Tag Archives: essendon

Friday musing – Cricket, World Cup, Essendon FC…..

Chris Barwin HillsWell the Cricket World Cup is about to begin and I note that Australia is drawn play a game against New Zealand in New Zealand, so much for the home World Cup. With 2 pools the Australians and the New Zealanders should have been placed into different pools so that there was no away game for either team. In the previous World Cup in 1992 the same thing happened with Australia drawn to play New Zealand in New Zealand (and we lost!). With the 2 pools it is unlikely that either side would miss the next stage, however, I do have an issue with that type of fixturing.

It will be interesting to see how the World Cup goes. It would appear that some games will be very popular, like the opening game of the tournament tomorrow with Australia v England and the India v Pakistan game in Adelaide which was apparently sold out some months ago. However, many of the others could be television games only. The tournament is scheduled to go over seven weeks which to me is way too long and there is a big risk that the interest in the game will wain over that length of time. I think a compressed format of 4-5 weeks would have been more appealing. The Big Bash was played over a period of a month and I think they got that right.

I was bemused to hear Mick Malthouse and Nathan Buckley’s comments about the Essendon players and their stance regarding the NAB Challenge series. I think the club should field a team for the series, however, I also agree with the approach that the entire list from 2012 should not play to at least try and preserve the anonymity of the players to which they are entitled. There should be enough players that have come onto the list since 2012 and I wonder what Malthouse & Buckley’s views would be if the boot was on the other foot and it was their players that had to bear the brunt of this continued saga.

Have a great weekend!

Sportzfan Radio #183.1

@SportzfanRadio now available on iTunes!12 December 2010 183.1 – Sean makes a rare appearance in studio and Daniel starts with an apology as it took him five days to read Mark Fiorenti’s blog so he knows nothing about what happened in the sports world for the week. He also adds his favourite Qatar player after some research is Eric Clapton and Sean adds that FIFA’s new game Qatar hero. Stan gets into Daniel again about basketball asking him how he thinks the Melbourne Tigers will go against Perth. Sean thinks as it is Al Westover’s 200th game it may get the Tigers across the line. Their is also a discussion about the the test cricket side and Stan is for sacking all the player sand the selectors. Dan Butterly talks US sport and commences with his view on the Heisman trophy and who will win it. He thinks Cam Newton from Auburn will win it, even with all the cloud of suspicion over him regarding the behaviour of his father. Dan also talks about the Bowl matches coming up with 35 being played over three weeks. He likes Oregon to beat Auburn in the Championship game and TCU to beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. There are moves afoot within the Conferences and Hawaii has now decided to leave the WAC and join the MWC in 2012. The Professor asks whether the MWC will play a game in Australia given Hawaii is halfway here. Dan agrees that it would raise the MWC profile. Sean says AAMI stadium would be perfect to host such a game. Dan feels Brett Favre’s streak will end at 297 as he will not recover in time to play in tomorrow’s game.

The Professor thinks there may have been a first last week when the Gelding was not on the show at all. The Gelding talks cricket first discussing the problems with Victorians trying to get into the Test side. He then moves on to racing and reviews his selections for the Flemington meeting. Although he got off to a great start tipping Aloha to win, it was all downhill from there with his other three selections failing to even be placed. The Gelding’s favourite Qatar player is Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin.

The Panel discusses Gary Ablett’s revelations during the week where he hadn’t spoken to his coach, Bomber Thompson since March this year. Sean talks about a rumor that James Hird and Thompson had been talking about getting together for 2012 but because Essendon’s coterie groups wanted Matthew Knights out, everything got moved forward twelve months. Daniel starts talking about Bob Costas (NBC sportscaster) but he really means the Geelong president, Frank Costa. Stan is swinging the axe again and Sean observes he is going to put Centrelink out of business as everyone is getting the knife.

Mark Fiorenti talks up the local Melbourne derby between the Heart and the Victory with over 23,000 at AAMi stadium. Sean went to his first game during the week to see Heart play but they went down in front of around 2,000 people. Mark says it was the lowest ever at an A League game in Melbourne. He says the FFA must address this as mid week games don’t work.

Sportzfan Radio #167.2

@SportzfanRadio now available on iTunes!15 August 2010 167.2 – The Sydney Colt talks about the best value when betting and says punters would be very foolish not to go with the Corporate Bookies. He also talks about the last table at the World Series of Poker and has framed a book on the next NSW RL State of Origin Coach ($2.80 Laurie Daly $3.40 Ricky Stuart, $5.00 Phil Gould, Steve Folkes, $12.00 Brad Fittler..). We get Dr Leslie’s CSA in earlier this week just prior to Paul Dalligan. Paul hasn’t been eating baked beans but says he had a foot long hot dog at the Mets. Whilst he didn’t do any stool gazing, he did do some beer gazing. He returns from his overseas jaunt to talk NRL but spends most of his time talking baseball. He has brought the Professor an umbrella from his trip to the Citibank Stadium super box. Paul would like to see Phil Gould as the next State of Origin Coach. The Professor reveals there will be no Sportzfan Radio next Sunday as Southern FM are off the air for maintenance work. In that case, Daniel decides to talk about next week’s results this week. The Panel talks to Nick Tedeschi about the NSW State of Origin Coach and Nick thinks Laurie Daly is over the line from the mail he has received. Nick would prefer Chris Anderson to coach the team. He also discusses the players leaving the Melbourne Storm and whether the Storm will be able to do a Canterbury Bankstown and win a flag within two years. The Panel spends the rest of the time talking about rumors and topics tweeted in. The Parkdale Pounce believes Matthew Knights will not coach Essendon next year but Matthew Lloyd will comeback and be coached by Mark Williams. There is also a discussion on changes by the AFL to the interchange rules and it is decided that we should start the “Benny Hill” segment for stupid ideas. Daniel believes Adrian Anderson would be part of the segment each week. The Gelding believes there should be a committee set up to watch over committees. In another nomination for the Benny Hill award, it seems Cameron White is playing for Bangalore against Victoria in the IPL competition – go figure! Will Richmond keep Ben Cousins? Time will tell although the Panel hope he comes back in 2011. Finally the Panel talk about the Socceroos new coach Holger Osieck – the no name coach, who is maybe twenty years out of his prime.