Sporting shorts.

• So, on the sports front we've the Wonen's AFL Competition, and the Super Rugby which has started. The conference leaders are Rebels  (8pts 2 games; Crusaders 12 pts 3 games; and Sahrks, 11pt 3 games).
• In the AFL, Adelaide and North Melbourne lead Conference A on 16 pts, (with Fremantle and Melbourne close behind on 16 and 12 pts respectively).  Conference B is closer with Geelong on 12 points, Carlton and Brisbane 8 pts and the Giants 4 pts.
• Still a week or so to go until the men's competitions start, AFL-M starts 15 March, and the Men's NRL Starts Feb 15. 
• Onto the Cricket, Richardson is repaying the selectors faith and making runs in the Domestic Competittion (though I do wonder if there is any more international game for the Ashes?)
• The Black Caps had another great test win against Bangladssh,  Here's some stats to savour from the series

Sporting shorts - Feb 25

It’s now the end of February which means that it is almost time for the football season to start.  The Women’s AFL Season has already started for the year. We’ve seen four games for the year, the Kangaroos (debuting this year), are sitting 3-1 and leading their pool. The other pool sees Geelong and Brisbane level with two wins each.
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I’d love to see Geelong win, given Sydney don't have a team.

Onto the Men’s competition. I find the pre-season hard to gauge a teams’s  form.  AFL – X is not really close enough to the normal game, and when we had night time premiers the form line rarely held in to the regular season. Time will tell though. I’d love to see see a pre-season competition, though I understand the risks involved; which to be fair, are involved.

So, with very high risk for egg ending up on my face here is my top eight predictions:

1 ROOSTERS
2 RABBTIHOHS
3 BRONCOS
4 PANTHERS
5 SHARKS
6 KNIGHTS
7 DRAGONS
8 RAIDERS

The team most likely to upset my tips is the Melboure Storm or the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs

And for the AFL

1. RICHMOND
2. MELBOURNE
3. KANGAROOS
4. HAWKS
5. BOMBERS
6. CROWS
7. EAGLES
8. CATS

The team most likely to upset my tips is the Western Bulldogs or Port Adelaide.

Again, let me just say I’m not totally sold on my selection. It is the joy of sport, anyone can and often does win, on the day.

On to the big Big Bash – next year I am keen to see the competition run half the time a game played each night until Saturday and Sundays where there are two games.

What I've been in to February

So, have I been in to over January. I've been in to a range of different things.

Books
Thinking  about books - I have not really been into to much. I have been meaning to read Julia Gilard's My Life; Hilary Clinton's Happened. At the moment I've also been quiet tired so I have not really been able to read much.

TV
On the Television front, I have tried to watch a bit more. This month I've watched David Attenborough's The Planet and The Planet Two. It is a really wonderful series. Showing now awe-inspiring the planet really is.

Other than the documentaries I watched the thriller 'You' and a recording of Bruce Springsteen's musical 'Springsteeen'. I really loved how he told his stories through songs.

Springsteen is a great story teller and I just love listening to him speak.

You was very different. It was a thriller, and creepy to watch. The premise of the show is the book store employee who finds a customer  attractive and then plays 'God' in following her so
he can date her (in the mean-time criticising her choices as being needy or crying out). I certainly felt uncomfortable in the lead actor's shoes).

Will try and watch a little more TV this month.

Music
Not a lot of music news - I'm enjoying listening the Rescues new song 'Hold On'. Other new songs this month have been by Radiohead, The Killers, Glen Hansard and Sarah Masen.

The Killers song is their first overtly politiacal tune. Hoping that new music means the bands will hit the road...

Sporting sports

Doing a little more of a sporting update, The highlight of the weekend so far has been the start of the Womens’ AFL Season the opening game is now 23-23 between the Magpies and Geelong Cats with about 7 minutes to go. Looks like it will be a great season if that star is anything to go by. I thnk Geelong ended-up winning a really tight one. 

It is easy to get fatigue of the Big Bah, when you don’t know where and when the games are played or how many are left.

Back  in to the Test Series  and hardy surprising that Australia is in a fairly dominate position. Would be intrigued in that stats surrounding enforcing the follow-on. Not so log along it seemed that you did enforce the follow on whenever you got the chance, but Australia didn't this time, and it certainly didn'r hurt them. 

