Weekend Wrap

Roarsome

That is the only way to describe the Brisbane Roar at the moment.  With an unbeaten run of 32 matches and a 7-1 victory last start how much better can this team get.  The are leading the way not only on the table in in their playing style as well.  This is a team that performs at a level that is above anything I have seen before in Australia bar International games.  Ange Postecoglou must be given full credit for how he has this well oiled machine working.  (Late mail today has reports of the Urawa Red Diamonds rumoured to be looking at Ange or Graham Arnold as their next coach).

4 Nations



There were no surprises in the opening games of the tournament.  Australia easily defeated New Zealand, the ref was a far cry short of what is required at this level, the English defeated Wales comfortably and yet New Zealand still think they have a chance.  There has been a very vocal outcry over the Issac Luke cannonball tackle and the Kiwi camp have been very quiet as they think there is nothing wrong with it.  Watch for Luke to have a mark on his head next game he plays against Australia.

Next games see Australia take on England and I think England will be brought back to earth as Australia start to step up their campaign.  New Zealand will be easy winners over Wales but look for Wales to give the Kiwis a scare.

Indias Formula One Debut

It was a new venue for Formula One but the same old story.  Vettel won and no-one seemed to be able to get close to him.  Vettel is a good driver no doubt but I wonder how he would go in Webber's car.  There is definitely a difference in the performance of the two cars but that is the benefit of being a teams number one driver.  What annoyed me for this race though was the amount of dust.  It clearly affected the track and watching a Formula One race in a haze of dust doesn't look that flash no matter how good your HDTV is.

Liverpool Win Away

Liverpool had a good dominant win (2-0_ over West Bromwich Albion and should hace scored more.  Firstly the clean sheet for Reina was great but what is starting to be worrying is Carroll's read of play.  He gets plenty of ball in the box but tries to score everytime.  Regardless of whether he can score or not he blasts away in attempt.  He needs to develop his combination with Suarez better, rather than always feeding off Suarez he needs to set Suarez up as well, if he can start doing this more often then in attack they will be more dangerous as a combination.


And all the focus in Australia will turn to the Melbourne Cup tomorrow.  Good luck in the tipping and if you have a drink don't drive home.

Can Moltzen Be Trusted?

So the latest saga in the Tim Moltzen case is he has said he will sit out the 2012 season if he is forced to play with the St George Dragons.

Moltzen might have to get used to being lonely

There are that many holes in Tim Moltzen's case it is hard to believe anything that comes out of his mouth now.  He says he does not want to play with St George yet they have a contract with his name signed at the bottom.   Hardly something you would do if you did not want to play the Dragons.  Moltzen knowingly signed this contract whilst being still under contract worth the Tigers and obviously thought the Tigers would release him once he signed with another club.  Looks like he got that one wrong. I also find it hard that his agent is standing up for Moltzen and saying he should be able to honour his current contract with the Tigers, but isn't it the agent that would have organised his contract with the Dragons?  Surely something in this whole saga is not quite right.  Maybe the agent should be looked into in regards to what payments he has received from either party in relation to the two contracts.

This issue is something that is not new to league and will happen again but everytime it happens a firm stance needs to be taken.  In this case maybe a fair outcome is that Moltzen is punished for his actions and made to sit out a suspension.  I am not talking a whole season but maybe a few weeks on the sideline will make him ensure his next deal is more above board.

In the past we have seen Gordon Tallis sit out a whole year when St George would not release him so he could  sign with the Brisbane Broncos.  That was during the Super League era and is a whole other talking point but Tallis had offered to buy out the final year of the contract, when the court ruled he had to stay with St George he did what he felt he had to do.  Recently we have seen Steve Turner sign a contract with Gold Coast only to decide later that he didn't really want to leave Melbourne and refused to go.  In the end this cost Melbourne two players in order to keep him.  Wonder how those two players feel about that now? 

Why do players think that they can just do what they want and later think they can change their mind?  It is time players and managers/agents alike were held accountable.  Can the Tigers really think they are going to get loyal service from Moltzen over the last twelve months of his career.  There is no giarantee he will stay with them.  If he signs a contract will he ever be believed that he will go through an honour it.  Tim Moltzen has made a fool of himself and now the NRL should make an example of him.

