St George to be Rugby League World Club Champions
This past weekend showcased the best of English (and Welsh) club rugby league with all 14 Super League clubs playing their opening fixtures at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. The Australian Premier league kicks off in a months time with 8 teams having home ground advantage in their first week of fixtures.
Talking about “home ground advantage”, there’s the interesting matter of the World Club Challenge to be played on the 27th February at the JJB Stadium in Wigan. At least rugby league’s version of a club world championship is slightly more aptly named than America’s baseball World Series. The rugby league club ‘world champions ‘ potentially come fom one of four countries, namely England, Wales, Australia or New Zealand whereas the baseball ‘world champions’ can only come from the USA!
The World Club Challenge is played betweens the winners of the previous years Grand Finals in England and Australia.To lesson the likelihood of the English Super League winners being thrashed, the match is played in freezing England in late February. The only way that the games administrators could possibly have prevented St Helen’s two finals losses by whopping 38 point margins (2000 and 2003) would have been to allow them a rugby union complement of 15 players on the field and no interchange for their opponents 13 players!
This ‘levelling of the playing field’ (playing the final in England in February) has helped English clubs to have remarkable success against their Australian counterparts i.e. remarkable in comparison to most other sports and especially the national teams performance in rugby league. Of the 11 finals played in England since 2000, English teams have come out on top on 7 occasions. Pretty tough to find training conditions in the Australian off season ( mid summer) to match those of Northern England in February!
After 4 consecutive years of losing, Australian teams turned the tables in 2009 (Manly Sea Eagles) and Melbourne Storm last year. Wigan have reached the final for the first time since 1994 and I don’t think they have the sides to beat or even get close to the classy St George Illawarra who are coached by the incredible Wayne Bennett. Maybe the weather will play it’s part and prove me wrong?
Who will win the tournaments starting in February?
February sees the start of 3 major international team sport events. They are the Six Nations (Rugby Union), which started this past weekend, with the ICC Cricket World Cup and the new Super 15 (previously Super 14) Rugby Union tournaments starting in a couple of weeks time.
How would you select the winners of each of these competitions ? Possible criteria could be present form, past results ( history in the competition), the venue of the fixtures, colour of their shirts, the alignment of stars etc.
Here is my selection for the 3 events and my criteria used in selecting them. Note: I am English born ( first 10 years + another 2 when in my mid 40′s), lived in South Africa for 30 years ie from the age of 10 to 40 and I’m now an Australian citizen having lived in two spells in the wonderful land of OZ for 11 years. The year in Taiwan will probably not influence these selections !
The Six Nations is played each year and no country has dominated in the last 3 years with France, Ireland and Wales winning the title. France has won 4 times in the last 7 years and would be a logical choice to pick for this year championships. However, they play away against both England and Ireland. Ireland also play England at home and this should give them an advantage in both these matches. After taking all my facts into account, I will take my country of birth to be the main citeria for my selection and pick England to win the 2011 trophy.
The cricket World Cup certainly pricks at all my emotions if you look at where I have lived. It’s competed for every 4 years, so more recent form should have more bearing on the results. Australia have won the last 3 trophys and the fact that they were crushed in the latest Ashes series may not have such a negative influence on their chances. Test cricket is played over 5 days, whereas the World Cup is played over the much shorter 50 overs per side. The Aussies have shown much improved form in this format of the game having just destroyed England 6-1 in the series which finished over the weekend.
In cricket I always support South Africa but they have proved to be World Cup disasters since their return to the international fold in 1992. England were pathetic in the 6-1 defeat by Australia but I still don’t believe the present Australian side, without Warne and McGrath, is in the same class as that of the last 3 winning sides. That leaves venue to be my main citeria for choosing the winners. The 2011 competition will be played on the subcontinent with the final in Mumbai, India. I think the expectations of almost one billion people will be too much for the Indian side and reckon Sri Lanka will come out on top.
The Super 15 is also an annual event . This year sees a new team from Melbourne, Australia in the competition which means Australia, South Africa and New Zealand will each have 5 teams battling for honours.
The expected extra ferocity of the home and away matches played by teams from the same country at the beginning of the tournament (new format)will most likely take its toll (injuries) on the players before the ‘inter country’ final stages of the Super 15 are reached. New Zealand teams always have unbelievable depth in their squads , so likely that a Kiwi side will lift the trophy.
