The Invicible All Blacks?

       A few of you may know this but most won't, this morning New Zealand secured a historic Tri-Nations (New Zealand, Australia and South Africa) clean sweep with victory over Australia with a 22-23 win in the final Test in Sydney, a second half come back from 14-6 down earned the All Blacks a record 10th striaght win over the Wallibies.  New Zealand had alrady won the Tri-Nations title and beaten their fiercest rivals to secure the Bledisloe Cup, the New Zealand and Australia version of the Calcutta Cup between England and Scotland.

Formula 1 Goes to Monza

       The F1 convoy has rolled onto the home of Ferrari, Monza and with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa languishing 5th and 6th respectively in the drivers' world championship these is a important weekend for them.  Ferrari need a victory this weekend to return some recently lost pride and for Alonso to keep him in the championship, I assume they won't be letting Alonso pass Massa this time, so due to the fact they are out of the constructors championship they would almost be wanting Massa to be slower than Alonso.  But Ferrari and Alonso aren't the only ones who really need a win this weekend.

Russell v Lawro

This will be the first of many Friday afternoon posts I will be going one on one against the BBC legend Mark Lawrenson. As most of you know Lawro does predictions for every Barclay's Premier League each weekend, for his thoughts click here.  So I thought why not put my ideas into the fishing pot and see if I am can best the pro.

NFL is Back Baby

       Last night the NFL started with a repeat of the NFC Championship Game last night with Drew Brees and the Saints extended their post-Super Bowl euphoria for at least another week and handed Brett Favre and the Vikings a second consecutive loss in the Louisiana Superdome.  The New Orleans Saints survived a hard-fought season opener for a 14-9 victory over the Minnesota Vikings,  this is the lowest points total for the Saints under coach Sean Payton but the Saints will take it, considering their defence limited Favre to 171 passing yards and one score, he didn't even complete a pass in the third quarter.
       So lets take a quick preview of the season to come by asking some big questions.  Can the Saints repeat in 2010? Can Tom Brady lead his Patriots back to the playoffs and maybe more? Are the Jets for real? Will Brett Favre stay with the Vikings? And can my team the Browns amount to anything?

The Return of the Golden Goal

        I awoke this morning to read an article saying that the FIFA president Sepp Blatter has asked two of the governing body’s committees to examine scrapping extra-time at the 2014 World Cup. Blatter also stated that FIFA will be looking into the feasibility of having a penalty shoot-out after 90 minutes or the re-introduction of the wonderful golden goal rule, which brought us the delightful scenes after Oliver Bierhoff's goal against Czech Republic in Euro 96 and Laurent Blanc's goal against Paraguay at France 98.

A Small Amount of Cricket History

       Cricket is going through a rough patch at the moment, the current situation with spot betting is indeed a terrible situation but compared to past events the threat of life bans seems without precedent especially due to the fact that match fixers Saleem Malik and Ata-ur-Rehman both had there life bans over turned in 2008 and 2006 respectivly.  Cricket has gone throught many different controversies including bodyline bowling, ball tampering, throwing, match fixing, spot fixing and even underarm bowling. But the controversy I would like to talk about today is the 1982 England South Afican Rebel Tour and the English cricketers that played for South African cricket clubs .

Ryder Cup Selections

       After the Simon Cowell like performance from Colin Montgomereie after the enthraling finish of the Johnnie Walker Championship, now Corey Pavin, the US Captain, has announced his Ryder cup wildcard picks it is perfect to take a look and compare the two sides that will competing this year at Celtic Manor Resort in the city of Newport, South Wales.
      The US and the European sides look remarkably similar, US having 5 rookies this year, 4 Top 10 players in the World Rankings including one who required a captain's pick, Tiger Woods.  Now compare this with a European side having 6 rookies this year, 4 Top 10 players in the World Rankings also with one who required a captain's pick, Luke Donald. They both also contain a recent Major champions requiring captain's picks with Pavin picking Stuart Cink and Monty picking Padraig Harrington.

The Modern Sport of Cycling

       Many people if asked to name five professional cyclist would struggle they would name Lance Armstrong, Sir Chris Hoy and possibly Mark Cavendish they may very well name the rest of the Olympic track racing team. But if you where to ask them what is the sports major event most people would be able to tell you that it is the Tour de France. This to me seems to show that people know about the sport but don't care for watching it and i think that is a real shame.

Week One US Open

       Well it firstly this is a couple of days late but i didn't get round to watching the highlights of most a week one till yesterday. It has been an interest week of tennis starting with Novak Djokovic nearly losing to a fellow Serb who is over a 100 places worse in the world rankings and ending with the utter capitulation of Andy Murray's form. And that was just the men's draw there was lots of going on in the women's side as well.

New Intenational Schedule

         As many of you may have noticed this time the the qualifying for the Euro's has changed.  This year the dates for the double headed qualifying matches have been moved to Friday and Tuesday instead of the usual Saturday and Wednesday schedule.  I understand the main reason behind this, it looks to me like club pressure has forced the international schedule to accommodate there players more time to get back home and over jet lag or just have another days rest.