in for the minor and major premiership. After 3 straight loses, each worse than the last, the Saints look like simply making up the numbers in the finals. Surely this Friday against Parra something positive has to come out in Saints play or their season is all but over. Form is a wonderful thing and Saints simply have lost it at the wrong time!

Let's put this in Perspective

While I agree that the selectors did a very poor job and Ponting is a fairly crappy captain, I submit the following evidence that
a) it can be hard to pick a team when you don't have much to choose from
and
b) it is a shitload harder to captain a team when your players aren't very good.

Lets compare the 2001 Ashes team- arguably the strongest team sent from these shores- to the 2009 Ashes team

2001- Slater, Hayden, Ponting (much better than 2009 by the way), S Waugh, M Waugh, Martyn, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee (roughly 20000 times better than the 2009 version), Gillespie, McGrath.

Some of the players left out of this team included players the calibre of Langer, Law, Bevan, Lehmann, Kasprowicz, Bichel and MacGill. All of whom would've walked into the Ashes teams in 2009.

Now, would that have been a difficult team to pick or captain? I'm pretty confident that my 3 year old daughter couldve captained that team to Ashes glory. The only player from 2009 that may- only may- have cracked the 2009 team was Clarke at the expense of Martyn (I'd stick with Martyn who was in his prime at the time and was awesome in that series). No one else would've even been mentioned at the selection table.

So when everyone bemoans Ponting and yes, even the selectors lets just think about how spoiled we have been for the last 20 years. Sure, they should've played a spinner in the last test but it's not like they left out Warne or MacGill. Sure they could've dropped Johnson or Hussey, but they didn't exactly have options like Kasper or Boof to go to.

I think it's fair to say that it's also slightly easier to toss the ball to the likes of McGrath, Gillespie and Warne as well as setting consistently attacking fields than the average crop we have today.

Ashes summary

I wanted to get on here 1st and given my summary on another diabolical ashes campaign by our Australia cricket side. After losing the 5th test this morning and losing our grip on the Ashes urn once again, questions have to be asked.
1. Why was a part timer like Marcus North bowled for so long in the 1st test in Cardiff? England were 9 down and Ponting bowled North for over an hour at the end with the last 2 England batsmen seeing him off and drawing the test they should have lost easily. Surely any of the spearheads should have been bowling and dishing up chin music with fielders all around the bat. More poor captaincy I am afraid.
2. Why take Hauritz and not play him on a very spin friendly wicket? Even 1 week before the test started there was rumours that this track was to be a bit juicy and conducive to spin, so why not use your apparent best spinner? Another poor selection from our POOR selectors.
3. Why can't Australia bat against good swing bowling? We have had 4 years to learn how to play swing bowling and still have no fucking idea against it! Some of the poor decision making and shot selection sometimes makes the bowling look better than it really is but most of the time we were totally clueless.
Several things need to happen or Australia will continue to fall down the test ranking at a rapid rate.
1.We need to sack the selection panel. For years they have relied on the brilliance of players such as Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist and co to get us out of trouble, with them gone their selection mistakes are magnified. Not using Stuart Clark earlier in the series was a huge mistake when our bowlers for most of the part couldn't put any sustained pressure on the poms. Clark might not have taken many wickets but I guarantee he wouldn't have went for 4 1/2 runs per over either.
2. Ponting needs to give up the captaincy to Clarke immediately. Ponting is a very very average captain who makes poor decisions that have let teams off the hook quite a bit in his tenure. Great batsmen, great fielder, not captaincy material.
3. Hussey to be put back to no6 to save his career. Although he scored a ton in the penultimate innings, Hussey was looking like a park cricketer sometimes. Move him back to no6 and get his form and confidence back. If not he will continue to struggle and eventually be dropped.
4. Cut Brett Lee permanently. He was a good bowler in his time but hasn't been uninjured for years. The constant distraction and fuss over Lee from test 4 and 5 couldn't be good for the team and showed with their non results.
5. Make pitches to suit our strengths. Every country rolls out a wicket that will benefit their bowling lineup. India have dry turners, England have green seamers yet Australia has turned out flat boring pitches for years. Make out pitches fast and bouncy and give our pace attack a chance. The days of preparing turning wickets are over until we get a quality spinner so make them like rock and bring on the chin music.

Overall it was a terribly disappointing series which Australia should have romped in against an England side that lost their best batsmen (Pieterson) early in the series and were outplayed for lots of the series.

How good is Rugby League

As the title says, How good is rugby league at the moment? Apart from the continual off field problems the rugby league being played is great to watch. It is especially exciting considering we are getting to the pointy end of the season and there are still many teams that could take out the title. My predictions for the resat of the year are as follows.
Top 8
Dragons
Dogs
Titans
Storm
Eels
Manly
Tigers
Knights

Dally M
Soward

Top Tries
Tuiaki

Points
Hazem el Grub

Grand Final
Dogs Vs Manly-Winner Dogs

"42 Seconds of Jibber"

This germ continues to remind me of Nina. All things have been going rosey for St George this season until the diabolical loss on the weekend, and this grub gets the media and most of the general public offside with what can be only described as the world's worst interview. It wasn't as if he was being hounded by the press either, the club put forward 2 players each week to answer a few questions, so he knew all along what he was there for. Or did he? He may well just be as stupid as his answers make him out to be in the infamous interview. Many journalists travelled over an hour to Wollongong to get a few interviews done for tv and radio and have said they won't return thanks to Boyd's woeful dribbling effort yesterday.

