Actually, this is A Sports Guy's preview of the summer of sport which is presently crashing down over our heads even before the season has turned.
League
The tri-nations are just not as exciting as many regular season NRL games. Maybe if the Kiwis had SBW, and maybe if they had Benji, and maybe if the Warriors were a force...then we would see a contest as gripping as a Grand Final or State of Origin. You know, where you are generally interested in the game the whole way through? Which brings me to...
Cricket
I'm sorry people, but any sport that causes this much ink to be spilled had better translate into great entertainment. But who can say they are gripped by cricket the whole way through? Not the commentators, who are forced into rotation to maintain freshness (TV) or mundane patter occasionally interrupted by commentary (radio). Yes, it has its damn good moments, and part of the hook is that you have to watch the whole freaking five days in case something happens. Some parallels to the slow burn of soccer there. But you can't seriously maintain that you won't be reaching for that remote, or finding yourself absolutely not wondering what you're missing as you have a beer in the backyard.
Tennis
Always the bridesmaid, never the groom. Tennis can generate drama, but is capable of perhaps more boredom than cricket. The problem here isn't the game itself, but the fact that 95% of games are shite. The good ones are damn good. Spanning a couple of hours, the length is reasonable. And the emotion of it all, after a marathon (can we try another metaphor here, please? How 'bout triathlon, because they're harder) five setter... Tennis also has a strange stable of commentators that always manage to grab some attention. Whispering John Alexander, effusive Bruce McAvaney, happy to be there Sandy Roberts, frail John Barrett. And incisive, insightful commentary from Newk. What I like about him was that as Rafter was trying to get out of a difficult period in a Wimbledon semi, he'd say "I was just talking to Pat about this on Wednesday, and we agreed that he needs to be more, not less aggressive on these kinds of points." After which Rafter would win the point and there would be a moment of silence.
Basketball
The cool friend who isn't cool any more. Not sure what happened, but this once-on-the-cusp sport has failed to deliver for so long that we might as well call it Braith Anasta (Love your work Braith, but it was either you or Mark Philippousis. Have you noticed how for the last four years "my best tennis is ahead of me"? He'll be saying this from the seniors tour). Thing is, I watched a game the other day as part of Nine's new 'commitment' to basketball and the players were rudely talented. You had these up and comers who nobody's ever heard of draining threes, taking it to the hole and generally showing the kind of promise that NBA scouts would drool over. A little schooling, a few tats, some work in the weight room and these guys could be on $20 million contracts. And yet there's the defending champs, drawing a crowd of 1,500 to their home games and being ignored by the press. I don't know what would give Australian baketball the props it deserves, and the people who run the NBL have no clue either.
Snooker
Watching a professional female snooker player wearing a visor mishit so badly that she grazed the white ball and sent it three millimetres to the left - priceless.
Football
Why the obsession with the EPL?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I can't believe Mark P is still being interviewed. I don't see him as a representative of Australian tennis - more as a guy who never played as well as he could. They were always talking about "calming him down", and "taming his untamed nature", much like they did with Marat Safin. When Safin beat Federer, all the commentators attributed this to cessation of his womanising ways. The camera would zoom in on the player's box, and the voice would say, "look at that...in days gone by there would have been a swimsuit model sitting in his box, but now, there's only his coach, his mother, his sister, and two large anvils."
This blog's overflowing with new stuff!
You know I actually watched some NBA the other day. It was the Sonics vs Miami Heat. There was Gary Peyton and Alonzo Mourning. Alonzo looks like he hasn't stopped growing since I last saw him 10 years ago. There was also a guy with enormous dreadlocks, whom everyone knows is just waiting for the right time to shave it all off, and look twice as muscular from the lack of hair.
Isn't the word mis-hit, and not mishit? I'm telling you man, it ain't right the way it is. Were you laughing at the mishit, or the visor? Don't accountants wear visors? Don't you wear a visor?
Who's obsessed with the EPL? It's always been my deep belief that the best football can be seen in the third and fourth tier leagues of Southern Brazil. Not.
Post a Comment