live sports

Potential surprises in Jonnos bag of old shite tomorrow.

Yes Jonno reveals his 'elite player squad' ie. bunch of guys that I hope will do a good job for me over the next 2 months, tomorrow. Here's a few surprises I'm forecasting...

Alex Corbisiero - Prop, a 20yr old monster... 116kg - good stuff. "Find of the season" at London Irish.
Steffon Armitage - Flanker, Dwarf. Brother of more famous Delon,playing together at London Irish. Is he the new Neil Back?
Ben Foden - Full back / Scrum half. Could he be the next Austin Healey - let's hope not.
Phil Dowson - No. 8, Newcastle captain. Only 102kg so bit of a lightweight. Could be picked purely on basis of form this season: remember Jonno that form is temporary, class (or the lack of it) is permanent.
Glen Jackson - Stand-off. Kiwi, previously player of year in Guiness Premiership. Typical 85kg lightweight no. 10.
Mike Tindall - not new, but a surprise. A safe pair of hands but not behind a wheel perhaps.

Flintoff sat on fence over KP/Moores affair

Freddie admits to not know what was going on so basically sat on the fence.

Several Aussies allegedly interested in coaching England!

Do you think these guys would have their Australian citizenship revoked should they coach England to an Ashes victory? ...I wonder if treason is still a capital offence down under? :-)

Sporno..

... it doesn't need much explanation.

Fantastic story about Franck Ribery...

The best player in World Cup 2006 manages to crash bus in Dubai... if only Ronaldo could drive so well.. right now the AA says that he's likely to have to cough up £100,000 a year for insurance if he gets another pussy magnet like the last one.

Big Rafa is laying into Mr Ferguson big style (note if you search google for Mr Ferguson you get far too many references to The Terminator - a coincidence? - I think not).

Rafa says "only Mr Ferguson can talk about the fixtures, can talk about referees - and nothing happens" - is Rafa ruffled or is this a big ploy to upset the beetroot faced horse owner?

The Mint too good for big Rog yet again - he's really closing down the games down - 6-7 (6-8) 6-2 6-2 takes the Swiss big cheese down yet again - 5-2 in lifetime match ups. Minty now gets to play Andy Roddick of Body Shop fame (?) for the title in Doha.

"We're trying to establish exactly what happened"

... says the police office investigating why Ronaldo's Ferrari looks like a crunched up block of twisted metal out of a Mad Max film. I can give him some help there - it could be that he was driving too fast?

I think the England cricket team, like the rugby team (and potentially also the football team) has a big issue with management and leadership. They basically have no idea how to get everybody working together. This failure leads to long-term divisions within the teams and these are played out in the full spotlight of publicity further damaging relationships. The whole KP/Moores affair is is just one example that goes back years (others include the Brian Ashton issue, Phil Scolari - England Manager, Will Carling's outburst of 57 old farts). I've said this before but these sport's will never really be professional until they get some decent professional managers throughout their structure - they really do rely too much on the old boys network and it's highly damaging for English sport.

It's all over now - Phil 'The Power' Taylor takes his 14th title - as Sid Waddell might say it's like taking candy from a big fat Dutch guy. 109.75 is his 3 dart average - a new record for all tournaments.

The crowd erupts and everybody's very happy - even Barney looks relieved for it to be over - he was getting a big shoeing there.

Crowd now chanting "There's only one Phil Taylor". Barney remains in trouble - he's really only getting the big shots in on his legs and can't take much off Taylor. at 5-1 in sets to Taylor and 1-1 in the 7th set it's not looking good for the Dutchman.

It's now 3-1 in sets to Taylor and this set is 2-2 with Barney having almost taken it 3-0. Barney throwing for the set but Taylor overtakes him and it's now 4-1 in sets - is Barney finished?

The great Sid Waddell

He's a Cambridge educated guy that worked with Michael Parkinson for quite a while. Wikipedia here has a bunch of other quotes.

11 darter from Barney - despite a maximum and huge ton 40s from Taylor. Great darts. 2 legs each in 4th set. Is Taylor now going to choke this?

Barney choking badly tonight - less than 25% checkout. Fortunately Taylor misses 3 checkouts in a row leaving Barney with a chance and gets back to 2-1 in sets. Despite playing like an amateur he's hanging on in there against some big stuff from Taylor.

