The Professor and the panel of the Judge, the Gelding, Sarah Radlow and Paul Dalligan discuss yesterday’s AFLW Grand Final between Adelaide and Melbourne. Paul Dalligan previews the NRLW Grand Final and reviews round 5 of the NRL season and the panel briefly looks at today’s Australian Grad Prix and decided Daniel Ricciardo has no chance of winning.
Tag Archives: grand-prix
Weekend musing – Moto GP, AFL Trade period
I am not a big motor sport fan, however, I started listening to last weeks MotoGP from Phillip Island when I was walking the dog and when I got home I sat down and watched the final six laps of the race. What a fascinating race with many exciting overtaking manoeuvres 
with the top four riders duelling throughout and Marc Marquez taking over in the last lap to win. At one stage with a couple of laps to go he had been shuffled back to fourth. I don’t think I will suddenly become a motor sport fan on the back of that race, but it was certainly very exciting. Maybe if Formula 1 could replicate the same excitement it would improve in popularity, particularly at the moment Mercedes dominating.
Well the AFL trade period is finally over with plenty of trades going through, even players like James Aish who Brisbane said they wouldn’t trade getting where he wanted to go. One trade that didn’t go through was Cam McCarthy from GWS to Fremantle. One thing I 
didn’t realise until last night was that McCarthy was only one year into a four year deal. I can understand players wanting a trade with a year to run on a contract, but three years? Why sign a long term contract and then ask for a trade in the first year, it doesn’t make sense. I think in reality, he hadn’t done much until this year so his manager got him a long term deal, he then has a good year and he suddenly has some currency. I certainly don’t blame the Giants for not doing the trade.
Have a great weekend!
Friday musing…young athletes, Grand Prix, ICC World Cup & Ryan Crowley
I think we all get excited when a young up and coming sportsman or woman comes onto the scene and shows some real potential. Reading about the young sprinter from Tasmania, Jack Hale and the young high jumper from Victoria, Eleanor Patterson does get me a bit excited about two athletes who may establish themselves on the world stage. Hale has a best time for the 100m of 10.13 which was wind assisted and Patterson has a best leap of 1.96m which is only 2cm shy of the national record and, better still, both are still eligible for the world junior championships. These two will be worth keeping an eye on and I understand that Hale will be competing at the Stawell Gift so we will see him competing with open age sprinters sooner rather than later.
I am not a big motor racing fan, but I did sit down and watch a bit of the Grand Prix last weekend. What a procession! If the next few races go in a similar fashion I think even people who are into motor sport will start to drop off Grand Prix racing. The Mercedes car is that much better than everyone else it makes the sport quite boring. The two Mercedes drivers beat the third placed driver by over thirty seconds and lapped Daniel Ricciardo who actually got points for finishing 6th! It has always been a bug bear of mine that a sport is dictated by the equipment and not the sportsman. Put most of Sunday’s drivers in the Mercedes and the positions would have been no different. Where is the sport in that?
Well Sri Lanka are now out of the ICC World Cup, but we may not have seen the last Sri Lankan at the World Cup as I think the now retired Kumar Sangakkara will be named the player of the tournament for his four centuries in a row. What a player and even in his country’s paltry score against Sth Africa he top scored with 45. With form like that I wonder if he will be talked out of retirement.
Ryan Crowley was the big story in AFL circles this week. With the amount of scrutiny now placed on medication and supplements spiked by the ongoing Essendon saga, there really is no excuse. At 31 this could be the end of his career which could put a fair hole in Freemantle’s finals aspirations this year.
Have a great weekend!
Friday musing is back……..Bolton, Ricciardo, Malthouse, Grand Prix….
I saw the Hawthorn ‘fill in’ coach Brendan Bolton interviewed on television last weekend. Have you ever seen or heard a more enthusiastic coach in your life! The way he looked and sounded, if you didn’t know he was an interim coach you would have sworn that he had just ridden the last winner at Elwick. He must be one of the luckiest interim coaches of all time, most interim coaches come in because of the side losing, but he has done a Chris Scott and inherited a great team.
Contrast his presentation with that of Mick Malthouse!!
Great to see Daniel Ricciardo salute in the Canadian Grand Prix last week. I am not much into motor sports, but I always keep an eye on how the Aussies are going and those that do understand the caper have suggested that he has been given Sebastian Vettel’s car and Vettle got the one that Mark Webber had last year. Clearly the Red Bull team are giving Daniel more of a chance than they gave Webber, perhaps it is that infectious smile.
