you…you HAD to bring up the 4-434. im…i cant…i just…dont look at me right now. *huddles in a corner and whimpers quietly*

yes! i bloody hope so. how amazing was it to see the guy that took his place blast about a million runs. now THATS what you call a number three! im deliriously happy right now…but wait until the next match before we start counting chooks

matt, what is your actual stance on this topic? on the one hand you rightly point out things such as exposure for younger players, testing out game plans and bringing the game to the bush. on the other hand you seem to be bemoaning the fact that its a mickey mouse tournament of little significance.

who cares?

“But the NAB challenge will give coaches vital feedback from clubs testing their game plans, and youngsters will have a chance to perform and push their case for selection.”

well i guess they do

turning odis into quali matches for a world cup is no-go. imagine india missing out because they played poorly. 1.2b indians would burn the entire earth.

be like brazil missing out on the football world cup

the criticism of mitch marsh is completely unfounded. a quick check of cricinfo reveals his list a and first class averages of 24 and 29.33 respectively, with a first class economy of 3.17 and a list a strike rate of 28. their records also show a couple of 4 and 5 wicket hauls along the way, from less than 50 matches in both formats. even his test match economy is 2.68.

to say it is bowling “devoid” of threat, is completely ridiculous. ill grant you he is yet to bowl the house down at the very top level, last match notwithstanding, but can you honestly say you would rather field shane watson in any team? at the end of the day its these two that bear closest comparison, and i very much know who i prefer.

as far as this match against new zealand is concerned, one last hit out before then would have been good but i reckon weve been playing so well this summer that our confidence will see us through. i really hope we dont go in over-confident because of all the winning weve been doing, but if we dont, i think we should hold our nerve.

if our bowlers turn up to play they can certainly keep the kiwis to under 300 or thereabouts, but they need to turn up. anything below their best and the kiwis will pound them.

so “if” ireland win some international cup, they will be granted test status…by 2019. never mind that the current intercontinental cup is run between this year and 2017. never mind a bunch of affiliate and associate teams will be involved. so if one of those teams should happen to win…are they going to be granted test status?

why dont the icc just produce a bunch of members only jackets, hand them out to full member nations, and bar the door to anyone and everyone else trying to have a go? they may as well be obvious about things, because theyre bloody well not very subtle!

afghanistan (along with ireland) are my team for this world cup. just being here for them cannot possibly be overstated. it is a fantastic achievement and even if they never make another world cup, they can hold their heads up high that they managed to make it here in the middle of a war. so many congratulations to them.

envision 2019 for just one second. in the next tournament, TWO TEAMS will miss out on the quarter finals. TWO! so pretty much everyone gets in if they play fair to middling. find one whipping boy, and youre golden! i mean if they wanted to make it utterly predictable that was the right way to do it. if the windies are still floating around by then it will probably be them and bangladesh who miss out. there you go, ive just made a semi-decent prediction 4 years in advance.

if the icc want to take all the mystery and romance out of this tournament, they are going the right bloody way about it. between the aus/eng/india agreement thingo, and the 2019 tournament being trimmed back, i swear the icc are doing their utmost to make all cricket as dull and lethargic as possible. even die-hards like me are going to struggle to watch any game in 5 or 10 years.

“negotiations”; “new media rights deal”; “consider the merit”

so of course this has nothing whatsoever to do with grubbing as much money as possible from the average supporter, does it? course not, i mean old red-face ed never places profit above people…does he? the only time eddie ever does anything is out of the generosity of his heart – to “get the best deal possible for the supporters”.

and of course the afl arent interested in maximising profits, are they?

its all for us, guys, all of it – and you can believe that, because they said it!

a bit of good old brett lee wide yorker death bowling would do the trick. england bowling juicy half trackers is not going to help them get anywhere close to victory…

if yuvie is worth 3.3 then finch is worth a hell of a lot more than 6 and a half. come on

brisbane lions had triple success just over a decade ago, and the swans are still being successful…and youre saying that these teams arent core components of their cities culture?

“dream on”…

remember a few years ago when they introduced the hands in the back rule and all the over-zealous umpiring that resulted. we love to hate the umpires but how can they cope when week to week they dont know how to interpret new rules? i believe the head needs to be sacrosanct, end of story, but thats it – everything else fair game (in a sporting sense of course). thats why the hip and shoulder is all but gone, because players are terrified of accidental head contact and 4 weeks on the sidelines. its ridiculous! i truly think the way the game was in the mid-late 90s was perfect.

the constant changes are just the governing body’s way of keeping themselves at the forefront of peoples minds. god forbid they fall into the category of an overseeing body that just hums along in the background and does its job of governing the game. god forbid! if were talking about them, theyre still ‘relevant’…right? any publicity and all that.