On This Day....

Instead of a daily history post I have decided to go with a week in history.  Monday's are always had to get through especially knowing that the next weekend of sport is so far away, so have a nostalgic look back in time and have a wander back in time. I will post this every Sunday reading for your Monday blues.

October 30

1974 - Mumhammed Ali wins the "Rumble in the Jungle" - Do yourself a favour and watch "When We Were Kings" it is a great documentary on this great bout.

October 31

1888 - John Boyd Dunlop patents the first pnuematic bicycle tyre.  (Not a sportsman but without Dunlop racing would be so different)

November 1

1950 - First Negro player in the NBA - Charles Cooper (Celtics)
1959 - First NHL goalie to wear a hockey mask - Jacques Plante (without hockey masks Friday the 13th would not have been the same)

November 6

1956 - Holland & Spain withdraw from Olympics - protesting the presence of the Soviets in Hungary

It is hard trying to find good information outside of the US so if anyone knows anywhere for good reference material on history let me know.  

Four Nations Game 1

Australia in the end won with a comfortable lead and were well deserved winners.  Overall the highlight of the game or should I say blight was the referee Phil Bentham.  This guy obviously does not know what the rules are as the amount of knock-ons missed, continual holding down in the ruck and offside play was something that should not be allowed at this level.  New Zealand in most cases were on the beneficial side of this ref and but showed that they are still not quite up to standard to beat Australia.

And that is where I will leave the overall game analysis to talk about one single incident that should have repercussions but will most likely be swept under the carpet.  That incident is the action of Issac Luke and his tactic of targeting players to cause injury.

In the previous test match played Luke was reported for a cannonball tackle.  For those who don't know this style of tackle is when a player dives at the legs/knees of a player being held up by tacklers in an attempt to bring them down, this is an outlawed tackle and one that is becoming more frequent.  Luke was exonerated of that charge so was able to play this game. In the second half Luke has dived in the same manner at Shillington's knees whilst he was being held still by two tacklers.  Shillington was in obvious pain and looks to have received a serious knee injury.  The officials reviewed the tackle and decided it was a fair hit.  How I do not know, it was no different to the one last week and under the rules was an illegal tackle.  Issac Luke is becoming a serial offender in this style of tackle and it is starting to become a joke that he is able to get away with it.  People always say that it usually takes a serious injury for something to be done to change things but why does someone have to be injured before something is done when everyone already knows it is dangerous.  If Shillington has a serious knee injury he could be out for not only the rest of the 4 nations but for at least 6 months.  Yet Luke will be able to line up next week, play the series out and then get ready for preseason.

It is time that the Rugby League community starting getting more proactive in stamping out tactics that are aimed to deliberately injure players.  Regardless of talent if you are a grub that has to stoop to such levels then your talent should not be wanted in the game.

UPDATE:

Well the little grub got off again.  The judiciary has decided it was enough to officially issue a caution to Luke as the action was "conduct contrary to the true spirit of the game".  If he does it again he will automatically be charged with an offense.  This is not good enough.  He has been referred to the judiciary twice now and even then they are only going to charge him if he does it again.  Most likely they will just let him off again if he is charged.  They needed to have more gaul and suspend him for one week, get the message out there, a slap on the wrist will not stop anything.

Roar & Daylight

Roar and daylight is how the A-league competition is starting to look.  Tonight the Brisbane Roar were at there best and totally blew Adelaide out of Lang park in the first half.  Even when the Roar where down one goal they never looked like they were heading for defeat.  After a penalty goal in the 21'st minute it was all over 8 minutes later when the score line was ballooned out to 4-1.

Thanks to a five minute hat-trick to Bersart Berisha in the 24, 27 & 29 minute marks Brisbane were awe inspiring in the play on the field.  With the way he can find the ball inside the box and convert it to a goal Berisha is well on his way to be leading goal scorer for the season.  And he didn't stop there with a fourth goal in the 69th minute.  Enrique was also on target for a hat-trick until he was substituted during the game and I am sure if Berisha played the whole game he would have smashed the record for the most goals in an A-League game.

