The Orange

Yeah right.

If I had a little bit more time (OK, if I could be stuffed) I’d do a Tui Billboard.

FFS the Aussies barely can handle 4 teams at present – and there has to be real question marks about the credibility of Queensland:

Queensland rugby is teetering on the brink of the abyss as the aftershock of Berrick Barnes’ departure toppled the state’s two top officials and caused the Reds two remaining star players to reconsider their commitment to the disintegrating franchise.

In the wake of the stunning developments, which saw QRU chairman Peter Lewis and chief executive Ken Freer announce their resignations, an alarmed Will Chambers of the Melbourne Storm, the Reds’ only major new signing for 2010, re-opened talks with Queensland even as Reds’ Test winger Digby Ioane was contemplating following Barnes to NSW.

Got to love this “Get Poor Quick” story (actually embedded in a serious article I should point out) in the Granny Herald altho the original story was in the UK’s Telegraph.

A couple of Pommy punters thought they had the ultimate sting:

The pair, in their 50s, were hoping to scoop a British record breaking greyhound jackpot of £101,110.39p at Sheffield’s Owlerton Stadium.

They travelled hundreds of miles from the south coast of England with their stake money and what they believed to be a fail-safe plan.

The unnamed punters placed £46,656 in bets to cover every possible placing of six dogs in six races, using cash they brought in a Tesco carrier bag.

But the couple had not bargained on two other ticketholders backing all six winners and the jackpot being split three ways. It meant that their share of £33,703.46 left them with a net loss of around £13,000.

Which reminds me of the time I took She Who Must Be Obeyed to the races.  SWMBO had had no collects thus far which called for desperate measures.

I instructed her to go up to the tote operator and ask for a $1 place on the field (8 horses, place = 1st, 2nd or 3rd).  Regardless of the result, she would get three divies.

So instead of watching the race, she stood there at the tote waiting to collect.

Funnily enough, it cost ME $8 but she won approximately $7!

The Aussies have lost yet another league import, Timana Tahu.

Tahu looks like he’s goining to rejoin the Eels.

So Ta ta Tahu!

Or seeing that Sailor, Tuqiri and Mat Rogers have proven also to be such great successes at union, it’s more like a case of ta ta Tahu too!

Couldn’t believe my luck (not Micheal whose parents couldn’t spell either).

While I haven’t given up on being ranked #1 in Google for searches on “cheating Aussies” (every little bit of search engine optimisation helps), I’m also making a concerted effort to rank highly for “cry baby Aussies”.

And this priceless gem was in the Sydney Daily Telegraph:

RUGBY league’s first match officials poll has installed Brett Finch, son of NRL referees boss Robert Finch, as the NRL’s biggest sook and worst behaved player.

Got to love those Aussies – the refs think the worst player in the comp is the son of the ref’s boss!

Been a while since I’ve posted about pissheads.

I’ve been so bust posting about cheating Aussies and cry baby Aussies.  Let’s hope Google is taking notes.

Anyway, back to the subject of pissheads and the Warriors look like they’re putting their hopes of a half decent half in Brett Seymour.

That’s Brett Seymour – ex Bronco and Shark.  Booted from the Broncos for horsing around.  Drank like a fish at the Sharks.

That’s Brett Seymour as in See More Piss – Drink More Piss.

Let’s not forget that the Warriors ditched Sione and Misi the Pisi-head for the same things that Seymour has been getting up to.  Mind you, they were’nt halves were they?

Undoubtedly, the Warriors look like they’re taking a real punt.  It is a big risk off the field but perhaps less so on the park.

Hopefully, he’ll be able to blend into the background somewhere in the back streets of Auckland.

Or Steve Price could practice his boxing skills to knock some sense into him.

Whatever it is, let’s hope the Warriors win on and off the park next year.

The AB’s game against the Aussies was pitched as some type of grudge match between Ted and “Dingo Bob” Deans.

The reality is that the two coaches wouldn’t have given it any thought.

It was a game that the Aussies had for the winning – the George Smith bombed try really told the tale.

Based on opportunities, you would reasonably have expected the Aussies to have won.

As the SMH said Sunday morning:

THE Wallabies blew it – big time. This was their best chance in ages to end the 23-year Eden Park hoodoo and once again they suffered from stage fright, squandering an early 10-point lead and wasting several massive opportunities to put the All Blacks away.

Naturally, that would please Teacher Ted who will accept the points but give his team a report card tagged with “could do better”.

Without any doubt, having back players like Richie McCaw and Rodders back made a huge difference, not just in terms of the cattle on the park, but attitude and the mental strength to fight back.  Given that there are still players like Dan the Man and  Big Ali among others to slot back in, Ted should be smiling a little more than he was after the dire efforts against the Frogs and Italians.

