Wow, Chappelli must be reading this site:
“Australia are now not only a team searching for answers and confidence but are also a side whose aura has faded,” Chappell wrote in London’s The Sunday Telegraph.
“This lack of an air of invincibility will be the hardest thing to rediscover.”
I said something like that too.
And if I didn’t I meant to.
Does he have his own blog??
NB He might have wrote it in some Pommy paper but I flogged it from Sportal.com.au.
The proverbial one horse race is now starting to look a little bit more crowded.
Mid-way through the tri-series no one would have given you a thing for the Aussies to win the World Cup.
All of a sudden, it’s an 8 horse race.
If you were taking a four horse boxed quinnella (see www.tab.co.nz!) then here’s what I’d take:
1. Australia – still have the talent to do it on the day but whether they can do it consistently and under pressure is now the big question
2. New Zealand – don’t ask for consistency – hope for a couple of one off efforts in a row to get into the final and then one more one off effort
3. Sri Lanka – horses for courses, track conditions to suit, match winners, under no pressure
4. Pakistan – as long as some of their stars are scratched!!
England has some recent form to recommend, as does South Africa altho the Yarpies specialise in self destructing in the WC (albeit with some outside influence). Hard to see the West Indies doing it at home unless they can run on emotion and Lara scores some runs. Indian can’t win away from home.
There it is … off to the TAB to collect!
OK, lets get the numbers sorted first. If the Argies join the Tri Series then it can’t be the Tri Series any more. Glad we got that sorted.
On the surface, the Argies joining the Four Nations (sounds like a 60’s pop group doesn’t it?) sounds like a really good idea.
OK, it would add to the travel schedule but we seem to be able to zip off to Yarpie land every second weekend. And it’s got to beat playing the Yarpies and Ockers 500 times a season.
The practical issue is that for all that the IRB fishheads want this to happen, the professional Argies all play in the northern hemisphere and to say that they will be happy to let their players jet off to play in the Four Nations (not the pop group) is like saying Eddie Jones loves the Sanzar judiciary.
The other problem is that the Sanzar partners have just signed a new tele deal which lasts another 5 years (or so – I might have made that up but it sounds about right and you’re no wiser anyway).
So there you have it. It will sell a few more papers, make fish and chips more interesting for a couple of days and die a natural death until the Yarpies take off and join the Northern countries.
So it may end up being the Tri Nations after all – Oz, NZ and the Argies.
It’s week 4 of the Super 12 plus a couple of other teams and you’d expect things to be settling down a bit.
By now, we should have a fair idea of how the resting of the AB’s are going.
At the end of week 4, the Canes and the Blues are in the top two positions, with the Crusaders and the Not So Highlanders 5th and 6th.
Admittedly, the Sharks and Tahs have played a game less but even so there woul dbe two NZ teams in the top 4 with 4 teams in the seven.
Looks like the rest & recuperation policy is killing Kiwi chances in the Super 14 doesn’t it?
Frankly, it shows how week the competition is. The South Africans have never won it and the Aussies don’t have the depth for three proper teams, let alone four.
What’s worse, the games themselves have been for the most part poor and perhaps that’s where resting the AB’s is hurting the comp.
Having said that, resting the AB’s had nothing to do with the Reds and Brumbies scoring 9 points between them in 80 minutes of rugby.
Obviously, until the World Cup is run and won, we won’t know whether there was the right idea or not. However, you’ve got to think it’s developing yet another level of depth that the other countries simply can’t aspire to.
Or, perhaps less charitably, it explodes the myth of rugby being a truly international game, at least at the provincial level.
As long as the Canes keep on winning, I don’t care how strong or weak the rest of the Sanzar countries are!
The Aussies are taking the recent losses well … yeah right.
The Tui boards couldn’t have said it better.
Even former-coach Bobby Simpson (no relation to Bart) is having a crack at the Aussie team and Shane Watson in particular.
You’d like to think that from here it would be tough for the cobbers to claim the World Cup but you wouldn’t put it past them.
It’s hard to know whether the media is getting their retaliation in first and then if the Aussies do win they will claim they were backing the team all the way.
Let’s hope this is a taste of what is to come for the All Blacks … how about we rest Dan Carter until the World Cup starts??
Even Peter Fitzsimmons is getting into the Aussie bashing.
Take the medicine
Stand still, these won’t hurt a bit. From a Kiwi mate:Q. What’s the difference between an Australian bowler and a rubber tyre? A. A rubber tyre rises to the pressure.
Q. What’s the difference between an Aussie bowler and a pack of Immodium? A. A pack of Immodium can stop the runs.
Q. What’s the difference between an Aussie bowler and a boiling egg? A. Some eggs don’t crack even under pressure.
Having said that, his column in the SMH each Saturday is definitely worth the price of the paper … err, the cost of an internet connection.
OK, so the Aussies have lost 3 zip to NZ and 2 zip to the Poms.
Want to see pix of NZ beating Oz?
Sorry but how about a picture of Brett Lee injurying him self.
Try a GALLERY of Brett Lee pictures.
It’s hard-lee worth blogging about …
Time to make the big decision.
Who to bat number 4 in the cricket world cup?
Who’s going to win this week’s games in the Super14?
Nope – the big decision is what happens next with the NZ A-league license. (If you still need help, we’re talking about the Knightz. And if you need MORE help, that’s “football” … err, soccer.)
You would think that after two failed experiments in Auckland, soccer administrators would learn a lesson.
You would think that after the Kingz got their biggest crowd ever in Wellington, they may take a hint.
The fact that Wellington has the best stadium in the country and the Wellingtonians get out and support events would seem to make this a no-brainer.
Mind you, we are talking to soccer administrators and no brains is almost the same as no-brainer.
It’s sad – soccer has the opportunity to give the game a real shot in the arm by making the NZ A-league team a truly national team.
Instead, the fear is that the decision will be made on the basis of the strategic need for NZ soccer administrators to be able to tootle down the highway and have a latte with the team admin.
So we won’t know where the team will be based tomorrow but we will know if there is likely to be a team in NZ next season.
Let’s hope there is a team and that the team is based somewhere where the punters will get off their butts.
I was confident we would win all three Happle * games. Yeah right.
I was relieved when we the first, over the moon we won the second and turned off the internet when we were 8 down in the third. More fool me.
The Aussies are making a lot of play about the fact they had so many injuries or players unavailable.
At the same time, the NZ team that won the highly improbable third game was short at least four first pick players – Kyle Mills, Jake Oram, Bond Shane Bond, and Dan Vettori. Those four alone are the core of a handy team.
It’s easy to knock the Black Caps when they are down. Because of the All Blacks, we tend to have highly unreasonable expectations of our sports teams and success.
Having said that, I’m sure Fleming and the others would have been gutted with their performances in Australia and to say they were disappointing and didn’t play to their potential is simply stating the facts as they are.
The Black Caps now go into the World Cup playing with confidence and as they showed in the Champions Trophy in Kenya a few years back, they can string enough games together to win a comp.
As for the Aussies, they now have hold the record for giving up the four largest run chases in the history of ODI’s – all in the last 12 months and three to New Zealand. Go figure.
… see the day before!