This game was absolutely thrilling to watch, unless of course you are unlucky enough to be an Adelaide supporter.  Brisbane were always in total control and Adelaide never seemed to be able to get hold of the ball. Also the patience of Brisbane when on the attack is excellent.  They wait until the opening presents before going for the kill, never relying on a constant long ball or hopefull cross or even worse the wasteful shot from too far out with plenty of defenders in the road.

In all a 7-1 result is what Brisbane have been threatening for so long it was only a matter of time before it happened.

I can't wait for next week when the Roar take on the Victory in Melbourne and have Harry Kewell wondering why he didn't sign with Brisbane.  On that I would have Broich in my team over Kewell any day.

SBS and the World Game

SBS must be congratulated on gaining the Australian Broadcasting rights to the FIFA World Cup for 2018 & 2022.

With SBS also having the rights to 2014 fans of Football will be happy to know that they will get to see quality coverage on free to air TV.  SBS have been excellent in providing football coverage for about 30 years now and it is good to see that they will be the ongoing broadcaster.  SBS do what no other commercial station seems to be able to do when they host big sporting events and that is to show the whole game and at a later time repeat the game.  They do not feel the need to go to an ad break everytime their is a break in play or ten minutes has passed.  They do not feel the need to prattle on about sponsors products during a match or tell all the viewers their thoughts on upcoming TV shows.  They do what is needed.  I still find it amazing that the likes of Channel 9 are not able to show 40 minutes of live Rugby League or Union and not go to an ad break.  On top of that SBS will also show every game of a World Cup.  Not just from the Quarter-finals on and any game involving Australia.  They show every game, and if two games are on at the same time, not a problem they will replay the other game.

All SBS need to do now is somehow get rights to show A-league games live, even it is only one game a week.  Not everyone has Pay TV and not everyone lives in a town that has a team, Football Australia needs to realise that the best way to open their market up is to get their product to more people.  The NRL have worked out how to do this with Pay TV and Free to Air, so why not the A-League.

Bulls on Parade

 
How good are the Queensland Bulls going?  It seems that the injection needed for this team was good leadership at the top and that has come in the form of Darren Lehmann.  Queensland are undefeated so far this year and it looks like Lehmann has this team firing on all fronts and the self belief is high.  All the players have been talking highly of him and it is no wonder that the likes of Shane Warne are calling for Lehmann to be the National coach.  Before I get into that issue though lets just look at what Queensland have done so far.

First up in the Sheffield Shield Queensland took on Victoria and came away with a  great outright result.  It was also good to see new player Forrest from NSW score a hundred in the second innings but overall it was a team effort.  Any win over Victoria is good but even better when you are missing the likes of Hopes, Lynn, Swann and Harris and your younger brigade all come out and stand up.

Then in the last Shield game Queensland absolutely humiliated defending Champions Tasmania by an innings.  This was a match where Cutting and Harris absolutely tore through the Tasmanian batting and in the second innings Harris showed why he should be regarded as the best bowler in Australia at the moment.  In conditions favourable to bowling you still have to put the ball in the right spot and looking at his dismissals you can see why he is so good. Of his 7 second Innings wickets three were caught by the keeper and three were bowled.  This is a perfect example of why you bowl on and about off stump.  This is something a lot of the Australian Bowlers need to learn.

Two shield games and two outright victories has Queensland well placed at the start of the season, nicely on top.

Also in the Ryobi One Day Cup Queensland is on top of the table.

First of all saw Victory against Victoria who are usually the dominant team every year and in the second game a close win was achieved over Tasmania, although Tasmania should never have gotten that close.

Queensland currently have a team with a good mixture of experience, youth and talent.  Add to that a couple of interstate players with talent who are finding a new lease of life up in the sunshine state and it is a winning combination. This is a team that is playing with a lot of self belief and with the belief of the coach.  And this leads me back to the point about Lehmann being pushed for the National job.  Yes I agree Lehmann could go one to become a great coach for Australia but firstly let him accomplish an achievement at state level and prove he can do it over a period of time.