all these injuries cannot be pure coincidence for the dees. im thinking essendon a few years back, all those soft tissue injuries. maybe the dees training techniques leave something to be desired…

dont worry about this “for clarke” business – just straight out drop him! im fed to the teeth of the sight of this clown. my nan could play more consistently and shes pushing daisies.

thats probably why bailey was so casual in his response to the captain question – “i expect to be dropped for clarke” / “i might not play again the entire tournament” etc. because he knows he will be straight back in next match!

no, that was a bit of a smart-arsed answer.

whoever said clarkey is default captain until he retires (or hands it over like punt) is bang on. he was appointed by the selectors to be captain. therefore when he plays he is captain. it doesnt matter if he misses 90% of matches (i know it matters for team continuity, etc, but this is a comment based solely on the clarke discussion), when he plays, he is captain. bailey, smith etc are ONLY stand-ins until the selectors decide to strip clarke of the captaincy, he hands it in, or he retires. no more to talk about really.

bring on the bangers and the return of clarke!

can you deny that sylvia belongs on the same scrapheap? of all the outside mids freo could have picked up…

i dont think freo will be top 4 btw. top 8 sure, easily, but i reckon and ive thought this for years that ross lyon teams have a use-by date.

(see i can make unsubstantiated claims too)

good article cameron, especially the bit about matt priddis. the guy is so unrecognised by most fans and pundits its a joke.

an improvement on 2013 was all i was looking for last season, and it came. i tipped finishing up somewhere between 6-8 for us around this time last pre-season (ie before our midfield was ripped apart), and i think ill do that again this season. my heart says “go higher, go higher” but my head knows that the guys just have to get a solid season in injury-free.

i knew as soon as they picked up sylvia that he would be a nice recruit for their wafl mob, i think i even said something like that. lets just consign this guy to the “docker shocker” dustbin of infamy, along with the likes of chris groom, croad and one or two others. some things change…some things stay the same, eh? 😉

this guy has earnt the right to say, go and do whatever and wherever he pleases. if australian fans are experiencing a pain in the gluteus maximus region, thats just their boo-boo to get over.

timmy could say the moon is made of cow poo and hitler was in the right, and i would still revere him for his exploits.

this is just another chapter in the personal story of tim cahill, as he is wont to say.

its all trash, man. what they say and what we say. “it’s quite funny” how you perceive renegade here, with no base form whatsoever to go off of, as being supportive of whatever australians have to say and quick to rubbish everything else. thats an unfair criticism levelled at australians in general. we are quick to reject any criticism of our cricket teams because we are fiercely protective of them. i am sure the same follows for any cricketing nation.

reality? reality, tim? oh, you mean the reality of crap coaches along the lines of pim verbeek and holger osieck? (i’ll see your “stop making excuses” and raise you a “we are currently cruising under a guy who knows what hes doing”)

young kids? old guys padding their super? i invite you to peruse this site: http://www.ultimatealeague.com/records.php?type=cl&show=asa <— where you will see the average age of pretty much all bar one club is in the mid-20s. (that was like literally the 2nd result in a google search consisting of "average age of the a-league". anyone can make unsubstantiated statements. it usually takes about three seconds to prove them one way or the other.)

wiped out in the first round? perhaps you need a reminder: 2006 – second round, would (probably) have qualified for q/f if that greaseball hadnt rocked up to the football stadium instead of the diving stadium. 2010 – despite two patently unfair red cards in separate matches, we still walked away with a win and a draw. i would hardly call that "wiped out", old son. okay, ill grant you we pretty much got wiped out last year but we DID play the #5, #9 and #14 (current) ranked teams, based on fifa's standings (which ARE arse, but theyre a starting point).

football powers in europe missing out is their own dumbarse fault, they didnt play well enough – dont drop that on the socceroos doorstep.

in the asian confederation there are currently 9 teams higher placed than us – please dont belittle those talented countries.

football can be plenty attacking – did you even see the asian cup decider? south korea were all over us with overlapping full backs, amazing through balls, exposing our defenders. it was the most attacking match ive watched in a long time.

above all, timothy, remember this: if you enter a discussion with the sole purpose of pointing out anything negative that you can think of, "youre gonna have a bad time". mmmkay?

mitch at 8 and maxi + hadds up one? not his natural area of expertise, but fulfilling the faulkner role

“throwing the ball at the wickets”
rofl don, even though youre freo i cant help but take a shine to your comments 😀
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and i dont think england are on an upward trend. all their batsmen that they brought here for the tri-series pretty much average in the 30s. they can be competitive but not much more. i think moeen ali, bell and morgan are their best players and most likely highest run scorers. if one or both of the top order fail at any point it will probably be a long climb back.

first cab off the ranks is timmy cahill and its shameful that hes not already on the list in this article
can we get a knighthood happening for dk? 😀
in fact, i think we should knight kurt fearnley – that guy is a demon!
robbie mcewen – 3x green jersey, tour de france
and im gonna throw in woosha because i am an eagles man – make of that what you will