So Dave,

you are no better then Watson!

For Grand Slams and any other big tournaments the ladies should play 5 sets from at least the semi final onwards, maybe even from the quaters, keep the early rounds down to 3 sets as there is still way to big a gap generally between the top and bottom of the ladies players.

Although I must admit, I cannot watch womens tennis anymore, even though they are certainly worth watching, but it’s the never ending screaming and grunting that I just can’t cope with!

Well they won’t overlook Clarke as captain if needed, that we know. If Punter is ruled out and they use Hughes, it may spell the end for Hussey if he doesn’t perform and Hughes does, they could then bat Clarke at four and Watson at five, this would give the selectors the cherished all-rounder they’ve been craving, without him having the pressure and responsibility of batting at the top of the order.

Does the Commonwealth Games really hold any relevance anymore? Its like a Little Atheletics meet, when compared with the Olympics and World Champs!

I guess as Australians, we just like to win stuff in any sport no matter who it’s against.

What we do know is this;

Both guys will come in fit and ready.

We have a come forward puncher against a counter punching boxer, generally makes for good viewing.

Boxing is not just about hitting, its also about not getting hit.

Freddie Roach will have worked tirelessly on a plan.

The judges know how Mayweather fights and they will be watching when he counters to see if he connects.

Manny will make the fight.

What we don’t know is how it will pan out, as we all know it takes just one punch and the game is gone!

Ok, Watson was over the top, but unless he’s been reprimanded before for a similar incidents then give him a slap on the wrist and say bad boy, if it happens again give him both barrells.

Haddin, excessive appealing? Well you can’t tell me he’s the only player in world cricket who realises that the best way to get a player out is to ask the umpire, regularly! Cheating, ever appealed for something and gotten a wicket, when it probably wasn’t out, but looked close? If he’s a cheat so is every cricketer who has appealed when it wasn’t out.

I don’t really think Hauritz was in any doubt and they included Smith as a show of confidence in him to say, “work hard get it right and your a real chance”. As with Warne and many promising spinners to come through they do it tough at state level because of the general attitude of Aust. batsmen is to be aggressive to spin bowling especially on our pitches, so if they get a pasting early the captain is reluctant to bring them on again and the flow on is they can be dropped from the team.

We just about need a selection policy across all states of playing the best geniune spinner in the state!

What you might be forgetting when looking at the teams and players that got us to the number 1 spot, was that amongst that group were;
Mark Taylor – possibly the best captain we’ve had
Warne – greatest spinner ever
McGrath – one of the best fast bowlers ever
Steve Waugh – one of our highest test run scorers
Gilchrist – changed the idea of what your wicket keeper should do

All were once in a generation players and when they all retire in a close time frame it won’t be easy to fill their spots, also remember, Hayden played a couple of tests and was out for a long long time, Ponting was dropped early in his career, so too Steve Waugh, Gilchrist made his debut in his mid to late twenties, bringing them in young gave them a taste, but they all had to go back and prove themselves at state level.

I think in the next 12 months the team will only have a few changes, Hussey may go, Watson is not an opener, although a good player and we still search for a spinner to give the attack a point of difference and that may take some time.

Just who was the game breaking spinner we had before Warne? You would have to go back along way!

Actually, what may very well happen out of this is that there could be a shift of golfing power away from the U.S as the prize money may pull back and some tournaments may suffer being Tiger-less. As far as I’m concerned this would be a good thing and a boon to the Euro Tour and the Asian Tours, as some of the higher ranked American stars may start to chase a few dollars away from home and experience the real world of golf!

Maybe The Shark should go and push for that World Tour he tried to get off the ground years ago, the game on the face of it has taken a hit, but underneath is an explosion coming out of Asia and like any good contrarian investor, you need to look below the surface and see that the company (golf) is in good shape and now is the time to buy up big!

Come on Greg, bring it!

One thing that hasn’t been taken into account is that fact that tossing a coin in Australia, is our favourite past time, especially on Anzac Day!!

So it goes to show that, Punter is playing to much cricket as he must not have had his turn at tossing the coins in two-up for a while and hence struggles to win the toss!