It was good to see that Hadyn Ballantyne’s bump was dismissed by the tribunal and good to see the Match Review Panel did not apply their usual formula. The bump was a legitimate approach in that contest and you would not like to see anyone suspended for what is part of the game.
Sportzfan Radio show #237.2
4 March 2012 237.2 – In the second hour of the show, the Professor asked Daniel what had happened to the NBL season as it seemed to have disappeared with the playoffs beginning soon and the AFL and NRL overshadowing basketball in the news. Sportzfan Stan’s view was that the league’s management needed professional help to increase interest in teams, awareness of games and boost revenues. His feelings were shared by the rest of the panel with discussions centering on the NBL’s lack of promotion of the game and a remedy involving a shared venue with other sports such as netball leading to increased awareness. Daniel reviewed the NBA giving his opinion on the teams, their standings and whether Clipper Darrell had been harshly treated . He also looked at the Twitter tag #BlameLebron. The NRL report from Paul Dalligan included highlights of St. George’s win over the Tinkler Knights. The win surprised Dalligan as the favoured Knights played well. The Professor thought the Raiders v Storm match was the game of the round so far with Billy Slater’s brilliant late try winner being a feature. Dalligan congratulated The Professor on his Bulldogs pulling out a win after overcoming a 14 point deficit. The Panel also discussed Essendon’s no-show for their match on Saturday with St. Kilda in Wangaratta and the AFL originally splitting the game points between the two teams with all in agreement that St. Kilda should receive all four points. Last moment thoughts from the Professor had the Panel discussing the Grand Prix and Bernie Ecclestone’s annual threat of axing the race.
Sportzfan Radio #195.2
27 March 2011 195.2 – The Panel wants to know when Mark Fiorenti is going to send his first tweet. Daniel says he is probably waiting until a team scores a goal in soccer. Mark talks about the good, the bad and the ugly of the A League. The Professor gives Mark $46million and asks him to do two things to fix soccer in Australia. We don’t quite know what Sportzfan Stan was getting at but he talks about taking the heads off the Manchester United players and putting them on A League 
players. The Gelding asks the Professor about former Green Bay Packer player Johnny Jolly who is in trouble with drugs again. The Panel then discuss Australia’s exit from the cricket one day World Cup. Paul Dalligan talks rugby league and NRL. He’s happy with the Rabbitohs form and says Greg Inglis responds to criticism with more force than the Chinese government. He says Mark Fiorenti’s first tweet will be something. There is a discussion on who will win the Australian Grand Prix – the verdict is Vettel. Sean Callanan comes on the show to talk sports social media and says Fiorenti should get off the fence and start tweeting. He also talks about good and bad hashtags in tweeting. Daniel suggests that the Professor should change his twitter name from Packers4.
Sportzfan Radio #192.2
6 March 2011 192.2 – Mark Fiorenti talks with the Panel about the poor crowd attending the A League preliminary final. The Professor asks if marquee matches should be played in population centres to draw a crowd and says it is incumbant on the organising body to look at this. Mark then looks at the Asian Champions League matches involving Melbourne Victory and Sydney. He asks the Professor how frustrating it must be to be an Arsenal supporter. The Panel then talk with Australia’s first professional women’s world boxing champion Susie Ramadan. She recently won the world IBF bantamweight title. Susie says she is a “Girly, Girl” but wanted something mentally challenging 
that got her fit so took up boxing. She fought 79 amateur fights and 20 times as a pro winning all of them and eight by KO. With women’s boxing starting to gain acceptance, she believes it won’t be long before we see a TV show like the Contender about women boxers. The Panel come back and examine the Ricky Nixon saga and ask why he hasn’t been suspended pending the outcome of the AFLPA investigation. This leads to a greater examination of the role of the player agent. There is also a discussion of Bernie Ecclestone’s suggestion to use artificial rain to liven up Grand Prix racing. All agree the sport is in trouble if it needs to resort to tricks. John suggests that the doctrine of ‘volenti non fit injuria‘ applies…we liked that! There is a further discussion of the AFL, AFLPA and player agents. Sean Callanan, batting clean up again, talks about the Mountain West Conference rating their twitter
followers with a new program called Sports Digital Passion. It ranks the ‘fandom’ of the MWC twitterers. It is not true that Charlie Sheen is a member of the MWC. Sean also talks about ‘Social Media Executioners’. He has also made a bit of progress on getting Aaron Rodgers on Sportzfan Radio talking with some Packers officials, clearly a work in progress.