However, my ‘pshyci’ does not allow me to pick a New Zealand team after years of ‘abuse’ by the All Blacks on English, South African and Australian sides. My choice is between the Bulls (South Africa) winner of the previous 2 competitions (2009 & 2010) and last years most improved team the Queensland Reds (Australia). My choice says that the Reds, who play in my home city of Brisbane, will continue their remarkable improvement and win the inaugural Super 15 series.
Play Mixed Doubles to Excel in Aussie Open Men’s Singles
One of my last year’s articles before the 2010 Australian Tennis Open started was about what would be the best way for the men to prepare. Is the best preparation to play a tournament in or outside Australia two weeks prior to the Open commencing? Then the week before Melborne commences to play another tournament (or first tournament) or just to practice in Australia?
In 2011 the tournaments available for the men prior to the Open were those starting two weeks before ( Qatar – Dubai; Chennai – India; Brisbane – Australia; Hopman Cup in Perth – Australia) Tournaments one week before were (Auckland – NZ; Sydney – Australia and Kooyong an invitational 8 man round robin in Australia)
Let’s see how the winners of the above ATP events fared in their ultimate beginning of year target, namely the Australian Open.
Roger Federer won in Qatar and lost in the semi final to the eventual winner Djokovic. Federer, the 2010 Open champion, followed exactly the same schedule in 2011 ie Qatar followed by a weeks practice in Australia.
Robin Soderling won in Brisbane and lost in the 4th round in Melbourne with Stan Wawrinka winning in Chennai and losing in the Quarter finals.
Andy Murray also did the same as what he did in 2010. He competed in the ‘mixed’ tournament in Perth then practiced for the next week. The ‘Great Scot’ had two fantastic Open’s getting to the final in both 2010 and 2011.
Gilles Simon won in Sydney but was unfortunate to draw the mastero RF in the first round at the AO and lost in a 5 set thriller. David Ferrer won in Auckland and continued is magnificent form until losing to Murray in the Melbourne semi final.
Leyton Hewitt was the busiest of all. He played the Hopman cup and then won the Kooyong Invitational. Leyton had a first round epic with David Nalbandian but after a couple of match points and 4 hours on court he was defeated in his home slam.
What was the schedule of the 2011 champion Novak Djokovic ? After winning all his matches in Perth ( with Serbia winning the trophy) he then practiced the week before the Open. There was also the ‘small matter’ of being a major part of Serbia’s incredible Davis Cup triumph in early December. Maybe representing your country is what is needed to prepare for the men’s title?
So the recipe for Australian Open success in the Men’s singles is to initially represent your country in a pre tournament competition and of course play lot’s of mixed doubles! Note the achievements of runner up Murray in 2010 and 2011 and for Djokovic the winner in 2011
Tendulkar the greatest barrier breaker
Who would believe that the once ‘unbeatable’ Aussies could lose 3 consecutive Test matches and be relegated to 5th spot on the test ladder. At a later stage I’ll look at what effect this may have on the Aussie ‘psychie’ (and the English one for that matter) just 6 weeks before the first Ashes test.
For today back to the Little Master, Sachin Tendulkar. In Test cricket palours the most important milestones are each 100 wickets for the bowlers and every 1000 run barrier for the batsmen. In 1895, Johnny Briggs was the first bowler to take 100 Test wickets with Muttiah Muralitharan breaking the 800 Test wicket barrier in May 2010.
I reckon it’s a certainty that no Test bowler will ever break through the 900 wicket barrier with the current leading wicket taker only on 368 wickets. Don’t think that the 30 year old Harbhajan Singh will take another 532 wickets before he retires? In the bowling stakes, only Shane Warne managed to be the first to break through more than one milestone/barrier. He was the first to take 600 wickets and then 700 Test wickets.
The setting of batting milestones is a different story. Similarly to the bowling record, the first barrier, namely 1000 runs, was also broken in 1895. Four batsmen have been the first to 2 seperate milestones. Clem Hill first to 2000 and 3000 runs. Jack Hobbs first to 4000 and 5000 runs. Walter Hammond first to 6000 and 7000 runs and Sunil Gavaskar first to 9000 and 10000 test runs.
Now Tendulkar stands apart from the rest when he became the first batsman to break through the 14000 barrier in the Test match just finished. This follows on him been the first to achieve the 12000 and 13000 run milestones. He’s now only 760 runs shy of the 15000 mark. In his present form and at 37 years of age what new ’1000 clubs’ will he set up before he hangs up his gloves?
