State of Origin

It's now five straight series wins for the mighty Maroons. What do NSW have to do to get the shield back? Should they make wholesale changes to the team? Do they pick young players and groom them for the future? when does it begin? Game 3 2010? or next year?

From my understanding of the Origin phenomenon, it has always been the wealth of players NSW has VS the few players that QLD has. It has been critised that NSW always changed their players when something doesn't work, while QLD stick to their player even though they lost or got thrashed. BUT, isn't that what State Of Origin is all about.

QLD can't afford to change their team, they don't have enough players to pick from. Imagine if all 13 of the QLD starting players got injured, does QLD have enough depth to pick another 13 players plus the subs?

While in the case of NSW, if all 13 players are injured. There are enough players to pick another 26 or even 39 players to make up a team. Hence, NSW have always had the luxury of picking and changing players to suit their needs.

The Aura of the Origin games have always been the idea of the skillful Blues player VS the passionate Maroons player.

Now, the question for the Blues, which 13 cockroaches do you pick to start the game and beat the cane toads.

While for the Maroons, the question has always been. Can our cane toads stand up to the cockroaches and beat them in an Origin game.

UEFA world cup 2010 qualification - final round

Final round of matches:
Russia - 21 pts - @ Azerbaijan, draw 1-1, 22pts
Bosnia - 19 pts - v Spain, lost 2-5, 19pts
France - 18 pts - v Austria, won 3-1, 21pts
Ukraine - 18 pts - @ Andorra, won 6-0, 21pts
Greece - 17pts - v Luxembourg, won 2-1, 20pts
Slovenia - 17 pts - @ San Marino, won 3-0, 20pts
Ireland - 17 pts - v Montenegro, draw 0-0, 18pts
Croatia - 17 pts - @ Kazakhstan, won 2-1, 20pts
Finland - 17 pts - @ Germany, draw 1-1, 18pts
Portugal - 16 pts - v malta, won 4-0, 19pts

so the 8 playoffs team are:
Russia (22), France (21), Ukraine(21), Greece(20), Slovenia(20), Bosnia (19), Portugal(19), Ireland (18)

and the 9 automatic qualifications are:
Denmark, Switzerland, Slovakia, Germany, Spain, England, Serbia, Italy and Netherlands.

UEFA world cup qualifier - 14 Oct 2009

Group 2 qualifier
Switzerland v Israel and Greece v Luxembourg

Group 3
San Marino v Slovenia and Poland v Slovakia

On group 2 matches, Switzerland on 20 pts with +10 goal difference and Greece on 17 pts with +9 goal difference. This is the final round for the round robin, Switzerland needs a draw to guarantee qualification while Greece needs a win to have a chance of qualifying.

On group 3, Slovakia is on 19pts with +11 and Slovenia is on 17pts with +11. San Marino has no win from 9 matches and they have let in 44 goals, it seems a definite that Slovenia will win. The question is by how many goals? This will give Slovenia on 20pts with probably +15 goal difference. That means for Slovakia to qualify they would need a win against Poland since a draw would mean they finish 2nd due to goal difference. Polands records hasn't been good with 3wins-2draws-4losses.

8 playoff spots for the 8th next best teams, their matches are at the moment
Russia - 21 pts - @ Azerbaijan
Bosnia - 19 pts - v Spain
France - 18 pts - v Austria
Ukraine - 18 pts - @ Andorra
Greece - 17pts - v Luxembourg
Slovenia - 17 pts - @ San Marino
Ireland - 17 pts - v Montenegro
Croatia - 17 pts - @ Kazakhstan
Finland - 17 pts - @ Germany
Portugal - 16 pts - v malta

Game this week - 10th October 2009

Colts v Titans
Patriots v Broncos

Last weekend was the end of the NRL 2009 season. The Storm won the Grand Final.

No more league for about 6 months. At least the serious stuff, we do have the four nations where teams like Aust and NZ rotate their players to improve player stats in number of try scored, points, goal kick etc. In the end, it will most likely be a Aus v NZ final. In most cases, Aus will win and in some odd years NZ will win.

Besides league, NFL is into week 5 of the season and the european soccer season is well on their way.

What is wrong with Milan? is Leonardo that bad of a coach? are they lacking players? do teams in europe really need 100M dollar players to be able to compete in their domestic league? I can probably understand if Milan struggle against other team from europe, even if they are perceived as not so talented of a team (such as zurich). But how can Milan struggle domestically with the type of players that they have now? and again I can understand if they struggle against inter, juventus, roma or other top teams. But against Bari? what is going on inside Milan?

On the spanish league, Real seems to be doing well with their recent very expensive buys.

On the premier league, Chelsea is looking good. Ancelotti seems to be doing very well in Chelsea, players seem to like his playing formation. I guess it also helps that Chelsea has a lot of very very good players.

Storm Wins

storm beat eels 23-16
amazing game I thought.

Eels fan blames the ref for the penalty on Billy Slater losing the ball resulting in a 1 point field goal. We should have won, said the thousands of Eels fans. I say maybe, could be, who knows, this is a pointless IF.
Without saying all the IFs that can happen or should happen. I thought is was a good final 9-10 weeks for the Eels during the season, then a very good finals campaign by the 8th placed Eels. They made it to the grand final. They played very well in the grand final game, they pushed the storm all the way. They compensate very well for their bad defense, and their attack have spark in a few moments during the game, they scored tries when mattered. well done to the Eels.

Congratulations to the Storm. They played their game very well. To tell you the truth, I never liked the way the Storm play the game, some say it's very structured (I never understand what that means). But they do have lucky break in the last few years in picking up young talent, inglis, turner, folau, slater, cronk, white, tolman, hoffman, johnson, smith. Almost the whole team started as a nobody and becomes a good player.

I am now convinced that is the recipe of a successful team in the age of salary cap. There is no point in picking up expensive players by buying from the market, example rooster, to some extent warriors, the titans as they boughts players in building the team, the rabbits, maybe even the bulldogs. The key for NRL team in the next few years at least, is to get a bit of luck in picking up good young players. For example, the storm, the eels this year (it may take 10 weeks before the youngster in mortimer and the rookie in robson gets a chance but didn't they do good in the back end of the season and in the finals), the broncos, manly, the dragons also have a few young players.

Wow, if we looked at the premiers of the last few years. Storm, Eagles, Broncos and Tigers. I don't think they bought any big name players to win the comp. It's either they have the players or young players playing out of their skin or both.

Steelers v Bengals

I don't support either team but I always love it when an underdog beat a favorite.
In this case, the Pittsburgh Steelers (6 times Super Bowl Champion and the defending champion) got beaten by the Cincinnati Bengals (20-23).

It's end of week 3 of the NFL 2009-2010 season, and the Steelers have won just 1 game and lost 2. Not a good start to the season for the defending champ.