Likeable, well that can only ever be a personal decision by each and everyone of us, but it seems that if you don’t like him then every one of his curious habits, biting fingernails and spitting in the hands infuriates you, coupled with some poor decision making as captain, leave him open to all kinds of slander.

Can anyone think of the last Aust capt. that actually had any real captaincy experience before becoming Aust. capt? Probably AB, as he was capt. of Qld, Taylor, Waugh and Ponting didn’t capt. there states before being thrust the Aust. job, so at one time or another we’ll get a capt. who’s not as tactically nouse as Taylor!

Now for those saying Ponting should stand down, well apart from not being the Aust way, it also can have another affect, think back to the English side a decade or so ago or the Pakistan and Indian teams of the same era, they had multiple ex-capt in the team which led to lots of disharmony through the squad and a not very consistent performance. Although Tendulkar and Dravid are in the current Indian team and are former capt. they can’t be used as a guide, Tendulkar was given the capt. based on being the best player in the team/world, which meant he was also the most popular for the job, but not the best and Dravid’s form was not great as capt although his captaincy was pretty good. It doesn’t make sense to change the capt and keep the former capt in the team, especially when there is no stand out replacement, Clarke has only ever capt the hit and giggle varieties of the game, so we have no idea whether he’ll be any better.

I’m surprised Pontings got any finger nails left, after a succesful tour of S.A his strike bowler goes completely AWOL and would be lucky to make a grade team the way he’s bowling, I think any of us would stand at second slip with a the look of someone who just lost his last $5 if our strike bowler couldn’t hit the pitch!

His captaincy is not in the same park as Taylor or Border, Waugh had a great team at his disposal, so was never or rarely in Pontings position, his decision making can only be judged on the outcomes and now with no out and out bowling match winners in his team, his decision are judged harshly!

But to write an article about whether he’s likeable or not is meaningless, you either like him or you don’t!!

Where do I start with this;
Gidley I think has shown he’s a utility player at this level, not a specialist, in my opinion one B Stewart would have sniffed a few tries out, he’s our best fullback but, injured.
Hayne, brilliant, maybe he should’ve been the fullback all along?
Williams, got hit by Tonga twice just perfectly, it probably won’t happen again all year?! But yes he made some other poor choices.
Monaghan, neither here nor there, some poor reads in defence though
Barrett, played his guts out and his hit on Inglis, well he went in Origin style to hit him with everything, Inglis is coming up and Barrett down, a split second and nothing happens, Inglis wasnt up right and was coat hangered, just one of those hits.
Wallace, for all the talk he didn’t own the team, how many more chances?
Gallen, dumb thug who generally gives away more then gets, this year the flick pass, last year a couple of game changing penalties, so him the way.
O’Donnell & Creagh were good, Creagh needed more ball one on one with Lockyer, you’d want O’Donnell in the trenches
Kite has never given us the performance that he’s done in club and test footy, why??
Weyman, will be better for these first two games and they should stick with him
Farrah, might have opened the door for Ennis
Poore, was poor, but he’s a better player then Nate Myles yet Myles would’ve had more impact, I don’t get it
Watmough, dumb thug, but played hard as nails last night a gave it constantly with controlled aggression for a change
Morris, either starts or not in squad
Stewart maybe should start for Gallen

I could go on and on..

Ok, so the blues didn’t play that well again & I believe that the selectors erred again, but for all the dominance of the QLD’s the games have been there to be won by NSW, we just don’t have the spit and polish of Lockyer, JT and friends at the moment.

Remember the scoreboard doesn’t ask how, just what!

Ok, so what we’ll organise is half a dozen different pitches in Dubai mimicking some of the great grounds and ground conditions around the world, then hold a year long test series against all nations under all these different conditions and see what the outcome is!!

You know they can do it, they’ve got an indoor ski field!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its seems that at the Waratahs everything has changed yet everything stays the same!!

So what the coach is pretty much saying is that Beale can’t play to a structured game plan? They just love this horses for courses stuff at Tah land, maybe they should just concentrate on playing the type of rugby that suits the players they have at their disposal. They started this year well, the combination of Beale and Tahu looked like it might develop into one of those ones where both players understand what the other is thinking, but after a couple of games they changed back to Carter (who is a good player), last year it was the halfback who got changed 3 times before they finally settled on one and I remember reading a comment early in the year when they swapped Sheehan for Valentine because he was more robust!!! Sorry halfback being robust is not that important, passing and kicking far out weigh a robust halfback!