Huddersfield Town need top 2 finish to avoid Play-off misery
Just over 2 months to get over the disappointment of the World Cup with neither of my 3 teams getting into the Quarter- finals.Still, South Africa and Australia can be pretty proud of their efforts especially their victories against higher rated opponents in the last group matches and credible draws in another. However, they were left to rue sub par displays in one group match, namely Bafana Bafana losing 3-0 to Uruguay and the Socceroos going one worse when losing 4-0 to Germany. For both teams, these poor losing results meant missing out on further progress because of inferior goal difference.
England were probably less impressive than either of my above 2 teams when squeaking through the group stage but got a reality check when losing 4-1 against the Germans.Not sure that Rooney showed that he’s one of the best players in the world (sic) and what happened to Lampard’s premiership goalscoring touch?
One thing must be a racing certainty, that is the only unbeaten team in the tournament will win the next World Cup. Yes, that would be New Zealand who were the only undefeated team (Spain lost their first match against Switzerland). You can put your house on it that New Zealand will be the next World Cup winners. Note from Editor… that would be the New Zealand All Blacks winning the 2011 RUGBY World Cup and probably not the All Whites triumphing in Brazil in 2014!
In truth it hasn’t taken me 2 months to get over the World Cup (more like 2 minutes) but 4 months to get over the pain of my beloved Huddersfield Town once again losing out in the Play-off Semi-finals. The Terriers have made it into the Play-offs on7 occasions but only progressed to the final on 2 of these (both times earning sensational Wembley victories). With this kind of record, even for a great team like Town, it looks imperative that they need to get automatic promotion from a top 2 finish this season.
Once again this season has some “big” name clubs in Division One. Apart from Huddersfield there are the likes of Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton not to mention football power houses like Gracie Field’s Rochdale and Dagenham & Redbridge!
It won’t be easy and the first 4 results (2W, 1D, 1L) gave an indication of another roller coaster season but I can’t see any team in the division stopping the mighty Town winning the league.
Can a European team win a World Cup played outside Europe?
There have been 18 football World Cup final competitions prior to the one presently being played in South Africa. Interestingly, the split of previous winners is 9 each between European and South American countries. Even more interesting is the fact that all 9 World Cups held in Europe were won by European teams and the 7 played in South America were won by South American sides. The two competitions played outside these continents, namely in the USA in 1994 and in Japan in 2002, were both won by Brazil.
With the 2010 finals taking place in South Africa, the question once again arises whether a European nation can triumph in finals played outside Europe? Prior to this World Cup, many commentators felt that the location of the tournament and the football ability of the African teams would lead to a side from Africa lifting the coveted trophy for the first time. Well, after two completed rounds in the group stages this is extremely unlikely. All the African teams, except Ghana, are at the bottom of their respective groups and in fact it is possible that no side from Africa gets through to the last 16!
The final round of group fixtures paints a slightly different picture for the progress of African nations in the Cup. In fact Ghana, although presently topping their group, possibly have the most difficult task of the 3 African teams to move forward in the competition. I only count 3 countries in this equation, with Cameroon already out and the host nation South Africa and Ivory Coast as good as gone. Ghana will probably need to get a point from the mighty Germans whereas although Nigeria and Algeria both need to win, they have realistic chances against South Korea and USA respectively.
So with the African challenge fading fast and the Socceroos being ‘referreed’ out of the competition, it’s once again comes down to the clash between Europe and South America. Some may ask have I forgotten the challenge being offered by the mighty New Zealand a.k.a the All Whites, who have just drawn with Italy the current World Champions? No I haven’t but it’s probably more likely that the All Blacks will win the 2011 Rugby World Cup!
Although at this stage South American teams top all 5 groups that they are in, you must not forget that my original pick of England are still going strong after’ breathtaking’ draws with the football giants from USA and Algeria. Ten days into tournament and one can still easily see how my ‘logic’ (not to mention the facts) supports that England (and not Brazil) will win this World Cup.
Question answered, a European team (namely England) will win this World Cup (which is being played outside Europe) and by the way Roger Federer never looked like losing his first round match at Wimbledon.
Is 2010 the year for tennis ‘oldies’ ?
Leyton Hewitt ‘s victory over Roger Federer on Sunday continued the 2010 title winning form of the 30 year olds or almost 30 year olds (Leyton is now 29 and a quarter years old). Juan Ignacio Chela won in Houston in April having already turned 30 the previous August.
