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Joined December 2014
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Run a sports blog over at www.halftimeoranges.net Follow just about everything from Australian sports to American to European football. Can't get enough.
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Every nation has now played at least one match at the 2015 instalment of the Asian Cup. Australia silenced some doubters by slotting eight…
Shane Watson, I share a relationship with you akin to the one I shared with my ex-girlfriend: toxic. In the heady good times, you…
India didn't lose the 2014-15 version of the Border-Gavaskar trophy because of their batting performance. They didn't lose it because of a lack of…
When I started following the NFL properly five years ago, I made an error in judgement that has both given me joy and haunted…
Oh, the irony. After sticking to their guns by opposing DRS technology for so long, the BCCI will surely now join the rest of…
where did I once say all Middle Eastern people are expected to support every country from their region?!
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
which is pretty much exactly what I wrote in the article.
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
1. exactly what I said.
2. let’s not go there.
3. seriously?
4. yep.
5. pretty much what I said. still think tournament could have been better served having Adelaide as an alternative host city, but I get they wanted it on the east coast only.
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
wow, everyone is in a tizzy over the pathetic crowd comment.
take a breath lads. take out the Australian games and the average crowd figure is a tick over 11,000. whatever way you spin it, you can’t argue that’s a good number for a major football tournament. mid week or not.
hence why I offered up a solution by reducing the number of teams down to 12. that means you’re getting good quality games every match and the public are more likely to respond.
anyway, thanks for your constructive feedback and I look forward to reading your work when it’s up.
cheers.
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
i’m aware of that, AR. my point was, why play Jordan V Iraq at Suncorp when you’d be more likely to draw a bigger crowd with say, a South Korean or Chinese game (China’s game actually got a decent crowd)? from living in Brisbane for seven years I can tell you there’s a much bigger Korean and Chinese population than there is Middle Eastern.
my point wasn’t to play the games at stadiums like Ballymore as obviously that would be ridiculous.
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
given Australia’s strong multicultural presence, particularly from middle-eastern and Asian countries, I was expecting a bit more than 6000 at Suncorp. in saying that, the organisers could have had the foresight to see maybe those games wouldn’t draw in big numbers, and play them at smaller stadiums.
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
mate, the article is about MY five stories of the Cup. if I wanted to write a Socceroo love fest, I could have easily done that as well, but what would be the point? everyone knows we won 4-1 and 4-0 and yes, we played well, I mentioned as much.
but we also played Kuwait and Oman. and not too much there are numerous other problems with the Asian Cup such as the inability to bring crowds in because of the quality of SOME games (see, point 4).
and the only negative I found out of the socceroos’ games was the insane amount of nothing crosses. other than that I’m totally peachy with everything Australia, it’s some of the other Cup issues that I took aim at.
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
i’m enjoying reading your articles too, gents.
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
that’s why I said football hates Canberra and said I wouldn’t expect you to go.
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far
you both totally missed my point. I love shane Watson as a player, but he’s 33 and in my opinion it’s time to go in a different direction.
but after yesterday and today, there’s no way the selectors will. it’s just another reminder of how good he CAN be.
Watto, hell hath no fury like a cricket-loving public scorned
then you go and do that! why shane, why!?
Watto, hell hath no fury like a cricket-loving public scorned
I always think how much better Bogut’s career could have been before that elbow injury. such a shame, even though he’s still a good player.
Ben Simmons is the next big thing in Australian sport
really?
thanks for enlightening me. it doesn’t mean opportunities don’t present themselves for forwards to be damaging with the ball.
Are our Wallabies all bent out of scrummaging shape?
Ben Simmons will be the real deal. maybe not a superstar at pro-level, but he’ll be a good player for years. I remember a quote from a NBA exec saying he was ready for the NBA right now which is a huge compliment.
man, I can’t wait to see our Boomers team in a few years if it all pans out and Thon stops listening to his crackpot guardian and commits to AUS, and Dante and Ben fill their potential.
imagine the starting five – Patty and Dante starting guards, Simmons at the three and Maker and Bogut at the 4 and 5. dellevadova as sixth man and joe ingles as an eight minute role player makes a pretty competitive team.