Barnevald just seems to be chucking the darts randomly at the board right now, a bit like the amateur on Bullseye - he's not even close to the trip 20 half the time. Perhaps he's been paid to throw this?

More random Wadell: "With the heat he could generate he could throw daisies through a glacier"

Barnevald in really deep shit here - he's missed all his checkouts and therefore has lost the first two sets 3-0.

I'm watching this on Betfair's live video channel - a bloody good find for obscure events. However I'm spending more time watching the test card during the ad breaks than the darts.

"It must be a real cultural experience for her" - Sid Wadell commenting on the ladies world champion being in the audience.

Frankie Dettori in the audience - nice touch. Didn't know he was such a fan of the arrows. Also Robin Van Persie - no doubt supporting the big guy.

A few more quotes from Wadell that I found on the internet:
"This lad has more checkouts than Tescos."
"We couldn't have more excitement if Elvis walked in and asked for a chip sandwich."
"He's as cool as a prized marrow."
"He looks about as happy as a penguin in a microwave."
"Eat your heart out Harold Pinter, we've got drama with a capital D in Essex."
"It's the nearest thing to public execution this side of Saudi Arabia."
"Darts players are probably a lot fitter than most footballers in overall
body strength."

The guy is a genius.

2 minutes of quotes from Wadell:
"Who needs wind farms when a short stocky fella from Stoke can generate power like this"
"Tickling the tungsten"
"Taylor is going like an Inter-continental ballistic tungsten missile"
... bloody hell. This guy must be taking something.

Anyway Taylor takes the first set in about 6 minutes flat. At this rate we'll be finished in less than an hour.

Things building up nicely for the final here now. Lots of drunken fans, women in short skirts, lasers etc. - this is kind of Oktoberfest meets a working men's club in Warrington with a bit of Cream thrown in. Big atmosphere.

Taylor takes the first leg - Barney responding with a maximum and Sid Wadell is already getting on my tits.

Cipriani on come back trial as Wasps get past in-form Quins, 24-18. Improved performance today but 2 charge downs are still a sign that he's perhaps too slow for the big games - difficult to believe that people are still talking him up as potentially the best fly half in the world.

So tonight is one of the biggest games in darts history. Taylor vs Barnevald, the rematch (their 2007 final went to Barney 7 sets to 6 and was a scorcher). This is potentially the darts equivalent of the "Thrilla in Manila" although being the second big match up between the pair it might be more like the second Ali-Frazier fight, universally acclaimed to be as dull as dishwater.

History suggests Taylor, who's had a slightly easier run to the final (and has won the final 13 times) but Barney is certainly up for it this year - his 9-darter in his quarter final just a marker of his class. Unfortunately for the big Dutch Flintstones character the odds are well against him but it could still be a cracker.

I've been trawling through wikipedia and old news articles today to find out why are there two world championships in darts?

It all starts way back around 1992 when 16 players (Phil Taylor, Dennis Priestley, Rod Harrington, Alan Warriner, Peter Evison, Richie Gardner, Jocky Wilson, Eric Bristow, Keith Deller, John Lowe, Bob Anderson, Cliff Lazarenko, Kevin Spiolek, Jamie Harvey, Mike Gregory and Chris Johns) decided they needed more cash (to be honest it was a pretty poor life as a darts professional back then) and / or a better 'profile for world darts' which I guess means having fewer fat blokes on stage drinking and smoking (isn't that a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas however?).

These players formed the World Darts Council (WDC), later the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). During the 1993 World Championship, the players wore WDC clothing and were told to remove it (not a pretty sight perhaps) by the BDO (British Darts Organisation, organiser of the World Championships). The players were a bit cheesed off and basically from then on went their own way with the PDC becoming more of an organisation to make cash and market darts and the WDF (World Darts Federation, of which the BDO was a founder) still in theory the governing body. Each of these two main organisations has their own World Championships at this time of year and in general players from one side of the fence can't play on the other side.

Is this the future of Formula 1 post-Bernie Ecclescake?

Andy Murray showing what he can do when he's not moaning. The Mint has beaten Nadal in Dubai today - only a couple of days after beating Federer. If The Mint can keep up this form he's going to impress in Australia in a couple of weeks - he's currently second favourite to Federer.

Whilst we're on the subject of The Mint and Australia we can drag out this old one:

Q: How do you know Andy Murray has landed in Australia?
A: When the jet engines switch off the whining doesn't stop.

