- This week is the bye, so on field action was limited to Women's State of Origin football, with the Allies and Victoria battling it out. The game itself wasn't really a contest - Victoria winning the game by 97 points - and Daisy Pearce best on ground.
- In the Men's competition, the biggest news was Dustin Martin re-signing with Richmond. Have to say I'm pleased by that.
- Looking forward to next week, not with any degree of confidence I'm picking: Adelaide, Richmond, Sydney and Port Adelaide to win.
NRL
- North Queensland survive, and claim eight spot, mainly due to St George's loss to the Bulldogs.
- The first round of the finals sees: Melbourne play Parramatta, the Roosters tackle Brisbane. Manly and Penrith resume hostilities after playing this week, and Cronulla play North Queensland. If there's any upsets among those, I suspect it will be Parramatta beating Melbourne. Parramatta at the moment are seeming to play better against the teams above them.
- So, I'm picking Melbourne, Sydney City, Penrith and Cronulla to win next weekend.
- The Warriors abysmal season finished with their ninth straight loss - 16-28 against the Tigers. Honestly, the less said about their season the better.
Cricket
- The main news this week was the West Indies beating England; and Australia losing to Bangladesh.
- I'm not seeing Australia's loss as an upset, the Tigers are on the way up, beating both England and Sri Lanka in the past twelve months. Australia didn't really do the preparation and paid the penalty. These results are both great for Test Cricket.
Football
- World Cup qualifiers have recommenced, with four nations in addition to the hosts Russia now qualified (Iran, Japan, Mexico and Brazil)
- The All Whites beat the Solomon Islands 6-1 in the first leg of their final. The winner has the task of playing the fifth ranked South American team, currently Argentina, but it could also be Chile, Peru or Ecuador.
- Australia's path is slightly more complicated after their 0-2 loss to Japan. Australia needs to beat Thailand and hope that either Japan beats Saudi Arabia or they beat Thailand by a greater margin than Saudi Arabia beat Japan. Australia will otherwise finish third and then need to qualify by beating the other third ranked Asian team (currently Syria, but it could be Uzbekistan) then beating the fourth ranked team from the North America and Caribbean confederation (currently Honduras, but there's an outside chance it could be the USA).
- In terms of Europe and Africa, it is still to early in the qualifiers to determine the group winners.
US Open
- At the middle weekend of the tournament, the Mens draws looks a little top heavy with Federer and Nadal in the top half of the draw, and its really anyone's guess who the other two semi-finalists are. The Women's Draw is quite open. I don't know enough to pick a winner, though I'd love to see Venus Williams win the tournament.
- I'm not really sure how I feel about Sharapova being in the tournament. Yes she has had a positive doping violation, and was granted a wild-card, but do we, if we do, move on?
Other
- Have to admit, I'm looking forward to the start of the NFL Season, which begins Friday morning with the reigning champions (New England Patriots) taking on the Kansas City Chiefs.
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