Ben Simmons is the next big thing in Australian sport
this is a fantastic article. I particularly agree with the point about gearing our players for our domestic competition, which Australian teams generally thrive on producing mobile, quick forwards with skill rather than bruisers who know how to scrummage.
look at the way our forwards run with ball in hand compared to say, Kieran read or the way jerry Collins used to. they’re all legs and hips whereas our ball runners are usually pretty quick to find contact and go to ground.
it’s amazing how much of a psychological advantage having a big, physical pack can be. it affects the entire game when you see somebody run over two defenders and drag another two for 10 metres. nobody wants to tackle that bloke.
as for the scrum itself, I remember a South African bloke saying “In South African schoolboys sides, the first forward picked is the tight head, and he’s not picked on open-field ability, but purely scrum technique and aggression. If you can’t hold your own in the scrum, your forwards will never succeed.”
Look at how our schoolboys sides are picked – can you run the ball hard and tackle hard, and do you have a bit of pace? you’re in, we’ll deal with the scrum later.
not too mention the amount of uncontested scrums in Australia.
Are our Wallabies all bent out of scrummaging shape?
thanks for your kind words. just somebody who’s watched and played numerous sports for a very long time, who doesn’t like seeing potential unfulfilled.
it was meant to be tongue in cheek, pointing out the support that I’ve put behind watto over the years only to have him let me down time and time again.
cheers.
Watto, hell hath no fury like a cricket-loving public scorned
i mostly agree, except for on one point. potential. the prime example of such is david warner who was picked initially more on hope than form and that’s worked out pretty well.
it’s bemusing to me why Starc got picked as well when you consider the depth of fast bowling options available and the fact Starc has been pretty erratic in previous Tests.
but when it comes to batsmen, they get a lot more benefit of the doubt at the moment because of our woeful batting stocks hence the reason guys like Maxwell get a look in.
T20 performances does not a Test player make
of course it’s simplistic. that’s the point. if the BCCI still hasn’t realised that maybe they keep losing overseas tours because they can’t play two spinners every game then they don’t deserve to be considered the best. period.
and I totally disagree that it’s something that can’t or shouldn’t be fixed. that attitude screams of a nation content to just be good at home and never have a true period of dominance. one of the first things the sides under mark taylor and particularly steve Waugh addressed was their need to be better away from home, and knock off teams who had beaten them badly in the past.
physicality wise, umesh yadav is built like the proverbial brick shithouse and is pretty quick. likewise varun aaron who bowls 145 kmph +. ishant sharma has a glenn McGrath build.
physicality isn’t their issue. it’s their heads-down, woe-is-me attitude. bowling two good balls an over isn’t how you win Test matches.
Not fast, not furious: How India's bowling attack let them down
I probably should have mentioned that I absolutely detest the fact they were number one for such a long period of time, in fact at all. It was an absolute joke and purely based on the fact they played so many Tests at home.
and of course nations will always produce players that best suit their conditions, I’m not even trying to argue that. but if you simply play to your strengths and don’t address your weaknesses, you’ll never be considered great.
Not fast, not furious: How India's bowling attack let them down
still gotta see if he can go through his reads while dropping back. at the moment he takes 99 per cent of snaps from the gun or pistol, and as we saw with RGIII, trying to taper a college offense to the pro-game just doesn’t work long term. I think he’s going to be an absolute gun though. much faster than cam, much more physical than rgIII and way more accurate than both.
NFL-bound Mariota set to break the Heisman mould
why, oh why did we have to win? as rex would say though it was an absolute pillow fight.
we can only hope we lose our final two (shouldn’t be hard, NE at home, @ MIA) and the bucs, titans and redskins finish above us in the standings.
Jacksonville and Oakland won’t go after a QB after taking one in the first round last year, and maybe even TEN wouldn’t with how Mettenberger looked before he got hurt, but TB and WAS would definitely take mariota.
for mine, it’s either mariota or bust. don’t take Winston, don’t take hundley. don’t make the same mistake we did with sanchez when we reached for an average QB.
NFL Week 15 preview and predictions
“They may have put eight goals away so far, but AT TIMES Australia is still stuck in the Pim Verbeek and Holger Osieck era with the amount of nothing crosses fired into the box.
It’s hard to blame them when you have one of the best aerial threats of all-time in Tim Cahill bobbing up around the six yard box, but the best sides know when to whip one in and when to cut it back.
Australia has looked their most dangerous when they play directly in the final third, as do most sides, or when breaking at pace down the wings and firing in well-aimed crosses with defenders scrambling.”
err…
Five stories of the 2015 Asian Cup so far