The top 10 sporting shocks of 2010

Paul Briggs is counted out after just 29 seconds. (AAP Image/Tony McDonough)

2010 has been a year of many surprises in sport. Some were good, but most were bad – and some were just very bad. Here is the list of biggest shocks in 2010:

10. The Green v Briggs 29-second fight

Even I would’ve lasted longer than Paul Briggs did against Danny Green, when he lost to a knockout punch (if you can even call it that) after 29 seconds. Nuff said.

9. Blackpool getting promoted into the English Premier League and doing okay

This was the team that was tipped to get relegated from the Championship and into League One last season, but getting decent players loaned from other clubs (such as the legendary Seamus Coleman from Everton) and a lot of luck saw them somehow get promoted (via playoff). Everyone expected them to finish dead last and get relegated back quickly, but they won their first Premier League match, away to Wigan 4-0, plus wins against Liverpool at Anfield, Newcastle at St James Park plus a few more and Blackpool might actually stay up.

8. Broncos and Lions have horror seasons

The Brisbane Broncos missed out on the NRL finals for the first-time in 19 years after losing the last four games, and the Lions finished bottom four when many predicted top four. They won the first four games of the season, only to win three of the next eighteen.

7. Queensland Reds actually doing well

The team in Australian rugby that is universally known for sucking actually had a good season. After a heart-breaking loss to the Waratahs in the first round, it looked like it was going to be another long season. However, the Reds caused a huge upset win against the Crusaders the following week, won more games, looked like they were actually going to make the finals then lost a few games late and just missed out. Fifth out of 14 teams is still pretty respectable, though – especially with captain James Horwill out for most of the season.

6. Pakistan cricket team betting scandal

Pakistan got caught deliberately losing matches for money. This explained how Nathan Hauritz actually got a five wicket haul in both the Melbourne and Sydney Test matches last summer; how Mike Hussey got dropped four times by Kamran Akmal in his innings of 134 not out; how he managed to put a good lower-order partnership with Peter Siddle; and how Australia won after making 129 in the first innings and having a 209 first innings deficit. This also explains how Pakistan lost chasing 129 for victory in a Twenty20 match in Melbourne and how they lost to England.

5. England getting 1/517dec against Australia in Brisbane

After the first innings of the first Ashes Test match in Brisbane, Australia was dominating England, as was expected. Hussey and Haddin’s partnership of 307 was more than England’s first innings total of 260, but from nowhere England saved the match by making an un-England like score of 517 with only one loss, albeit helped by bad fielding, Alastair Cook making 235 not out, and their South African batsman, Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott making 110 and 135 not out respectively.

4. England smashing Australia by more than an innings in Adelaide

In the past the Australian cricket team had lost a one-day international to Bangladesh and a Twenty20 match to Zimbabwe. As embarrassing as that was, it was not nearly as embarrassing as losing a home Test match by more than an innings to England. The Poms just had us covered in every department in that match, and it was plain embarrassing losing to a country that bad at the game.

3. Qatar winning the rights to host the 2022 World Cup

I still don’t understand how a country that is one-fifth the size of Tasmania, has a smaller population than south-east Queensland, has a national football team that consists mainly of foreign born players that has never qualified for the World Cup and is ranked number 113 in the world, a country where homosexuality and being drunk is illegal, people from Israel are banned, has sexist laws and so much more, could win the right to host the World Cup – the world’s biggest sporting event. Just baffles me.

2. The Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal

We all assumed they were good mainly because they had all those Queenslanders in their side, a great coach, no Victorians playing for them, and a great culture. It turns out they were rorting the salary cap as well to ensure those Queenslanders would stay in Melbourne. They got their premierships taken off them, fined $1.1 million, and couldn’t accrue points in the 2010 season for all their troubles. This scandal will probably be remembered as the biggest ever in Australian sport. It was so big that even people who didn’t follow rugby league were talking about it.

1. Collingwood winning the premiership and the world not coming to an end

When Collingwood broke their 20-year AFL premiership drought, we all thought the world was coming to an end. When my mum saw me depressed she asked me what was wrong. I told her about the national disaster that had just happened and she said, “It’s not the end of the world.” Turns out she was actually right.