So now we’ve got a young number 10 who can’t follow a game plan?!

And for what it’s worth I think that Horne should be number 12, with Tahu at 13.

No need to get personal Savvas, but if y,ou write an aritcle like that you might want to thicken that skin for the coming onslaught!!

Now if you think back, the coin toss was just about irrelevant back in the day as the pitches were uncovered so any over night rain would effect the next days play, thus ensuing that both teams faced varying conditions. In todays world of covered pitches its supposed to even itself out by having plenty of juice in it early to give the bowling team a realistic chance of taking early wicket, flattening out through days 2 & 3 then becoming more unpredictable or dry and dusty for the spinners to take there part!!

Unfortunately unless we get that sort of balance back in by the curators we are going to see run fests by the team batting first, followed by a struggle by the team batting second after spending two full days in the field being mentally drained!!

The toss then becomes just about irrelevant as both teams get good opportunities to take advantage of!

You have got to be taking the p*ss? Have you ever played two-up on Anzac Day, sometimes you get a run and sometimes you don’t!!

If you are going to challenge the toss of the coin then don’t just focus on one team, why don’t you do some comprehensive research for all teams, not just the best team (that’s the reason they win more games by the way).

Steve Waugh used to say it didn’t really matter as both teams have to bat and bowl at some stage. As for getting the rub of the green with appeals over the years, I guess when you have a quality bowling lineup like we did for a long time the umpires as human as they are start to make mistakes based on the quality of the bowler i.e McGrath bowls stump to stump and when he hits the pads it’s likely to hit the stumps and if there have been a few appeals against the same batsmen then I think they start to give the benefit of the doubt to the bowler, rightly or wrongly!

What other gems have you got for us, letting the batsmen decide whether or not he’s out!

Some sympathy for Ponting he came through the ranks amongst a great team and took over the captaincy of a very very good team, he’s the captain and the best batsmen in a struggling team, neither Mark Taylor or Steve Waugh had to contend with what Ponting has.

As for the potetial team, lets face the facts about the home series, Aust had a relatively poor series with the bat, but still managed to get the team into winning positions in each test, it was the bowling that could not back that up, so they must pick the strongest bowling lineup possible, four seamers and North as the only spin option would be that team!

stillmissit – To be fair he’s not a coulda, he’s played alot at the highest level, if he’d never made it past club rugby he might’ve been a coulda!

What he coulda been was a very dominant player, and yes at his age he does not and should be moved on!

I’m not his biggest fan, but calling him soft is a bit harsh, what he lacks is an understanding of how best to use his body size with the ball in hand, if you look at the good aggressive ball runners they know how to break tackles and bump of smaller or weaker defenders, in defense he doesn’t seem to want to attack the ball runner and be aggressive in his defence and try and dominate his opponent!

If he could’ve harnessed either of those attriutes he could’ve been anything!!!!

I’m with you LAS they’ve got it wrong, as a Waratahs member you would rather that every home game be played at home, make the Waratahs games the hottest ticket in town and don’t sell out by moving to Homebush it’s terrible stadium to watch rugby at, while having absolutely no atmospehre inside or outside of the stadium!!

As for the Crusaders they are certainly not the team that they once were!

Homebush just doesn’t work for rugby, given the opportunity over the last few years I’ve generally missed Wallabies tests at Homebush in favour of going to BrisVegas and watching a game at a great stadium!

Yes, it’s definitely dissappointing the the ARU had such a short term view of this competition, where once our club rugby system was sufficient to supplying our next generation, its now not close enough in terms of quality as very few representative players go back to their clubs (or get the time to). The ARC was a good concept which was probably not thought through enough, you only have to go and look at the provincial rugby that exists in New Zealand and S.Africa to see that it can work and create a strong and loyal fan base.

If the ARU trimmed some of the fat from their own operations I’m sure they could find some extra dollars for this competition to exist.