The Wrap - Mascot Mania

1. Mascot Dangers. Not since 1995 when the great 'Stanley the Steeler' (Illawarra Steelers) got sent off for his role in sideline biff with Balmain players have the mascots worldwide seen a week like it. First Reggie Rabbit (South Sydney Rabbitohs) had had a gutful of fans and goes the shirt fronting...now the Manchester City mascot is speaking out after some gentle byplay saw the mascot concussed. Dangerous work!

2. Sheffield Shield. Ryan Harris has done a top job as coach of South Australia. Greg Chappell, Jason Gillespie, Tim Neilsen...none of them could make a dent. On the back of Brendan Doggett taking 11 wickets in a Shield final - the most EVER by a bowler, a Jake Lehmann/ Jason Sangha/ Alex Carey tons and some excellent fielding, their first victory in 29 years. They are a bit of an odds and sods team, but they have triumphed before a record crowd. Unheard of numbers in the last decade plus!

Great to see the return to the old days with the crowd running onto the field and stealing stumps as well!

Jason Sangha, former U/19 Australian captain and ex-NSW was the eventual hero with 126no. Third ton of the year! Shield Final tons count more significantly on the resume, that is for sure... especially when completing a record run chase like they did. A few ex NSW players in their ranks - Ben Manenti, Nathan McAndrew, Jason Sangha. Harry Conway and Liam Scott.

Moises Henriques has finally pulled the pin on his Shield career. Second only to Mo Matthews in games played for NSW, but a lean average to be fair - 13 tons and 6830 runs at 34.84 AND 127 wickets at 30.75. A great ambassador and leader, but probably good at both, not great at one discipline. A solid career regardless, playing for Australia and playing IPL. He won't have troubles finding a bank manager.

3. IPL. Mitchell Marsh has started the tournament with a bang. A couple of half centuries to he and Head. Interesting that he too is fit and well...like Hazelwood (5 wickets), Cummins (3 wickets) and co. We should have more IPLs to keep our players fit. Not a family reason or personal reason in sight either. "Starc is taking wickets (3 wickets) and Head is clearing pickets". Cummins is hitting sixes and getting wickets. Maxwell is still getting ducks as well. He has more wickets than runs at present.

4. NRL. The Cowboys bounce back v the sloppy Raiders and St George win the completely unexpected in beating Melbourne. A sensational victory masterminded by Shane Flanagan who has done it before, famously for the Sharks in the 2016 Grand Final. The Sharks were disappointing at home. Stephen Crichton is some sort of player. Awesome strength and leadership. They are the real deal those undefeated Berries.

How bad is the bunker getting? That missed try by Moses Leota was so bad...so bad. The NRL are pathetic trying to cover it up. Ashley Klein has a terrible record too. He is our equivalent of Joel Wilson, who was recently sacked as an international ICC umpire.

There are three teams who have never registered a win in a NRL season: University (1935); South Sydney (1946) and Eastern Suburbs (1966). Parramatta (2025) are a strong chance to join them. Who can they beat? 

5. AFL. Carlton are in a lot of bother. So are Melbourne, who look terrible. Sliding down and losing early never helps a season of any team. Early days, but Hawthorn and GWS are looking really good. The Freo buying spree does not look to have worked. So much more ahead. Adelaide looking brighter too.

6. Oscar Piastri. THREE F1 wins now after last week's China GP victory. He is still behind Daniel Ricciardo (8), Mark Webber (9) and Alan Jones (12) and their GP win totals. Piastri looks good to get a few more yet in season 2025. Japan next week.

7. Super Rugby. The Waratahs were whacked again v Hurricanes. Sadly, this is the sort of result (57-12 loss) that the fans have become used to seeing. This was an incredibly disappointing result. A shock loss by the Crusaders too. The Australian teams are currently right up there with the Reds leading the whole show! Great job.

8. Ange. Photos are apparently emerging of Ange's replacement at Tottenham - that or old photos resurfacing! It never takes long in the EPL. There are a lot more coaches and teams that want success than cups to win! Simple.

Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forrest are into the FA Cup Semi Finals. For Notts it is 34 years since they have enjoyed such success. What a year they have had!

9. Socceroos. Games v Japan (already qualified) and Saudi Arabia await in June at home. Can we make it? Tony Popovic has done really well since taking the helm. He can coach and does it humbly.

10. Min Woo Lee. Texas Children's Houston Open PGA Leader by four shots heading into the final round. Interesting that a bloke called Scottie Scheffler is hovering. Hopefully Min Woo can hold on, but he has imploded before at The Players Championship. Maybe things will be different this time after than crushing experience. Big crowds!

