It's a great time to be alive

If you're an Australian sports fan with a love for American sports this time of year is always awesome. It's probably my favourite.

Here at home we have the NRL & AFL finals starting up, the Tri-Nations rugby is still on, the Spring Racing Carnival is not far off and the A-League is gathering some momentum.

Across the Pacific it's even more packed with the US Open Tennis, the start of the College Football season (ouch Oklahoma!!!), NFL, MLB pennant races happening and playoffs approaching, and NBA and NHL on the horizon. How good!!

The only pain in the ass is the time difference, but then again, if the time zones were all the same there wouldn't be enough time to take it all in.

So who is going to win??

That is something I am asked often by my sports loving brethren so I thought I'd have a crack - as much to get your thoughts and as much to see how stupid I might look down the track when everything is decided for another year. Although, I probably don't need to stick my neck out there too look stupid!

So here goes (with personal bias firmly in place):

Tri-Nations - The Springboks (pretty much already lifted the trophy)

NRL - Manly

AFL - Geelong

Cox Plate - Maldivian

Melbourne Cup - Profound Beauty

A-League - Sydney FC

MLB - Yankees

NCAA Football - Florida

NFL - New Orleans

NBA - Cleveland

NHL - Flyers

All this is without bringing into play the end of the various motor racing seasons, the Premier League in the UK and the myriad of exciting European football competitions. Damn work, can't someone just pay me to watch all of this stuff!

Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Alternative Origins

The State of Origin series winds up for another year this week and one question keeps popping up.

And no it's not 'will Queensland win for the next 1035 years?' The question revolves around scheduling - is the current format, that witnesses games played on a Wednesday night at three week intervals, the best one?

Players selected miss playing for their clubs, the people who pay their salary, the weekend before the game each time and must pull up injury free to turn out for their clubs the following weekend. Usually the bye saves each club once from the pain of taking the field without their best but that's it.

While I admit Wednesday nights have been successful and are now a huge part of Australia's annual sporting calendar, being forced to play without your team's stars when you are battling to make the Top 8 is tough on players, coaches and fans alike.

Surely there is a better solution.

We could start by making all players available for their clubs the week before a dead rubber, as is the case this week with QLD already up 2-0.

I would go even further and make radical changes. Under my rule the series would be played on three consecutive Saturday nights. Players would turn out for their clubs the week before the series starts and have a normal week to recover at the end of the series before they don club colours again. While the series is on there will only be one round of club footy the entire time - the first two weeks could have a game on Friday night, Sunday afternoon and Monday night, before a Friday night, Sunday afternoon weekend the final week.

That way, at most teams only miss their players once. Each team would still get two byes, albeit they would be closer together.

The elite that are fortunate enough to play Origin would not have to back up and play twice in a weekend either, they would simply miss their allocated byes or weeks off. Sure it's hard but that's why they get paid the big bucks!

Some will say that these guys need longer together to form combinations and so on but I don't buy it. Most have played together at some stage of their careers or will be together for a while to come. They have the ability to follow a game plan well and mesh with teammates with ease - that's why they are the best in the game.

All sounds good to me in theory but there is one HUGE problem. Television!! The television rights holders, Channel 9 and Fox, want the game on the box as often as possible so just two or three games a week is not going to cut the mustard for them or their advertisers who obviously help them recoup the millions they have paid the NRL for the broadcast rights.

I would imagine hell would freeze over before the networks agree to a schedule like mine but that brings us to another big question in the game - who is running the show - the media and television networks or the people who should, the fans?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Where's The Consistency

At times there is nothing more entertaining than hearing a fired up talk back radio shock jock go to town on a back peddling politician or sports administrator, as was the case last week when the airwaves' hardest working man Ray Hadley pushed NRL boss David Gallop into a corner.

They were talking about the incident involving young Roosters players Jake 'if i keep carrying on like this i'll have no' Friend and Sandor 'i have the best name in footy' Earl.

Hadley raised a point that i am sure many NRL fans are currently wondering - why were these two players allowed to play on without suspension, especially after they'd been charged by police?

Simple Gallop said. There was an ongoing police investigation.

What happened, Hadley asked, in the 2006 case of Tevita Latu when the Sharks player was de-registered despite an on-going investigation for punching a woman in the nose? It was an open and shut case of Latu admitting his guilt Gallop said. Friend and Earl were disputing the facts he said.

Well please explain then Mr Gallop the suspension earlier this season of Brett Stewart. You said it had nothing to do with the ongoing police investigation that Stewart was facing and disputing. You said it was for "not conducting himself at all times in public in a sober, courteous and professional manner".

Were Sandor and Earl conducting themselves in a 'sober, courteous and professional manner' when they got in a fight? Was Anthony Watmough at the Manly season launch? I think not. Were they suspended? No.

Now the point i am trying to make here is not that Stewart shouldn't have been given an enforced holiday on the sidelines (because i believe he should have for acting like an idiot) or that Watmough and the two Roosters should have.

I am merely trying to show the inconsistencies in these examples. Was Stewart really suspended for being drunk and unprofessional or was it because of the police allegations? If it was the former, why have Friend and Earl been allowed to play on?

Gallop has spent plenty of time in recent years in the sort of corners that Hadley had him in last week (and I'll blog about that in coming weeks). It's high time he punched his way out and showed some leadership by ruling consistently across the board.