Did I Hear That Right?
They’ve just said on BBC Radio 5 Live, that the Scottish rugby team, were welcomed on to the pitch by a lady bag-piper and two drummers.
Do You Have To Be Fat And Ugly To Play Rugby These Days?
I watched the England Scotland rugby last night on the iPlayer. It strikes me that the forwards are now getting to be so heavy that they wouldn’t be out of place in sumo wrestling. The backs too, aren’t small any more and would some of the great players of the past like Jeremy Guscott, Phil Bennett, the Underwoods or even Jonny Wilkinson ever get a game these days?
Clive Woodward wasn’t impressed either with the number of players with beards, who could have been extras in a film about the Vikings.
Rugby seems to be going the same route as American football, where size is everything. Parents, I suspect will start to keep their children away from the game, as it will get too dangerous, with all that weight running about. You read reports from the United States, where football is on the rise over the American version, simply because it is a safer game for normal people.
And talking about American football, why is the BBC spending my licence fee, on covering it so much?
Why Are UK Taxpayers Sponsoring Six Nations Rugby?
I very much object to the state-owned zombie bank, sponsoring the Six Nations Rugby. After all, if as a stakeholder in the bank, I wanted a ticket, I wouldn’t be able to get one.
BT Will Setup BT Sport On The Olympic Park
There was good news today for Hackney, when BT said that they will run their BT Sport operation from the Broadcast Centre on the Olympic Park. It’s all here on the BBC.
As BSkyB is also London-based, does it not look to have been a bad decision to move BBC Sport to Manchester?
David Campese Acts Like The Aussie Male Stereotype
This story in the Telegraph, this morning is a gift to all good sports reporters, who like to make papers entertaining. The second line sums up the report.
When he can drag himself away from his shaving mirror David Campese has long been known as the journalist’s best friend.
Where would newspapers be without characters like David Campese?
They’re Playing Water Polo At Wembley
The Rugby League Cup Final is being played in atrocious weather at Wembley.
They’ve also called off the Sunderland Reading football match, as the ground is waterlogged.
And it’s only August!
An I Was There Moment
One of the BBC presenters on Sunday was talking about Mo Farah on Sunday. It could have been Brendan Foster or Steve Cram, who were both good distance runner in their time, but they were nowhere near as good as Mo .
Whoever it was said that it was one of those I was There sporting moments, like Roger Bannister running the first four-minute mile, Llanelli beating the All Blacks or Liverpool winning the Champions League in Istanbul.
Obviously, the 82,000 in the Olympic Stadium were actually there, but how many of the British squaddies on Olympic duty will claim they sneaked in to watch? After all, servicemen are not known to varnish the truth to make better tales are they? Especially, when it’s about something like being the Army’s champion for painting lumps of coal white! i.e. Anything where no-one gets hurt.
A survey done in a few years time, will show that there were at least a quarter of a million crammed into the stadium.
What is going to be the size of the claimed crowd on Saturday?
Jeff Tarango Gets It Right
I sent this in an e-mail to a friend last night, after hearing Jeff Tarango on BBC Radio 5.
Jeff Tarango has made an interesting point about the match tomorrow.
Murray played his semi-final with the roof open and Federer played with it closed. Tarango also said Federer may prefer the roof closed as it’s more like an indoor court. So the weather could have a big effect on the match.
I watched the match today, and both players were very different after the rain break, when the roof was closed.
There could be a case for not changing the position of the roof, once a match starts.
So how do the Welsh handle their roof at the Millenium stadium in Cardiff? This extract from a report here, shows it not all plain sailing.
The French coach’s stance led Wales coach Warren Gatland to demand Six Nations power-brokers change tournament rules and back Wales over the issue of the roof.
As it stands, both participating teams have to be in agreement for the roof to be closed.
If they cannot agree, it stays open unless there are exceptional weather conditions and the match is in danger of being postponed.
“If it’s our stadium and we have the ability to open and close the roof, then maybe we should be the team that decides,” said Gatland.
“I would hate to think that on Saturday, if it is pouring down with rain and we’ve got the chance to close the roof that we don’t.
But the row was because it interfered with a French player-tracking system, that seems to be a bit close to the rules to me.
It strikes me though that the fairest system, is that in any sport, if the roof is closed at the start it should stay closed and vice-versa.
Where Is Bill Mclaren?
The events at Queen’s yesterday needed Bill McLaren, as there was as he would say a spot of “Argy-Bargy”.
Just as some great sportsmen live on in peoples’s minds because of what they did, some great commentators live on because of what they said.
Which Brother and Sister Played for Two Different Countries in Different Sports in the 2010 Commonwealth Games?
This sounds like a trivial pursuit question and it is. The answer is in the long form in the Sports section of today’s Sunday Times.
They are Christa Cullen, who if she is fit, will be playing in the Hockey in the London Olympics and her brother Gray who plays rugby for Kenya. There’s more about it here in the Guardian.
The Anonymous Widower 