The Wrap - Ready to Cash In

1. Parramatta and Essendon. Two similar, but different clubs. Both with huge fan bases, but both with massive challenges in the face of underperformance and early season smashings. It might help if Dylan Brown ran the ball and did something. I would be very nervous if I was a Newcastle supporter. A ridiculous sum of money for him, but good luck to him and his family.

The Gold Coast Titans seem to be perennial underperformers as well...  even with a plethora of new signings. Their win over the Knights was horrific for Adam O'Brien. Not one to lose. The greatest trap for visiting teams is its holiday destination. Des has cut a very under stated figure on the Gold Coast. They were quietly impressive. Very patient.

The Parramatta misery continues, albeit a little more mild. Jason Ryles has much to learn...he's in the media again telling anyone that they are a "young side" (1, 5 and 7 only this week) and yet he got rid of experience when he arrived - and bought them! He has Lomax, Russell, Penisini, Brown, Lane, Paulo, Hopgood, Matterson, Addo Carr, Lussick, Ofahengaue - very experienced first graders who are not producing. No Moses hurts them, but he bought two half backs this year too (Hawkins and Volkman). Stop the excuses and coach a team of discipline and mental toughness. You have simply not prepared them well enough with the right attitude. The coach sets the standards. Addo-Carr at least wants to win!

Is Rueben Garrick is one of the best goal kickers the game has seen - 78% is up there with Daryl Harrigan and Hazem El Masri. Adam Reynolds now has the second most goalkicks ever (still 200 goals below Cameron Smith), but Garrick rarely misses. How prolific is Ethan Bullemor as a try scorer (ex-Broncos)?

2. AFL. The loss by Geelong to St Kilda, is vintage Geelong. They have every top player in town (or think they have) and then they fall over too often. The Swans? They scrap and scrounge, but will do it tough in 2025. A great win v Freo away in WA. Chad Warner was outstanding. He needs Dylan Brown money!

3. Socceroos World Cup Qualification. Heading to China this week, Tony Popovic is resurrecting the chances of automatic qualification. What a journey that is! Losses early n the campaign have not helped, but we hardly play the super powers of world football.

4. IPL. Started over the weekend with its millions and zillions on offer. Our stars will cash in again, but Hazelwood on $2 million+ is hard to believe. He did get 2/22 in his return. Amazing how our fast bowlers are all fit and ready, not a family issue in sight, for the IPL ($$), but not the ICC Champions League! Kohli again won the first match off his bat with yet another 50.

5. EPL. Ange is on life support. He keeps losing, gets cranky with media, fans and himself and then occasionally wins. Too inconsistent and lots of excuses. It's been a while since the fans sang the Robbie Williams tribute song, "I'm Loving Ange Instead". Sadly, it might be time to move on - or be moved. A Europa League win would be staggering.

6. Sheffield Shield Final. South Australia v Queensland starts on Wednesday. An intriguing end to the season with Khawaja accused of feigning injury by his own QLD cricket administration. Not a good look by Joe Dawes who clearly was after some relevance post playing career. He was also on Peter Dutton's staff some years back...interesting. Starts Wednesday (big crowd not expected!) at some back water oval in South Australia. Love how you change the format for a final and go for five days... why?

7. A League. A break this week for the international week, but the season has two months to go yet! 

8. NBL Champions. The Illawarra Hawks v Melbourne United. A 2-2 deadlock in the best of five finals series was broken by Illawarra 114-104 despite injuries, controversies and a drive to win successive games was achieved finally. Quite a riveting final series and a big plus for the game. Our NBL franchises are selling for $50 million which is staggering. The Celtics have just been bought for $6-7 Billion!

9. Super Rugby. Awesome form by the Waratahs in beating the Brumbies. Their season is fast becoming quite the turnaround. A huge transformation. Could this be part of the rebuild of the code in Australia? Reds doing very well too.

10. Oscar Piastri. Pole position in China. His error in Melbourne would still be stinging. A super drive in much better conditions. He did it in fine style.

11. Six Nations Rugby. An uncanny finish to a try-laden season... France, England and Ireland all had four wins, but France win it! Over one hundred tries scored in total and a record by France. England looked good too. The British and Irish Lions tour looms as a ripper.

The Wrap - Boo Hoo

1. Parramatta NRL. No team has brought more headlines upon itself than this mob. A complete disappointment of a club. Crowds are dwindling too. Dylan Brown gets the best deal since Jason Taumalola. Good luck to him and Newcastle because they will need it. Dylan is a good player, but no leader. He will not transform a club. He struggles when the chips are down and is a little limited and predictable in attack these days. Boo him, but applaud his manager!

