My problem with Marsh is that I’m of the school of thought that a true all rounder is one of your top 6 batsmen or top 5 bowlers in the country. Marsh, at present, is handy at both but not an outright selection for either. Faulkner has the stats to be a front line bowler for Australia, making him a suitable choice for an all rounder. He doesn’t give all that much distance to Marsh in the batting stakes either.

If you actually read what I said, I stated that Carter was marginally better but I’d rather watch Larkham play. It is not out of this universe to claim the other way around though. I’ve never seen anyone stroll through a defensive line with such ease and regularity. Carter makes as many of not more breaks but through dynamism more than sleight of hand.

Straight away I would have AAC out, Coles out, Read out. All good players but never greats of the game. There seems to be a very heavy bias towards current players in this team. Rugby went professional in 1996, not 2006.

I think Horan was a better inside centre than Nonu. I’ll concede that for my own safety I would rather try to defend against Horan though.

Larkham is probably more unlucky to miss out on this team than Gregan. Carter is marginally better but I would pick Larkham on a team if I had the choice. This is in much the same way that I would expect Djokovic to beat Federer these days, despite the fact that I would rather watch Federer play. There’s something enchanting about an effortless dismantling of an opposition.

Voges didn’t have the form prior to this year to be selected and is currently older than Ponting was when he retired, so that would not exactly be investing in youth either way, I don’t contest that Ponting ‘was clearly not up to test cricket’ for his last few years, only that nobody showed enough form in shield cricket to unseat him. Except for Hughes, but for some reason the selectors didn’t like picking the most prolific run scorer in domestic cricket because they didn’t think he looked stylish enough in the process.

Khawaja is a good batsman, but I don’t think he will go on to be a giant of the game. Burns will. He should never have been dropped after the Sydney test and should have been in the pecking order above both Voges and Marsh. For a talented, youthful, proven to perform side they should transition (over the course of a season or two) towards something like this:

Bancroft
Warner
Burns
Smith
Khawaja
Neville
Faulkner
Starc (if he can find some red ball form)
Pattinson (if he can stay fit)
Hazlewood
Lyon

Some people will point out that Neville shouldn’t be a No. 6 batsman, but he is better than M. Marsh. His slower style will also allow him to accumulate better at 6 and allow Faulkner to bat with the tail, which is one of his great strengths.

Due to the pace of the players, almost every pass thrown backwards in any professional rugby code when a break is made will land in front of the player who threw it. This is not a forward pass. The rules are very clear on this. All you need to see is the ball moving out of the hand, it doesn’t matter where it lands.

Better and more knowledgeable minds than mine have run the rule over it and agreed with me as well. My opinion, as with almost everything in rugby, can almost never be entirely incorrect. Even if a slow motion, all angled view shows it to be possible that the Scottish player was technically onside, there was certainly more than enough evidence in real time from the angle of the referee to award the penalty. Does this make it an incorrect decision by the referee?

To re-frame the problem: Say you saw a man point and shoot a gun, and then saw a bullet hit another man, you would assume that the first man was as fault and you would act accordingly. if CCTV later reveals that he was actually shot by a sniper 3 blocks away, you can’t really be seen to be at fault for your initial assumption.

You can only make the best decision based on the available information. What more can we ask of the referees?

Seconded

I thought that one was a clear offside. It was the only point in the match that I woke up my girlfriend in the next room by yelling at the TV.

I don’t think it’s the Scots need the slack Chaz, it’s the referee. He is the victim in this.

Gotta love “the referee got it wrong” as a strong rebuttal to a thousand word article citing 2 laws which state that 11.3(c) does not apply to an offside player who is still influencing the play. Please show your working.

Et tu rugbe?

This attitude really baffles me and seems to be somewhat prevalent in Australian Rugby. Sure, I would have picked a slightly different team, but as soon as they hit the field I’ll be cheering every player on, regardless of who is selected.

I think you reversed the scorecard. It should be 6-7 6-3 4-0 to Kyrgios.

He was/is solid in a position that we have no great players in. Just because somebody isn’t up to world class standard doesn’t mean we have many better options. He’s currently the 4th or 5th string in an average crop of players. Nobody is expecting him to set the world alight but you can’t run on the field with 14 players.

I feel like too much focus is being paid to the backline in this week’s lineup. The halves were always going to tag out after last week (although I personally would have gone for a Toomua/Giteau pairing ) and trading Mitchell for Speight changes little in terms of quality. All in all the backline is pretty similar in quality to what it was last week.

Most of the interesting selections are in the forwards. Despite the fact that all 8 forwards are picked in their positions, the pack doesn’t have the same balance to it. With 6 forwards on the bench we will be finishing the test with an entirely different pack than what ran on. Despite the depth that Cheika is building, you cannot say a second string Aussie pack can match the All Blacks around the park. There are times when Australia has had the best 15 in the world, but never the best 30.

The Pooper should be unleashed on every team from now until the world cup final (if we make it). There is something to be said for keeping a combination a mystery for the opposition, but on the other hand you are sacrificing time which could be spent honing these combinations into brutal and ruthless machines. Just because you can recognise an opposition strength doesn’t mean you can stop it. For positions such as the halves where we are no closer to knowing our best combination it is sensible to keep experimenting. When selection questions are answered, those positions should be locked in for the sake of combinations and experience.

Having been surprised to win the toss, Alistair Cook couldn’t choose whether to bat or bowl on the first morning.

He decided to do both.

Don’t be fooled by Marsh’s first class statistics. He debuted at 17 and averaged 20 for the first couple of years when he was picked on potential in a pretty average WA team long before he should have been playing first class cricket. His first class batting average has been over 40 for the last 2 years.