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So, I know there's no Cricket on Free-To-Air TV today, but I was trying to work out if that meant there was no Big Bash match. To me, if there's going to be a home and away season then there needs to be more than one game a night. I think if we did that, we would drastically reduce the length of the season, and might mean we can have more Sheffield Shield rounds amongst the test cricket. But we will see I guess.

Other than the cricket- Djokovic beat Nadal in close to the best game of tennis I've seen Djokovic play. Will be interesting watching how the new wave of challengers go in the next few tournaments.

Other than than, not really got much on aside from the Super Bowl. Will be interesting if Brady can add to his legacy.

Sporting shorts..

So, this weekend sees the end of the Australian Open. It has been quite an interesting tournament. From a Australian point of view, there are still representatives 'alive' in the Legends Doubles (Mark Philipousis), Women's Doubles (Sam Stosur) and the Mixed Doubles (Astra Sharma and John-Patrick Smith), not to forget the wheelchair and junior tournaments.

Can someone tell me what the difference between the quad tournament and wheelchair tournament is.

I think after the weekend's finals the next big tennis event for the Men is Australia's Davis Cup Tie against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Adelaide over the first weekend of February. Will be interesting to see Australia's team for the tie.

The winner of the tie will join 11 other winners and the four countries that reached the semifinals this year (France, Croatia, United States and Spain) and two wildcards (Argentina and Great Britain) in the new 18-team season finale to be played from 18-24 November 2019.

Will be interesting to watch 

The Women's Federation Cup starts Feb 9-10, and Australia has been drawn to play the United States (Away).

I'm hoping to see Kvitova win the Women's Final tomorrow, and Djokovic end up winning the Men's Final (beating Lucas Pouille today, and Nadal on Sunday)...  but we'll see :)

Sporting shorts..

• I thought that it might be difficult to come up with a sporting shorts for this week, but it is not really; apparently there’s a game of Football (called the SuperBowl) in the US on Monday week between the Patriots and the Rams. The New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has played in this game nine times, which is more than some franchises have. I think both teams weren’t favoured to win their ‘Semi-Final’, and I’m not sure who are favourites so I might just try and watch it. I find NFL an interesting sport, it seems built for TV with so many breaks in play. I learned today that Brady was born in 1977 making him 41. I don’t know many sports where many players are still playing at 40, Brady isn’t just playing he’s among the best active quarterbacks.
• January is also the Australian Open, and Tennis. It has been a really great tournament on the court for Australia (we could do without the Davis Cup Feud). Barty is Australia’s last remaining player in the Men’s and Women’s draws, she plays Petra Kvitova in a Quarter Final tonight. The Men’s Quarter Finalists are Stefanos Tsitsipas (who just beat Roberto Bautista Agut to make the Semi-Final); Novak Djokovic (playing Kei Nishakori); Milos Raonic (playing Lucas Pouille) and tonight Rafa Nadal plays Frances Tiafoe. Given both my picks for the tournament are out in Federer and Kerber, I’ll quietly cheer for Barty and Nishakori.
• Onto Cricket, Cricinfo have just posted their nominees for the best performances in men’s test cricket for the year. Batting Nominees; Bowling Nominees. 
• I think my pick for the batting is Khawaja for his innings of 141 which helped saved the test match against Pakistan. An honourable mention would go to Mendis, who batted through the fourth day with Angelo Matthews to help Sri Lanka avoid defeat against New Zealand. Onto the best bowling performance, it’s hard to go past Yasir Shah who took 8/41 against New Zealand. Shah’s figures are the best since Stuart Broad’s 8/15 against Australia in 2015. While ultimately Pakistan didn’t win the test the figures helped Shah become the fastest man to 200 test wickets. An honourable mention would be Jasprit Bumrah (6/33) whose spell helped India win the Melbourne test and ultimately become the first team from the sub-continent to win a Test Series in Australia.
• The Socceroos won their round of 16 clash with Uzbekistan in a penalty shootout. Matt Ryan made two incredible saves. Will be interesting to see how they go in their next game.
• The Women’s AFL Season starts in a few weeks I’ll be hoping the competition is given air to breathe this season, especially with two new teams in the competition.