Wrap - Cashes and Ashes

1. The tour match v Nottinghamshire just completed (two days?) sums up our problems. Blokes who have been given opportunities squandering them. Cowan, Kahwaja, Smith all offenders. Watson gets 45 and we are supposed to do handstands? Warner 35, Hughes 30...are we supposed to be content with this? It is sub standard and speaks of indulged attitudes and self centredness. No surprise that referrals for DRS have been dominated by these types.

The problem is that there is no competition for spots at all. The thought of 4-0 looms large after this week. Our bats are struggling against County attacks.

Some say it is 20/20 Cricket impacting. The trouble with this theory is that we are terrible at that form of the game too!

Wonder how comfortable that High Performance Manager is sitting?

2. Wallabies. Playing catch up from early on in the game and throughout. O'Connor was slow and no good out wide..bad reads in defence which cost big points. Mogg was simply out of his depth. Link has a lot of work to do with this lot to knock the rough edges off and get rid of the Gen Y attitude. New Zealand cruised really. Never troubled.

Soft tries were gifted to the All Blacks all night. They barely raised a sweat.

Great to see the ref taking over the game as usual. The crowd was abysmal really. Rugby needs to wake up to itself. It is simply evaporating in Australia. Noticed that the Penrith Emus are still getting lapped by 100 points in their lower grades.

3. EPL - Arsenal. Wenger has been there too long...without resounding success. There always seem to be excuses coming from that club. The fans know it too. Despite the fact it is perhaps the most biased football comp in the world...only four teams can win it...it is still the most exciting.

4. Danny Welbeck - Manchester United v Swansea. He is something special. He was on fire in Australia on the recent tour. His chip over the goalie last night was awesome. He can play!

5. AFL. Hawthorn and Sydney are charging ahead. The Melbourne AFL Club may need to close down.

6. Geoff Toovey. Typically the whinger, but I thought he may have done a foo foo valve on Friday night. The Matai no-try was a disgrace, but by the end of the game the difference was much more than just that. Manly look sharp early , but tire. Age is catching up. The Lima leg twist is one from the Storm's top drawer.

7. Daniel Geale is a classy athlete. He never whinges and is in a brutal sport. A sad loss and unfortunately the belt goes elsewhere. After five defences, he still retains youth and an impressive record. No winners in that sport.

8. Sally Pearson a silver medal at the World Championships. When was the last time she smiled? She's like Ray Price...who was last seem smiling in 1986 after the premiership win...for two seconds.

Usain Bolt still keeps winning. Is he an awesome talent - or luckier than some of the other Jamacian athletes who met trouble recently? Either way, I'd like to see him run till the very end for once - and really see how fast he could go.