This c#nt got off pretty lightly from the media during last year's cubicle incident and should be thankful to them for his relatively easy run from them instead focussing on the more talented Hunt and Thaiday. No one really cared about the pimply teenager also involved with the other high profile stars. Instead he dolls out this tripe and has now got everyone offside with St George, and those that were anyway, even more so now. For those that missed it, here's a transcript of the pitiful, germlike performance by Boyd. You must see it on tv though, because the words simply don't do it justice:

Q: Up against the Broncos, excited about facing your old mates?
A: Yeah, can't wait.
Q: That excited?
A: Yep.
Q: Did you watch them play last week?
A: No I didn't.
Q: What's the strategy going into the game?
A: We'll decide that on Wednesday I suppose.
Q: Happy to score another try, it was a good one?
A: Yeah, it was good, eh.
Q: Second one of the season, it's taken a while, you must be keen to be coming into form at the right time of the season.
A: No it was good.
Q: What are your thoughts on the way your team is going at the moment Darius?
A: Um, yeah, it was pretty good, eh.
Q: Are you fair dinkum?
A: Yeah.

WTF

After watching another very poor and unfulfilling golf major this week with that unknown Asian bloke beating Tiger, I was thinking of the most unexpected winners in sport. Here is a few that I can think of off hand.
1. Steven Bradbury in the 500m speed skating at the Winter Olympics. Scraped into the semis where he was ecstatic to be and watched basically the whole field fall down and scrape himself into the final. Bradbury lurked out the back, again just elated to be in a final and again watched the whole field fall on the last turn an rolled over the line as the last man standing to take the Gold.
2. Australia Vs Sth Africa 2003 World Cup Semi. Sth Africa were cruising to an easy win with Lance Klusener belting everything and needing 10 off the last over. 2 crushing fours off the 1st 2 balls made it a forgone conclusion, 2 off 4 balls. next ball Allan Donald should have been run out which surely meant Australia were gone. Next ball Klusener basically hit and run and Allan Donald forgot how to run and was run out at the strikers end handing Australia a very unlikely win.
3. Greg Normans famous collapse at the US Open back in the 90's. Norman was killing it leading by 6 in the last round when he lost his mind and starting playing like a hacker at the local Golf Course. Ended up losing b y about 4 strokes to Faldo.
4. The Paul Carridge fiasco. With Parra leading the unlosable semi final against the Bulldogs (see earlier post about Carridge for more details) they blew a 18-2 lead with 20 to go to lose in extra time and end Paul Carridges career. This was in an era where points weren't scored quickly.

That is a start let me know your favourite memories of great sporting upsets and improbable wins.

Number 1 Pick for sure

This is the number 1 pick in the NFL draft this year Matthew Stafford. He will be QB for the Lions this year. The NFL thinks he has 'questionable' character.....I thinke he is doing just fine....we would have no troubles with him over here....yanks are soft....

Seriously!!!!!

Seriously how dumb are league players?
He is close to the best player in the world.
Indigenous heritage opens huge prospects for him in marketing ect.

So what does he do?

Goes home and slaps him missus around just to highlight and perpetuate the community’s views on Aboriginal domestic violence. Well done idiot.

OFF TOPIC- World's biggest grub

I know this is a sports blog but I couldn't go without commenting that it is so good to see this jerk get what is coming to him. He is a talentless prick who has made a career out of expoloiting and belittling people stupider than he is. He is not funny, charismatic or likable. He has no discernable redeeming features or qualities. Yet morons in our society listen to and watch him allowing him to become rich and famous.

Now he has overstepped the line (I understand the arguments that the mother is equally to blame but clearly she isn't all there and he is ultimately responsible for what he puts on air) and his career is a shambles as everyone now realises what he really is. I couldn't be happier- this germ will now lose everything and it couldn't happen to a more fitting fuckwit.

GAY-FL 'Victory' Songs

F*#k I hate these songs being played immediately after a GAY-FL team wins a simple game of footy every week, and worse still, when the camera has to go down into the sheds to subject us to these ponces hug and cuddle whilst belting out these gay anthems after EVERY single victory of the year. Fair enough maybe for a Melbourne or a Richmond who are putrid and only win a game or two a year to get away with it, or better still if you win a Grand Final when ANYTHING goes, but to do it EVERY single week and on national tv is embarrassing and absurd in my opinion.

As if watching this putrid game isn't woeful enough, but then being subjected to the atrociousness of grown men clinging to each other singing faggoty team songs straight after full time..... Give me the league mungo chants and the excessive bin belting any day!

Ponies not Broncos

For those who watched the rugby league game on Saturday night between Canberra and Brisbane you would have been expecting a tight tussle between 2 desperate sides. What ensued was a diabolical even comical game between a white hot Raiders side and a Broncos side far from interested in playing semi final football. You would have thought with their season on the line and a host of talent back in the line up that the Broncos would have been very hard to beat, they wouldn't have beaten their under 20's side with the effort they put up. Players like Justin Hodges, who are meant to lead their young line up, were seen basically giving up when things got tough. Lockyer is a shadow of his former best and must surely be heading for a imminent retirement. Hunt couldn't care less as he is off in a couple of months and the forwards they bought and brought up are inept and well off the pace. If things keep going the way they currently are the axe will have to be wielded and a few high profile stars given some time in park footy. From what I saw on Saturday night the once mighty Broncos are no more that Ponies and wont be playing semi final footy for the 1st time in 18 years.