You can't blame him leaving the joint. Jason Ryles is under immense pressure. Never confident seeing Nathan Brown next to him. Where's Trent Barrett when you need him? Nearly 100 points conceded in two games. So bad. Tigers, not so bad. Penisini was abysmal in his defensive reads today. Won't be long before he moves on from Parramatta as well. 

Ryles comes out in the press saying he was a "ratbag" before the season starts and tolerating his prize recruit having his pants pulled down by a fellow player on live TV - and the other fool of a recruit yelling abuse from the sideline at an opponent. He seems to lack discipline and refuses to exercise it. I can't recall Wayne Bennett or Craig Bellamy having any such issues.

Their team again still lacks pace and has a really poor attitude. They are spoon bound. I noticed how they fold in the heat too (like Darwin last year). I wonder how hard they actually train in the summer?

The Raiders look tough. The Roosters had their best win in years - and the Panthers are leaking like a political party at present.

2. F1. McLaren again. The arrival of the big wet in Melbourne is no shock and Piastri could not manage it. The curse continues. Lando Norris too good. Young Doohan no good either. You would think it was the only wet track in the world the way they went on about it. Great to see the crowd storm the track post race, but classic Melbourne weather destroying the spectacle.

3. AFL. The Swans are in strife. Teams that lose close games have long and disappointing seasons. They have heart, especially against two leading teams, but no forwards. Brighter results for so many others. Hawthorn are looking strong. Liked the GWS win v Melbourne.

4. Europa League. Ange is into the quarter finals with Tottenham in a stirring mid week win last week. He needs EPL points now however and has no excuses with key players back from injury. Time to play and win!

5. NBL. The Illawarra Hawks and Melbourne United are locked at 1-1 and playing tonight for the edge in their best of five final series. Very tight.

6. A League. Auckland are still powering at the top of the league, but it is the Western Sydney Wanderers taking the headlines with their undefeated six game surge.

7. Waratahs. Sad story that is a familiar movie, losing against the Reds in a disappointing loss. They simply need to win all their Australian games to make semi finals.

8. Gout Gout. Running sub 20 seconds as the fastest world 200m time this year, but being so young, he has a really bright future. Now drugs are a little less prevalent in sport, we may start seeing some even more honest results. Raelene Boyle was born in the wrong era.

The Wrap - Consistency Matters

1. Champions Trophy Cricket. India are a crack, consistent ODI team regardless of where they play their games. They will beat a gallant New Zealand and would beat any ODI team in any country anytime basically. Kohli has such a great ODO record in 302 games with 51 tons and averaging 58.11 - the best ever. The great Tendulkar hit 49 ODI tons and averaged 44.83.

Michael Bevan was our best bat, averaging 53.58 in 232 games. Viv Richards averaged 47 in 187 games (11 tons).

It is interesting looking at other ODI records: Dave Warner - (22 tons) 161 games at 45.30; Dean Jones - 164 games at 44.61; Michael Clarke 245 games at 44.58; Jacques Kallis 328 games at 44.36; Steve Smith 170 games at 43.28 and Ricky Ponting (30 tons) 375 games at 42.03. The great Adam Voges only played 31 games and averaged 45.73, better than all of these. 

2. NRL. Only Round 1 but not sure if we saw any team that will trouble the usual top tier of teams this weekend. Parramatta and the Roosters gave up 50 points, often the mark of whether you will play semi final football. Parramatta were diabolical in the first half.

• Definite Top 8 teams: Panthers, Sharks, Broncos, Bulldogs, Melbourne, Manly.
• The "inbetweeners": Raiders, Knights, Dragons, Souths, North Queensland.

We definitely saw teams that will struggle to make the eight: Parramatta, Roosters, Warriors, Tigers, Dolphins, Gold Coast (even with the first round bye). 

3. AFL. Unfortunately, the Swans look like a very average team this year. They lack size and Amarty is not the answer fitness wise. Hawthorn will be tough to beat generally. What a schemozzle of an opening round for the AFL. Cyclone Alfred messed things up, but Plan B?

4. Super Rugby. Rarefied air to see the New Zealand teams languishing (at least at this stage of the season). Waratahs stringing a few wins together is unusual! Coach McKellar sounds tough with three wins in a row! The failure of the Melbourne Rebels is helping all franchises. Does such sporting failure sit easily in Melbourne?

5. EPL. Put the glasses down... Liverpool will run away with it and win. If they don't there will need to be a Royal Commission. So far in front of Arsenal - and then the surprise packets: Nottingham are in third place now. What a year they have had!