It’s almost 40 years since Ken Rosewall won the 1972 Australian Open when he had already reached the age of 37 and continued his ‘Stanley Matthews’ like ways when winning a title in 1977 (Hong Kong) at the age of 43! Jimmy Connors was also a great golden oldie winning his last 2 ATP titles, a generation later (1989), when he was in his 37th year.
More recently the reverse age barrier is becoming more and more difficult for ex Slam winners and for tennis players in general. Andre Agassi kept the flag flying in the 2000′s. He was approaching 34 when he won his last Slam (Australian Open 2003) and was already 35 when he lifted his final ATP trophy.
Now that we are in the new decade, one wonders if a 30 year old will ever be able to win a Grand Slam singles title again? There would have to be an influenza epidemic for Chela to win a Slam. He might possibly match some of the top footballers with his spitting ability but won’t be troubling the latter stages of any of the major 4 tennis tournaments. Hewitt only turns 30 before next years French Open and although I have the greatest respect (as does Federer) for the Aussie ‘come on’ man, I don’t think he can add to his 2 previous Slam wins.
For me, the only possible ’30 something’ winner of a Slam in the near future is the great Roger himself. However, it will only be at the 2011 US Open when he plays for the first time after turning 30 years of age. Will the Swiss ace still be winning the big ones at that stage of his career? If he doesn’t win any of the 5 Slams to be played prior to the 2011 US Open will he even still be playing?
Can anybody in this decade match or come close to Agassi and win an ATP tournament after turning 35? I would be very surprised if any 35 year olds are seriously competing in singles matches from now on and expect 30 and possibly a maximum of 32 years of age to be the limit for a future ATP title win.
Keeping pretty quiet today on the World Cup scene.
Still recovering from a poor first round and feeling a little nervous about my 3 teams’ chances of progress.
Draws by England, Bafana Bafana and a disastrous 4-0 loss by the Socceroos means that the second group matches are now almost make or break for all 3 sides. However, my ‘logic’ from last week is still in place and England will repeat ‘the 66′.
All they have to do is not vote in the Greens!
Nigeria to pip Greece in Group B
Just over a week to the major sporting grass event of the month ie Wimbledon. In between there’s a couple of Rugby tests in Australia between the Wallabies and England. This is just a precursor to the major grass event of all which is the England vs Australia (Ashes) cricket clashes. You would have to wake up and smell the roses for England to win a rugby international in Australia. Oh, but they did manage to win one in 2003, Who can forget Johnny…Johnny…Johnny Wilkinson. Not a bad one to win when it was the 2003 Rugby World Cup final.
Talking about World Cups, that reminds me that the other grass event starting in June is the FIFA World Cup! Which 16 teams will progress from the 8 Groups( 32 teams)? I am going with the premise that the 2 highest FIFA ranked teams in each group will qualify except in the following cases.
In Group B, Nigeria ranked 21 will progress and not Greece rated at 13. The 36th rated Danes will surprise the 19th ranked Cameroon in Group E. Slovakia (34th) and not Paraguay (31st) to go through in Group F. Finally, the Swiss ranked at 24 will push out 18th rated Chileans in Group H.
Possibly in Group A that the 17th ranked Mexico will get past the Uruguay (16th) which is no biggy. With the highly rated French (9th ranked) also in this group, it means that South Africa (83rd) will unfortunatelyl become the first host nation not to progress through the Group stages. I also hope that Australia (20th) can get through Group D but with Germany( 6th), Serbia (15th) and Ghana (32nd) in this group that’s going to be some task.
So whose going to win the cup? At this stage of proceedings, one’s pick is likely to go with the heart and not too much with logic. My heart is in 3 places i.e. England, South Africa and Australia. My’ logic’ to support South Africa winning is that they are host country and the hosts have won 5 out of the previous 18 tournaments. The ‘logic’ for Australia winning is that they have won the last 3 cricket world cups and cricket is played in South Africa.
The above ‘logical’ facts may not be enough for South Africa or Australia to win the tournament. However, my logic for England lifting the coverted trophy seems flawless before the first ball (or player) is kicked. England won the World Cup in 1966 when I was sailing with my mom,dad and sister to live in South Africa. The 2010 tournament is being played in South Africa, so q.e.d England must win the World Cup. Ah, who needs facts and reality when there is ‘logic’.
Will Didier Drogba be missed the most?
Just over 3 days before the World Cup kicks off and one of the major talking points is which injured player is likely to be missed the most?
It looks as if the national captains are at the most risk of getting pre-tournament injuries. Already Rio Ferdinand of England, Michael Ballack of Germany and it is very likely that Ivory coasts captain Didier Drogba will miss the tournament.