BBC not watching the game...

Well they open their match review with "Australia gave themselves a good chance of earning a consolation victory..." (note that Betfair has the draw as odds-on). 445 is a good score for them in this series but South Africa look reasonable on 125-1 despite captain fantastic breaking his hand which will keep him out for 6 weeks.

With South Africa needing to win this one to top the test rankings it's all to play for - I never thought I'd cheer for South Africa but there's a first time for everything - come on South Africa - it's time for a change at the top.

Predictions for 2009

1. England will win the Ashes
2. Australia will end the year in 4th place in the Test rankings, India ending as number 1, South Africa as 2 and England as 3.
3. Lancashire will win the county championship (no reasoning behind this one, it's just their turn)
4. There will be at least 10 English players in the IPL.
5. Shane Warne will not return to cricket to 'beat the poms'.

Predictably it ended drawn. A good series for both teams - England can be happy they put up more resistance than the convicts did in the tests but the one dayers were a complete disaster.

India now establishing themselves as pretty much invincible at home - they just need to become better tourists.

Could Arsenal's poor season get any worse?

Arsenal lose Cesc Fabregas for up to 4 months with ruptured knee ligaments. Surely this must spell the end of Arsenal's slim chances of any silverware (or even finishing in the top four) this season?

Arsenal should enjoy their trip to Roma in the spring; it may be their last appearance in the Champions League for a couple of years!

England now 31/1 at tea. This looks like one of those games that will just fade away into nothing. What should England have done here? A) Blast away like it was a 20-20 game B) Dig in and play for the draw. Although A) sounds attractive, there's very little chance of winning. When they retire, captains are judged by their record - which means a draw still scores more than a loss - so no captain in their right mind is going to do anything other than B). That's my negative thought for the day.

After an high octane innings by Yuvraj (83) India stumble to 251/7 and declare. England thus are to be set a target in the top 5 highest run chases - 401, however they've got to do that in just over a session - hence no chance (they're looking at something close to 10 an over). The bigger question is whether they can hang on in there for a draw - surely even England can bat through 40 overs in a test match.

Petter Solberg makes an ass of himself by, ermm, running over his own ass!

Could this be the real reason (rather than financial worries) that Subaru pulled out of world rallying?

So England have put up a bit of a fight today. After tamely falling over themselves to get out in the first hour (Anderson and Panesar are surely the kings of comedy cricket), they managed a team effort to get India to 80/4. Though fog has played a big part pushing this match towards a draw at least England have something to take home and chew over alongside their ample Christmas lunches.

Phil Mickelson's 'man boobs' inspire revival in golf-heckling

I'm not sure how true this story is (Mickelson refutes the incident) but Tiger Wood's Kiwi caddie has certainly been milking it (so to speak) to ramp up his surprising animosity towards the World's number 2 golfer. Who ever said golf was a gentleman's sport?

Day 2 ended with India finishing off on 453. So far 2 bits of good news today for England, one of which is unfortunately irrelevant to this match:
1. KP is having a good knock, he's now on 97 and going for it with Freddi. Saviour of the tour, Strauss, was out for a duck.
2. Australia lost to South Africa after the saffers hit a pretty astounding 414/4 run chase in the last innings. That now makes two of the 5 highest run chases in history coming this week - India chasing down 387 in the last match. With that kind of form England must be odds-on to post a big total in the 4th innings here...

'Bolton scored, which was the last thing we wanted,' said Martin O'Neil (Aston Villa's manager), showing the kind of brilliant insight a coach needs to get his club into the top four.

Can Villa cement their top four position (using this kind of tactical genius) with a win against the Hammers this evening?

At 66-1 to win the Premiership, and all the big 4 sides dropping points on a seemingly regular basis, Villa are certainly worth an outside bet for the title.

Draw for the last 16...

Chelsea v Juventus
Villarreal v Panathinaikos
Sporting Lisbon v Bayern Munich
Atlético Madrid v Porto
Lyon v Barcelona
Real Madrid v Liverpool
Arsenal v Roma
Internazionale v Manchester United

... there are some pretty tough draws there for the UK sides... I'd say little chance of them all going through.

Well I'm going to congratulate myself on this... and say it would have been 262/2 if the light hadn't been so bad and ended the day's play early. India looking very comfortable on 179/1. England may need to be thankful for the weather here.