A very English week on the weather front, it has rained for the last few days; rained very hard! This has meant that outdoor activity has been very much off the agenda. There has, however been something very comforting and homely about sitting in a warm lounge, watching the rain bounce off the pavements and roads outside whilst playing Rugby 08 on the PS2. It’s not all doom and gloom though, it looks to warming up from here with temperatures of +30 predicted for the coming week.
Because Britain is so great and interesting there is plenty of news coverage on Australian TV; and having watched the news this week I couldn’t miss the highlights of the Football; Republic of Ireland Vs France. As far as controversy goes, this was pretty extreme and has forced me to dislike Thierry Henry even more than I already do. The ‘Hand of Frog’ ordeal is even more evidence that football needs to introduce technology to help officiate games. There have been far too many examples of poor decisions in major games that could so easily have been solved in a couple of minutes with the aid of a video referee. The stubborn nature of football and its authorities means that it could be a while before we get close to watching a game in which all major/important decisions are correct. The sad thing is that the Irish (who qualify for major competitions’ about as regularly as the solar eclipse) have no chance of a replay or of getting this horrendous injustice overturned. Their only hope is if the French wave the white flag (now where have I heard that before) and surrender their place in the World Cup in exchange for a replay; which has about as much chance of happening as Scotland qualifying ever again or England beating New Zealand at rugby on Saturday...nil.
On the subject of rugby, I was unfortunate enough to watch England lose to Australia in an Australian pub. I was happy to see Wilkinson in an England shirt again and it was brilliant to see him get through the warm up as well as the game. But apart from that it was same old same old with England not ever looking like scoring a try. Injuries or no injuries England were poor and the game highlighted a few players that just don’t cut it at International level. Matt Banahan for starters who might well be able to run over people in the Premiership but (even at 6ft 5) looks severely out of his depth at international level, even a walk in try against a distinctly average Argentina cannot justify his selection. Shane Geraghty looked below average but I’m sure there is more to come from him. Anyone that has watched rugby with me knows that I reserve most of my sporting hatred for Andy Goode. He is (in my opinion) one of the worst players ever to play Test Rugby. Not only this, he has a beer belly! An international back, a fly half with as much fat on him as a prop from club rugby. It just cannot happen. People have said that he has lost weight; which is a ridiculous statement, Rik Waller is fat and lost 3 stone, the problem was that he was 23 stone to start with. To add to this he is as predictable as night and day and as mobile as Steven Hawking; if only he had 1% of his intelligence.
Well now that is off my chest I would like to address another issue I have with England rugby selection. What on earth has Matthew Tait ever done to upset the powers that be in English rugby? He is arguably England’s best and most creative outside centre, apart from Tindall and yet constantly gets overlooked. Johnson seems to be turning back to ‘the old boys’ in a bid to rediscover the form of 2003. I would honestly rather see us lose by 50 points and play positive, attacking rugby than lose 18-9 in the manner that we did against the Aussies’.
Apart from watching and playing sport this week has been very uneventful. Work has been as interesting as it has got. The swimming pool I work at has a slide and a river rapid ride and so gets extremely busy, especially after school hours. I am certainly earning my money at the moment with swimmers continuously finding new ways to break rules in the pool.
Last Saturday we played against arch rivals Wanneroo in a game that was very heated throughout the grades. I got my first, real taste of Australian sledging, triggered by asking for the sight screen to be moved. For the next hour or so I listened to impressions of English accents, feedback on how good I was and was quite bizarrely called ‘Cupcake’ all day. This was a dig at being English but I didn’t quite understand it. It was very clear that the only English impressions that our ‘Ashes-less’ friends can do are Yorkshire or London and one player even referred to England as ‘cupcake land’. They are a witty bunch. All four grade sides came home with wins against the arch enemy which meant free drink at the club after training on Thursday, courtesy of the club Chairman, happy days.
With the weather hotting up, the next week or so should be a lot more entertaining. Though I have plenty of hours at work to look forward to. Ciao x
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