Sporting Nadir.....

Well having moved to Australia has seen me engage in watching greater quantities of live sporting events. However that does not mean that I am entirely successful in my viewing: Saturday: Queensland Reds vs Stormers, loss and quite a convincing one too. The scoreline reflects how lucky QR were in preventing it from being higher. Sunday AM: Watch recorded coverage of England vs Scotland at Murrayfield. A loss to the auld enemy and to boot England had no idea and Johnny Wilkinson (the rugby player, not the bro-in-laws cat) seemed to lack inspirational qualities even if he did surpass Neil Jenkins test points record. Monday AM: West Ham v Spurs. I dread to think given that the Hammers are coming into the game on the back of two 4-0 defeats (Chelski and the Scouse). England v NZ in cricket: NZ win by 189 runs and England skittle for 110 in their second innings. Woeful. And to think that some of us were going to go and see it. That's surely a $1,000 saved? Jeez, I am depressed just writing about it. Nuff from me.

Roaring Myself Hoarse

So since Australia Day weekend, very little has happened. Suffered the indignity of keeping myself relatively isolated from the news last Sunday to enable me to watch the England Wales six nations match without knowing the result - with hindsight there was just too much riding on it for Wales not to have won (not won at Twix in 20 years, England expected to walk all over them etc). Maybe that is just the opportunity to have spent a week reflecting on the game. So on to Italy, where I will be attempting again to stay clear of the web and news until I go round to a colleagues house at 6.30am (before work) to watch a re-run. Here's hoping. Friday just gone (8th February) saw myself in attendance at Suncorp Stadium for the second leg semi-final of the A-League with Queensland Roar taking on the Sydney Jets. The first leg resulted in a 0-0 draw so the Roar had to win or let a 0-0 draw go to penalties. As a pre match warm up eleven of us met up at the Caxton hotel and sank a few jugs of Coopers. whist in the boozer a tropical downpour hit and we learned that this had delayed KO by about 40 mins. Eventually we headed to the stadium, took our seats and awaited the match to start. And start it did. The Roar came out of the blocks in a fast and furious manner and at around the 12 minute mark, Reinaldo scored a cracker. I think it is fair to say that Sydney's fate was sealed in the 20th minute when they had a man dismissed for a professional foul, leaving them down to ten for the best part of 70 minutes. The beer had kicked in (for me anyway) so we set about trying to teach the rather quiet home crowd how to create some atmosphere. Simple standards like "1-0. 1-0, 1-0" were supplemented with "Frank Farina's Orange Army" and this gem (in my humble anyway) aimed at the small Sydney contingent "You're going home on a Jetstar aeroplane". Not sure how well it was received, but I am a little hoarse this weekend and can only really speak in the lower ranges. SO yesterday was pretty much a write-off. the week ahead sees the Super-14s kick off and I have taken a Reds season ticket. The Reds by all accounts are not the greatest side and I believe last year were on the end of same baseball style scorelines. There are some notables in the Reds line-up: Berrick Barnes, Chris Latham and Rodzilla to note. Let's see what the relatively short holds in store. More to follow.