6. NBL. Melbourne United are serving it up to the minor premiers, the Illawarra Hawks, winning Game 1 from a long way back. Impressive resolve. They may be hard to toss now.

7. A League. The longest season in history. Auckland look to have a sizeable enough break to finish in first place now. Plenty of chasers. The Melbourne teams always seem to aim up...as do the Sydney teams now that the Wanderers are storming home.

8. Six Nations Rugby. Great to see France topple the dominant Irish team and head straight to the top of the standings there. Italy and Wales continue their almost annual struggles of late.

9. PGA - Arnold Palmer Invitational. Jason Day in contention. He started his career as one of the most consistent players but still has wins in his kit bag.

The Wrap - Embarrassment Ball

1. Las Vegas NRL. What a stunning spectacle! The standard of NRL has never been higher for an opening round. The Raiders looked sharp and defensively strong, winning 30-8. The skinnier field allowed for stronger defensive patterns to work. The Warriors have fallen for the Parramatta trick...too many slow backs. They will really struggle this year, especially with no Fonua-Blake too. Surely there are quicker kids in New Zealand than that!

The Jillaroos. A waltz. Almost 100-0! That might sum up England at the moment in a number of sports. Nice to see Jessica Sergis in the Australian team. The former coach, Brad Donald, became a joke leaving Sergis, the Dally M Player of the NRLW, out of his squad. Never like seeing game playing and nonsense from coaches. Be honest and communicate, but save your nonsense. It kills trust, builds a fear in players of not speaking up and leads to lack of accountability and poor results. The Roosters will dominate the NRLW again this season. They have all the stars.

The Panthers. Their culture and connection in their club is awesome. Their intensity was great. The trust is huge of each other and they have a pipeline of coaches and players who know that 'community pride' drives them. A super win, with a lot of troops down, but the Sharks were definitely a notch better than last year. They could step up further in 2025, but they may need a new fullback soon however. They really targeted him. 

2. Champions Trophy ODI Cricket. No one knows what it is, but everyone wants to beat India to win it. India again dictate world cricket, telling everyone that they do not travel into Pakistan. Instead they stay at their 10 star hotel in Dubai and again have NO excuses. New Zealand have to travel around the world and have done well. Australia have hardly played a game with the surprisingly poor wet weather. South Africa have the firepower, just not sure if they have the bowling.

Meanwhile England have disgraced themselves. Baz Ball? How's that going for you? Pathetic really, losing all three games, including to Afghanistan. This is in keeping with their recent ODI form. Heads need to roll. Jamie Smith at number three was a disaster and their bowling was ordinary. Jofra Archer did OK, but they were all too expensive. Most of their best players are playing in T20 leagues around the world!

3. Super Rugby. The Reds have knocked over the mightily impressive 2025 Force team 28-24. So impressive have that been that we make errors in the scoreline - disbelief! The Tahs made it two from two beating the Drua. The Brumbies look a little looser than usual, leaking points and dropping another game. They're averaging giving up 40 points. Most unusual.

4. FA Cup. This comp rambles on and on. It gives a few lesser lights some gate takings they would never see, but it can become a stretch.

In EPL season 2024-2025, Liverpool's Mohammed Saleh (25 goals, 27 assists) is the man of the moment this season. Erling Haarland has 20 goals in second place. A quiet season by his standards, but Man City are unleashing now.

5. South Australian Cricket. A big win in the domestic ODI comp v Victoria. They have struggled in all forms for a long time. New coach, Ryan Harris, is making his mark where Jason Gillespie could not. Young Liam Scott, a boy from ryde-Hunters Hill, has stamped his class, winning the Player of the Tournament. Bravo!

6. NBL. Melbourne United and the Perth Wildcats are 1-1 in the best of three games with a finals spot on the line. The Illawarra Hawks v the South East Melbourne Magic are 1-1 as well and both winners of the third games will make it into the final. The final is best of five. Talk about milking the golden cow! Sout hEast Melbourne Magic started the year with five straight losses too.

7. A-League. The Western Sydney Wanderers are charging, having completed 19 matches, now with the most goals scored in the comp. They are eyeing a top tier finish now after beating Perth Glory 2-1 - after really struggling early on in the season. Suddenly they are coming fourth! A tight go at the top this season, but a point or two away from second spot.

Meanwhile the Young Socceroos win the U/20 Asian Cup. A good sign for the future as we try and recreate the national team, its profile and anyone's affection for them.

8. Swans. Disaster. Errol Gulden has broken his ankle in a pre-season hit out (do we need trials?). Their season is in some early ruins already. He does so much work. An intriguing start now ahead for new coach Cox.