As for Dingo Deans, he will have to wonder what this will do to the Aussies’ confidence – their ability to win the close ones a few painful years ago seems to now be but a bad dream.

Let’s we don’t wake up screaming in 2011!

Here I was, earlier in the week,  proposing that I should take the number one Google ranking for “aussie cry babies” when I get such brilliant material out of the Second Ashes test.

Ponting was admittedly given out in a dodgy decision by “Slow Death” Rudi Koertzen.

By the way it was reported in the Sydney Moaning Herald (gotta love my own work some time), you would have thought Koertzen was an Islamic militant who had let off a bomb in the Aussie changing room.

The headline was: Unlucky Punter’s Rudi surprise. Yep, no other cricketers have been unlucky before.

Mind you, with their home umpires, I can understand why the Aussies might find this a bit of a surprise and newsworthy.

The article opens with:

AUSTRALIA collapsed in a heap when the real Jimmy Anderson revealed himself with a destructive display of swing bowling at Lord’s, where the touring team failed to recover from the controversial dismissal of Ricky Ponting.

The fact that seven other wickers were lost seems to have overlooked the writer.

Later on:

Koertzen’s decision could have been overturned if the umpire referral system had been in place for the Ashes, but the ICC decided not to introduce the system until October.

Yep, and so it would be for all the others as well.  But the ICC have delayed it until after the Ashes to intentionally piss the Aussies off.

Wait for, it Chloe the Cry Baby has only just warmed up:

The South African umpire did call on the third umpire to determine whether the ball had carried to Andrew Strauss, but the confusion was heightened by the fact that Ponting hit his boot with his bat and Anderson appeared to be making a worthy appeal for lbw while the men behind the stumps shouted for the edge.

None of this consoled Ponting, who was denied a chance to improve on his mediocre record at Lord’s and had to watch from the balcony as wickets tumbled during the afternoon.

The 2005 series will be remembered for, among many other dramas, several dreadful umpiring calls, and the Ponting decision could yet change the course of the Ashes.

Funny, because if you Google “Aussie Cry Babies” you get this priceless gem:

HYPOCRITICAL Australian players had behaved like “cry-babies” by whingeing about racism when they had been cricket’s worst sledgers, according to Pakistan great Wasim Akram.

As you could imagine, picking a team to support from the Aussies and the Poms is a lot like trying to work out how you give the IRD more tax!

Anyway, it looks like we’re with the Poms from here on in.

Here’s something different.

A wannabee Olympian wants to fund his way to the Olympic Games through running a brothel.

According to Stuff:

He received a $15,000 “performance enhancement grant” from government sports funding body Sparc for finishing in the top 16 at Beijing, but Taekwondo New Zealand (TNZ) has suspended the funding because Campbell has not been competing.

Funny, with most sports, the fans are rooting for their teams on the side line.

There’s something about a train crash played out in front of our own eyes … or at least the camera.

If you’ve ever played golf, then you understand why the guy is still a cult hero.

The bloke drinks, smokes, gambles, loses it all and starts all over again, and again, and again.

Yet he can still smack a ball down the fairway and, most ridiculously of all, he’s got soft touches around the green.

Yes he’s crude, rude, and oh so loud.

And that’s just his trousers.  Love the durry too … the man is all class but who wouldn’t want to play 18 holes (ok 19!) with JD.

In the good old days, live sport was a luxoury.

I well remember the days when NZ TV (the one channel that there was) would simply have a programming blank which coincidentally coincided with the timing for an All Blacks test match.

At that time, we would happily allow American nuke ships into our harbours but we could not confirm nor deny whether a rugby test match would be televised live.

Now, there’s so much live sport that we expect every game to be live.

More so, there’s so much sport that we’re rarely entertained by just what’s on the park.

There’s been a couple of noticeable trends trying to get us inside the game.

First, the TV cams in the changing sheds – and all the risks that implies.

Second, the cameras focussed on the joys and despairs of the coaches.

And with this in mind, you’ve got to say that Daniel Anderson (ex Warriors, ex St Helens, and possibly soon to be ex Parramatta Eels) was born to coach in front tof the camera.  A more demonstrative coach you would not find.

It undoubtedly makes great TV seeing the utter frustration of Coach Anderson’s face, the veins throbbing, the fingers pointing, and the expletives …, well expleting.

The problem is – what does it do to the players?

The Warriors found that after a while the coach yelling at you doesn’t necessarily fill you with the confidence to go out and succeed.

I suspect it’s one of those sporting urban myths that get passed on from generation.  The quiet, thoughtful coach just isn’t suited to a man’s game like league.  (Naturally of course, this fork of the flat earth society subscribes Wayne Bennett’s success down to the cattle he had, to luck, or to the stars aligning).

Daniel Anderson may be on fire but you wonder if he’s not part of the reason why the Eels aren’t.