Weekend Wrap
Apologies for being a day late - a friend of ours lost a niece that she was very close to in a car accident and to be honest I wasn't in the mood to churn out a few meaningless words.
The news of Pakistan's coach Bob Woolmer also saddened me. I'll miss his blog entries on Cricinfo which provided some useful insights into aspects of the game that this cricket punter isn't an expert in, and it's a shame (to put it mildly) he leaves the planet on such a bum note - a day after his side got knocked out of he World Cup.
Pakistan's exit and Bangladesh's win over India probably won't be the last surprises we see in this tournament. From my wallet's perspective, I'm a bit pissed about these upsets as (a) I missed them, and (b) I have a gut feeling Kenya will win another game (and thus they won't be at such juicy odds) and gawd parlease make sure it's the Poms, not us.
So I'm heartened to read in the paper Captain Fleming, when discussing these major v minnow games, saying "I think teams are falling short because they're not paying enough attention to the quality of player or the type of side they're coming up against." Seems the last few days the Kiwis have also been picking the brains of the former Kenyan coach, so it does seem that warm-up loss to the Bangladeshis was a good wake-up call that should avoid complacency tomorrow.
Compare that to England's approach. Cue the scene at their hotel hours after their loss to the Blackcaps. "Right luds, even though we got spanked and I got a golden duck, LET'S GO AND GET PISSED!"
Yeah good one Freddie. Chalk up another name for the Night Owl list. When sporting contests occur in the evening these well-paid human beings have half an excuse (just) for keeping late hours but not this tournament which have 9.30 a.m. starts for every game. And for the non-sportspeople out there, sleep 2 nights before is just as important as the sleep the night before any sporting contest. So getting on the piss in the middle of two games in the space of three days is not a good move. Roll on England v Kenya.
And let's throw a brickbat at Ian Botham as well, whose opinion is "the mistake was getting caught". Errr, no - the mistake was getting on the turps. Perhaps he should go and run a judicial system somewhere (Zimbabwe?) where committing a crime is not the mistake but getting caught is.
It's rather ironic (don't you think?) a game which for decades has had image problems with the small number of nations who actually play cricket seriously produces more upsets at their World Cup than others we could perhaps compare it with. Would Spain beat Scotland at Rugby? Cook Islands upsetting South Africa in netball? Not in a million years. Yep, roll on England v Kenya - and one last brickbat to Sky TV here in NZ who would rather show Eurosport News in the wee small hours than some of these group matches (but would quite happily show Spain v Scotland and Cook Islands v South Africa).
Next on the list - CONGRATULATIONS!
Yes, to Soccer NZ and the good people in Wellington you now have a professional sporting team (other than the Hurricanes) to clap and cheer with the news that they secured the licence for a team in the Australian A League. Good stuff - no, really. You now have the chance to prove the debacle known as the Knights - a team with probably the worst record of any professional sporting team on Earth - was all Auckland's fault.
To be honest, good riddance. We already have the underperforming Warriors and Breakers playing at half empty stadiums (well, the basketballers would be if we had a decent indoor venue up here). Having the Knights was like having a kick in the goolies when on the ropes in a boxing match. The noise you heard down there wasn't a lahar rushing down Ruapehu - it was a collective sigh of relief from a million people getting rid of the biggest sporting embarrassment since ... Freddie Flintoff.
I can see the slogans now - Wellington; a vibrant city of politicians and soccer supporters. Should do wonders for your tourism numbers.
OK OK the Warriors may (MAY) have a decent season this year but one win doth not make a team playoff bound. And a win over the Broncos without Lockyer won't prove much either. Let's see how they go on the road. And while it's on my mind, whoever is organising Fight For Life this year should put it on the night before the Warriors v Souths game and get Eric Watson and Russell Crowe in the ring. Now that would be worth watching.
Super 14 thoughts up later in the day.
The news of Pakistan's coach Bob Woolmer also saddened me. I'll miss his blog entries on Cricinfo which provided some useful insights into aspects of the game that this cricket punter isn't an expert in, and it's a shame (to put it mildly) he leaves the planet on such a bum note - a day after his side got knocked out of he World Cup.
Pakistan's exit and Bangladesh's win over India probably won't be the last surprises we see in this tournament. From my wallet's perspective, I'm a bit pissed about these upsets as (a) I missed them, and (b) I have a gut feeling Kenya will win another game (and thus they won't be at such juicy odds) and gawd parlease make sure it's the Poms, not us.
So I'm heartened to read in the paper Captain Fleming, when discussing these major v minnow games, saying "I think teams are falling short because they're not paying enough attention to the quality of player or the type of side they're coming up against." Seems the last few days the Kiwis have also been picking the brains of the former Kenyan coach, so it does seem that warm-up loss to the Bangladeshis was a good wake-up call that should avoid complacency tomorrow.
Compare that to England's approach. Cue the scene at their hotel hours after their loss to the Blackcaps. "Right luds, even though we got spanked and I got a golden duck, LET'S GO AND GET PISSED!"
Yeah good one Freddie. Chalk up another name for the Night Owl list. When sporting contests occur in the evening these well-paid human beings have half an excuse (just) for keeping late hours but not this tournament which have 9.30 a.m. starts for every game. And for the non-sportspeople out there, sleep 2 nights before is just as important as the sleep the night before any sporting contest. So getting on the piss in the middle of two games in the space of three days is not a good move. Roll on England v Kenya.
And let's throw a brickbat at Ian Botham as well, whose opinion is "the mistake was getting caught". Errr, no - the mistake was getting on the turps. Perhaps he should go and run a judicial system somewhere (Zimbabwe?) where committing a crime is not the mistake but getting caught is.
It's rather ironic (don't you think?) a game which for decades has had image problems with the small number of nations who actually play cricket seriously produces more upsets at their World Cup than others we could perhaps compare it with. Would Spain beat Scotland at Rugby? Cook Islands upsetting South Africa in netball? Not in a million years. Yep, roll on England v Kenya - and one last brickbat to Sky TV here in NZ who would rather show Eurosport News in the wee small hours than some of these group matches (but would quite happily show Spain v Scotland and Cook Islands v South Africa).
Next on the list - CONGRATULATIONS!
Yes, to Soccer NZ and the good people in Wellington you now have a professional sporting team (other than the Hurricanes) to clap and cheer with the news that they secured the licence for a team in the Australian A League. Good stuff - no, really. You now have the chance to prove the debacle known as the Knights - a team with probably the worst record of any professional sporting team on Earth - was all Auckland's fault.
To be honest, good riddance. We already have the underperforming Warriors and Breakers playing at half empty stadiums (well, the basketballers would be if we had a decent indoor venue up here). Having the Knights was like having a kick in the goolies when on the ropes in a boxing match. The noise you heard down there wasn't a lahar rushing down Ruapehu - it was a collective sigh of relief from a million people getting rid of the biggest sporting embarrassment since ... Freddie Flintoff.
I can see the slogans now - Wellington; a vibrant city of politicians and soccer supporters. Should do wonders for your tourism numbers.
OK OK the Warriors may (MAY) have a decent season this year but one win doth not make a team playoff bound. And a win over the Broncos without Lockyer won't prove much either. Let's see how they go on the road. And while it's on my mind, whoever is organising Fight For Life this year should put it on the night before the Warriors v Souths game and get Eric Watson and Russell Crowe in the ring. Now that would be worth watching.
Super 14 thoughts up later in the day.
Labels: post mortems
posted by Rob Crawford at 6:22 AM
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