I fully agree with respected former panelist, John Benaud, that Andrew Hilditch, the current chairman of the selection panel for Cricket Australia, should do the right thing for the team and fall on his sword. Aside from Australia's dismal form of late, it emerged a staggering 36 players have worn the baggy green cap since the retirement of star trio Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer four years ago. This is unheard of in the normally stable, durable and consistent team line-up. However, instead of that scenario taking place it emerges that Hildtich Hilditch, whose contract expires after the World Cup in April, wishes to extend contract. The selectors, under Hilditch, have an ever-worsening record, underscored by their choosing so many players and not doing enough to develop many of those selected. Australia need to get back on top and cannot do so with the current panel, and we desperately need new blood in team management.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Change in Australian cricket selector panel sorely needed
I fully agree with respected former panelist, John Benaud, that Andrew Hilditch, the current chairman of the selection panel for Cricket Australia, should do the right thing for the team and fall on his sword. Aside from Australia's dismal form of late, it emerged a staggering 36 players have worn the baggy green cap since the retirement of star trio Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer four years ago. This is unheard of in the normally stable, durable and consistent team line-up. However, instead of that scenario taking place it emerges that Hildtich Hilditch, whose contract expires after the World Cup in April, wishes to extend contract. The selectors, under Hilditch, have an ever-worsening record, underscored by their choosing so many players and not doing enough to develop many of those selected. Australia need to get back on top and cannot do so with the current panel, and we desperately need new blood in team management.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Farewell Urban
My favorite college football coach, Urban Meyer, of Gators and Utes fame, has announced that he is quitting his position as head coach of the University of Florida. He is citing family reasons, and possibly there is a hint of disappointment in how this season has panned out, but what a coach he is. Meyer led the Gators to 2 national championships in 6 seasons, losing only 10 games in his first 5 years in Gainesville. Urban is one of the top coaches and I wish him well in any endeavor, and I am sure that he will be back coaching in the not too distant future.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Mike Shanahan's Ego Consumes Redskins
Republished from the San Francisco Chronicle: In the NFL season before the much-ballyhooed arrival in Washington of two-time Super Bowl-winning coach Mike Shanahan, the team in Washington that Shanahan took over had lots of problems. The defense, however, was not one of them. It even featured a new two-time Pro Bowl player, defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, who team owner Dan Snyder bought off the free-agent market with a $100-million contract that made him the richest defensive player in NFL history. But on Tuesday, an ugly dozen games into his Washington coaching career -- for which he has produced just five wins -- Shanahan kicked Haynesworth off the team for the rest of the season. "Conduct detrimental to the team" was the explanation. Shanahan didn't even let Haynesworth suit up last Sunday. The Giants then literally ran over Shanahan's Haynesworth-less defense en route to a 31-7 beat down that became the most embarrassing loss of Shanahan's Washington era. And it wasn't the first game Shanahan refused to play Haynesworth without citing injury. He shelved Haynesworth in October against the Colts and lost that game too. Haynesworth won't be a Pro Bowl player again this season for a lot of reasons. Some are his doing. A big one is Shanahan.
Watching Shanahan coach Haynesworth this season has been like the Disney comedy "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." He took a player who arrived in the nation's capital as an MVP candidate and turned him into a backup. Shanahan took an asset on a team with few and reduced it to penny stock. Shanahan proved to be an alchemist in reverse. Watching Shanahan coach [Albert] Haynesworth this season reminded of the Disney comedy "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." He took a player who arrived in the nation's capital as an MVP candidate and turned him into a backup. "Yesterday [Monday], when Albert was at Redskin Park, he told our General Manager Bruce Allen that he [Haynesworth] would no longer speak with me," Shanahan said in a prepared statement released Tuesday. "Although suspending any player is not a decision that a head coach enters into lightly, I believe the situation has reached the point where the club clearly has no alternative." Consider the disrespect mutual.
There was one calculation Shanahan was correct in making about Haynesworth. It was that he could positively juxtapose himself against Haynesworth, casting Haynesworth as another overpaid, couldn't-care-less athlete who fans, and much of the media, love to loath. Haynesworth was an easy mark, too. He looked the part of the despised with his protruding belly. He acted the part by bypassing involuntary workouts and showing up at headquarters only when required to, and then doing so in a brand new car that only a $100 million athlete can buy. Haynesworth appeared to be the perfect malcontent. The disgust he garnered kicked up so much dust that it blinded most observers to Shanahan's own shortcomings. After all, that defense Shanahan inherited with Haynesworth as an anchor was the 10th stingiest in points allowed in 2009. It played a 4-3 alignment in which Haynesworth prospered. Through 12 games in 2010, however, the same defense ranks dead last in points allowed. Shanahan instituted his preferred 3-4 alignment that Haynesworth had to be dragged kicking and screaming to play.