Watson, by comparison, is leaning on old runs to prop up his average. At this point anyone would back Marsh with the bat. Then Watson only bowled 13 overs for the match. If he’s only bowling 13 overs for no wickets, why pick an all rounder when you could just pick a specialist batsman to begin with?

There’s no way that would have been the “greatest catch ever,” it was a pretty routine caught behind. In saying that, it happens sometimes. If a bloke got dropped every time that happened there would be no international keepers left. It did hurt Australia though. If he took that catch then England would have been lucky to get to 200.

I find it very interesting that Taquele is almost as tall as Nadolo and still 5kg lighter. Whilst Nadolo is an athletic monster of a man Taquele just looks like a prop standing on the wing. I had always assumed that he carried the same sort of muscle mass as some of the other wingers with a little bit of extra padding. If he is both lighter and larger It looks like there might be more than a little padding. The ball skills of the two are incomparable too. I couldn’t imagine Taquele lining up at inside centre for his country. I’m don’t want to rag on him too much because he is still a young player with plenty of time to develop, but defensive positioning definitely needs work. He should have easily stopped Quade Cooper’s try on Saturday night, but he seemed to just watch it happen.

I wonder why Nadolo never made it at the Tahs? Was is a case of the Tahs coaches overlooking his potential or is the Crusaders setup much better at developing players? Probably a bit of both.

It’s looking likely that Djokovic will win the French, but I have a funny feeling that Federer is going to have one last hurrah at Wimbledon this year, I think he still has one more Slam in him before retiring.

I have no problem with Weeks being sent off but just because his offence was worse than Du Plessis’ doesn’t mean that you can’t give them both a red. The degree of punishment can then be differentiated by the tribunal. If Du Plessis had used a closed fist rather than an open one he would have met the threshold for a red, despite the acts being equally dirty and dangerous.

Brett seems to have eluded to the fact that in knowing precisely where that line is (rightly or wrongly) drawn and adjusting accordingly, that the strike had a premeditated air about it and this is something that should be taken into account when punishing such indiscretions.

This argument has gone on far too long and I’m beginning to suspect both of us are starting to enjoy ourselves. This will be my last comment on the issue, although I will read yours if you choose to reply.

Responding to your points, in order:

1. This is our fundamental difference in opinion. I’m not going to say that you are wrong, only that I disagree with you.

2. Fair point. I can only suggest I was using “you” in a collective sense rather than a personal one. I know that the sentence contradicts itself somewhat in the wording, but I did mean “you” as any paying customer, rather than “you” being Kev.

3. These majority of spectators are packing stadiums to the rafters, seemingly unperturbed by the fact they cannot talk during points.

4a) I was intentionally being facetious.

4b) It was not an irrelevant point, nor was it a poor attempt to link the two. I was illustrating the difference between a right and a privilege. You (being Kev in this instance) should note that in that point I mentioned jeering is “welcomed and encouraged” in this setting and in no way implied that it was promoting abuse.

That’s about all I have to say on the matter, enjoy the rest of your evening in peace.

There is always a balance between a product and a market and it is hard to determine which is the most valuable in a monetary sense as they are each defined by the other. Whilst it is true that if the market left tennis to support badminton the sport would die in a professional sense it is also true that largely the market have shown a preference for tennis as a product and have purchased it en masse.

I believe it is fair to say that tennis has established itself as a very marketable product and I personally think that allowing people to talk during points is compromising this product and the number of old fans it will turn away is greater than the number it will attract.

A corporate example of this would be McDonalds. In trying to captivate a new market with its salads, cafes, healthy choices and “gourmet” burgers whilst trying to stay true to its fast food origins it has ended up with a confused identity and has lost popularity and profitability as a result.

I agree that there are issues with humility in tennis and the abuse of officials and ball boys. I’m not convinced that the crowd being required to stay quiet is fuelling a sense of superiority though as it seems to be a common thread in many successful young people, whether sports stars or not.

I don’t think that Federer was being precious. One only has to look back at Monica Seles to see the danger of a single pitch invader (for those unfamiliar with the incident, she was stabbed in a similar intrusion which effectively ruined her career). He seemed to be more annoyed at the security for allowing it to happen than anything.

If I am able to extrapolate on some of my earlier comments, this particular instance is as much a case of a self-entitled fan considering themselves above the rules as a case of Federer being big-headed.

This is definitely a site about opinions on sport. My opinion is that the spectator is not more important than the players who they are there to watch and should not expect any sort of special treatment based on the premise of “I paid money therefore I’m entitled to talk whenever I please.” I have already stated this opinion and indicated that I respect your right to think differently.

That being said, this is a forum where your opinions are expressed in a written form and your choice of words is important as it very much changes the tone and meaning of what you are saying. I have not attempted to be distracting and have stuck very clearly to my “ludicrous” opinion, which happens to be shared by almost all players and the majority of spectators.

I also very clearly differentiated between jeering and being abusive and racist in my comment and have not cast them in the same light. At this stage I will choose to ignore the irony in misrepresenting another commenter’s point.

Let’s just agree to disagree on the fact that one man’s “sanctimonious and pious” is another man’s “respectful of the game”

Kev, could you please provide me with your definition of both “self indulgent” and “right?”

I could only be accused of being self indulgent if I were a professional tennis player myself, although I respect your right to believe that what a said was a load of crap despite the fact that I don’t agree with you.

Buying a ticket to the MCG gives you the opportunity and privilege to jeer and shout at players as it is welcome and encouraged. At no point is this a right. If you abuse that privilege by being overtly abusive, physical or racially motivated you are ejected from the stadium.

It is a very dangerous display of egotism to assume that, in paying some amount of money, you are more deserving of an opinion or respect than the players or umpires that you personally have chosen to watch. If you don’t like it, go home and scream at the telly. If I want dead silence I’ll go and watch the tennis.