Wrap - Group Hugs and Head Pats

1. Cricket. Talk of drop in pitches at the SCG will certainly not help Test cricket in Australia. The predictability of the MCG Boxing test has ended it as the spectacle it once was, making it a "bat-a-thon" and giving bowlers nothing. Made for five days of advertising revenue for Cricket Australia? When will Lords have a drop in pitch? The same answer should be there for the SCG - never.


Can anyone accept the type of pitches England have dished up for the World Cup semi finals in England? Ordinary really. Rain is inevitable, but they should be smarter than this. England too good regardless and have the final to lose. If NZ bat well, they can win it.


2. World Cup Cricket. Stoinis was the dud of the tournament (the new mid career Shane Watson). Overhyped and one dimensional. Can our all rounder obsession end with the departure of Hohns and Bug Snappell? Maxwell of course was not far away from terrible either - and throw in Handscomb. Complete duds and all from Victoria.


Yet Australia put Handscomb forward for all the media in the lead up to the semi final and made him front and centre. Most unfair when you just come in for a semi final. They did not deliver when it mattered. Cummins was too quiet as well. He needs to lift for us to get near a Ashes victory. Only ticks to Finch, Warner, Smith, Carey, Starc (terrible late in the tournament). I get a bad feeling re the Ashes. We do not have the batting skill on the seaming deck...but who does? As soon as the sun shines we are set...if it doesn't, we are in strife!


No ticker tape parades in Sydney this year. Love a ticker tape parade. What is ticker tape? Maybe shred left over fax paper?




3. State of Origin. Tedesco scores a cracking last minute try and the rest is history. How NSW could almost blow a 12 point lead is staggering. The secret to points is out wide in Origin, but how impressive was the Cook try. He is a star. Fittler triumphs and all the critics can dream on. Even though QLD were short staffed (Ponga, Arrow), so was NSW (Cleary, MItchell, Sims). The NSW kicking game is ordinary. Fittler believes in the high bomb. You win more games in Origin when your kicks hit the grass more often that your opposition.


3A. Player of the Series. Apparently Alf Langer, the QLD trainer, was nominated as player of the series.


4. The Team Group Hug in Sport. Does this guarantee a loss? It is out of control? So many teams do this now... I'd love to see the strike rate. I preferred the Jack Gibson method of the team clapping each other on as they entered the field circa 1980.


5. Wimbledon - Serena. 32 Grand Slam finals for 23 wins/ 9 losses... Federer 31 Grand Slam finals for 20 wins/ 10 losses (1 unresolved). Incredible record when you consider she has made three of the last five Grand Slam finals contested. Thumped nonetheless. Halep is a dynamo and hard to beat. Not many Romanians have succeeded on the international tennis stage.


Incredible women's tennis history of USA-UK-AUS women up until the 1990s giving way to Czech-Germany-Belgium and now to the Russians, Serbs and Romanians. Evolving game. Even two Columbians won the men's doubles!


6. Wimbledon - Men. Federer is a magician - and at his age. How good is he? That semi v Nadal was extraordinary. Not getting the No. 1 seeding at these events hurts you big time when there are only three blokes contesting every tournament. Two of the three sit on one side of the draw. Djokovic has had the best of it lately. It makes a big difference with one final (not two) to win!


7. AFL. Swans lost by 7 to Carlton and Collingwood and 10 to Essendon. These tight ones swing your season one way or another. Interesting that Longmire was sought so powerfully. When does a club need a recharge? The players really did not lift for him. A terrible loss quite frankly. Maybe a group hug was needed pre game? Or maybe they had one?


GWS are done. They are perennial losers at the MCG. If Richmond get there, they will be hard to toss. Brisbane look sharp too, but a bit raw. Western Bulldogs coming home hard. Love the pace of Jason Johannisen.


8. Cameron Smith. 400 NRL games is extraordinary. His long term longevity is exceptional. He looks like he could crack 500! The Storm don't lose a lot, but they rarely if ever lose big milestone games. makes Benji's and Cooper's 300 games seem trivial.


Xerri is supremely talented, but he has terrible hands. No Origin for him any time soon. His drop ball rate is horrendous. Group hug him... or shower him with high fives when making an error. Where did this come from in the game? Get around the bloke that makes a terrible error...? A quiet word of encouragement, no head pats, high fives or back slaps. It is still a stinking error.
By the way, Nick Cotric deserves five weeks for his tackle. The NRL needs to toughen up.


9. Gold Coast. As mentioned last month, the Gold Coast should be shut down as a sporting destination and taken to Brisbane. Garth Brennan apparently had the desk packed last week! Goooone! Stuart Dew in a world of pain too with the useless Suns. Most fans would rather give them a new moniker - the moons - and provide samples.


10. INF - Netball World Cup. Surely the minnows are a time waste. Lovely and all that, but in the end, no spectacle v Zimbabwe or Uganda and these games won't fill the stadiums. This was a good feature of the recent cricket world cup...every nation there was competitive, even Afghanistan who have improved more quickly than most other minnows.