Other notable absentees will be Jon Mikel Obi for Nigeria, Michael Essien of Ghana with Arjen Robben of Holland/the Netherlands and Andrea Piro of Italy, both likely to miss a large slice if not the entire competition.
Who will be missed the most? What will the national teams lose when a ‘star’ player is missing? Some of the missing contributions may be the player’s position in the team hierarchy, the position he plays on the field and what cover the squad has for the injured player’s position.
Let’s for argument sake say the captain of the team will be the one most missed and look how they can be covered. In the case Rio Ferdinand, he has only captained the national team on 5 occasions. The’ real’ English captain is John Terry who had to ‘surrender’ his armband (due to some non football hanky panky) after leading his country onto the field 28 times. John will be on the pitch to help the inspirational Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard, the man now assigned to wear the captain’s armband.
Phillipe Lam, a veteran of 65 internationals, will take over Ballack’s leadership role and at the moment no one has been announced to fill in for the injured Drogba.
Generally, the midfielder position would be the easiest to replace, followed by a central defender and finally an out and out striker. So Germany will have no difficulty in covering Ballack’s midfield role. The experienced Jamie Carragher or the much younger Ledley King should quite easily slot in next to John Terry in the heart of the English defence.
How does Ivory Coast replace/cover Drogba? He’s scored a phenominal 44 goals in 69 internationals with the next best individual tallies of 16 and 11 in the Ivory Coast squad.
It looks to me that Didier Drogba will be the injured player missed the most. Even if he is fit for the knock out stage matches, his team has to finish above 2 of the following teams – Australia, West Germany and Serbia – for them to get there.
Oops ladies I made a faux pas when leaving David Beckham’s name off the notable injured players list. How on earth do England cover for the missing Bend it Like Beckham?
Maybe Didier should be relegated to second place.
No Namibia but 3 other ‘links’ for the World Cup.
Congratulations to Francesca Schiavone on becoming the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam. I was hoping that Queensland’s Sam Stosur would win her first singles Slam but the better player won on the day. I have a lot of time for Schiavone’s style of tennis and attitude towards the game and she deserved the trophy and had to do it the tough way by mostly playing ‘catch up’. Not an easy thing to do with your opponent seving first in both sets and wining 9 out of her 11 service games.
On the positive side for Stosur, it was mainly a case of Francesca ‘winning’ the match and not Sam losing by ‘choking’ or playing well below her best. Regarding the men, Nadal on clay is from a different universe. Maybe secretly Federer is not too unhappy about losing to Soderling in the quarters? Very likely that he may have being embarrassed in a straight set final byNadal. I don’t say that lightly because I’m a huge Roger fan but clay is clay is Nadal.
So far this year one Slam each for Nadal and Federer. Prior to the major event of Wimbledon there’s another’ minor sporting event’ being staged on grass i.e. the Football World Cup! Having lived on the’ highveld’ (over 1600 metres above sea level) of South Africa for 30 years between 1966-1996 I have experienced first hand the effect of high altitude on your lungs and the flight and bounce of a ball. The players in matches that are played in Johannesburg-Pretoria-and other highveld stadiums will certainly struggle with all of these factors. However, with the final being played in Soweto/Johannesburg it should be a big advantage for a team making this deciding match if it has played most of it’s group and play off matches at high altitude venues.
In the next couple of days I will look at who I think will qualify from each of the 8 groups. I have direct interest / ‘links’ to 3 teams and don’t mind which of the 3 actually manage to win it. Well, one can always hope. I was on a boat with my mom, dad and sister sailing to South Africa fom England when England won the World Cup on 11 July 1966. Just over years 30 years later I was on a plane with my wife Lizette on our way to Australia and 14 years later we are still very happily living here.
Therefore who to support when you are English born, lived 55% of your life in South Africa and now an Australian citizen? The bookies say best’ bet’ for me is England with odds around 9/1. SA and OZ are languishing around the 181/1 range. It could be worse, we might have flown to New Zealand, who have odds of 2501/1, or to Lizette’s birth place of Namibia!
Now what odds would Namibia have had had they qualified? This may not be that far beyond the wealms of possibility when you think that Namibian teams have made the Rugby Union (3 times) and One day Cricket (once) world cup final tournaments in the past. Not bad for a country with a population of just over 2 million. They also produced Frankie Fredericks one of the greatest sprinters of his generation. England, South Africa or Australia now that is the question?