Haynesworth was alone early on in his protest of Shanahan's philosophy. But as the defense continued to get shoved up and down the field, other teammates began to side with his critique. But with Shanahan, it was going to be his way or the highway. Shanahan's way, quietly as it's been kept, is to nowhere nowadays. It's been a long time since Shanahan was a Super Bowl-winning coach. Come next season, it will be two decades ago that Hall of Fame member John Elway quarterbacked Shanahan's Denver Broncos to back-to-back titles. It's even been a while since Shanahan was a playoff participating coach too. The last time was in the 2005 season when his Broncos finished 13-3 and lost to the Steelers in the AFC championship game. Since then, Shanahan has been nothing more than an average coach in this league. He went 9-7, 7-9 and 8-8 in his last three seasons in Denver before Snyder swooped in last offseason and whisked him away to the East Coast.
To read the complete article by Kevin Blackistone, please click on the title link, "Mike Shanahan's Ego Consumes Redskins"
Watching Shanahan coach Haynesworth this season has been like the Disney comedy "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." He took a player who arrived in the nation's capital as an MVP candidate and turned him into a backup. Shanahan took an asset on a team with few and reduced it to penny stock. Shanahan proved to be an alchemist in reverse. Watching Shanahan coach [Albert] Haynesworth this season reminded of the Disney comedy "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." He took a player who arrived in the nation's capital as an MVP candidate and turned him into a backup. "Yesterday [Monday], when Albert was at Redskin Park, he told our General Manager Bruce Allen that he [Haynesworth] would no longer speak with me," Shanahan said in a prepared statement released Tuesday. "Although suspending any player is not a decision that a head coach enters into lightly, I believe the situation has reached the point where the club clearly has no alternative." Consider the disrespect mutual.
There was one calculation Shanahan was correct in making about Haynesworth. It was that he could positively juxtapose himself against Haynesworth, casting Haynesworth as another overpaid, couldn't-care-less athlete who fans, and much of the media, love to loath. Haynesworth was an easy mark, too. He looked the part of the despised with his protruding belly. He acted the part by bypassing involuntary workouts and showing up at headquarters only when required to, and then doing so in a brand new car that only a $100 million athlete can buy. Haynesworth appeared to be the perfect malcontent. The disgust he garnered kicked up so much dust that it blinded most observers to Shanahan's own shortcomings. After all, that defense Shanahan inherited with Haynesworth as an anchor was the 10th stingiest in points allowed in 2009. It played a 4-3 alignment in which Haynesworth prospered. Through 12 games in 2010, however, the same defense ranks dead last in points allowed. Shanahan instituted his preferred 3-4 alignment that Haynesworth had to be dragged kicking and screaming to play.
Haynesworth was alone early on in his protest of Shanahan's philosophy. But as the defense continued to get shoved up and down the field, other teammates began to side with his critique. But with Shanahan, it was going to be his way or the highway. Shanahan's way, quietly as it's been kept, is to nowhere nowadays. It's been a long time since Shanahan was a Super Bowl-winning coach. Come next season, it will be two decades ago that Hall of Fame member John Elway quarterbacked Shanahan's Denver Broncos to back-to-back titles. It's even been a while since Shanahan was a playoff participating coach too. The last time was in the 2005 season when his Broncos finished 13-3 and lost to the Steelers in the AFC championship game. Since then, Shanahan has been nothing more than an average coach in this league. He went 9-7, 7-9 and 8-8 in his last three seasons in Denver before Snyder swooped in last offseason and whisked him away to the East Coast.
To read the complete article by Kevin Blackistone, please click on the title link, "Mike Shanahan's Ego Consumes Redskins"
This humble pie tastes like a car tire and it goes down like peanut butter
They say that pride cometh before the fall, and last night the cocksure New York Jets got their collective butts stomped on by the New England Patriots. That by itself is not an unusual thing, it's happened many times over the last fifteen years. But it was the margin of 43 points to 7 they lost by, and frankly they were completely outclassed and sent home with their tails between their legs. For me it is a great comeuppance, for big-noting and big-mouthing about how the Jets were going to destroy their opponents. A better team, a better coach and a better plan showed them just how wrong they were.Like many, I love it when braggarts get pummeled, and the Jets are NFLs worst. Rex Ryan is trying to instill a winning mental attitude, but in a lot of things he goes too far. It is just delicious natural justice that the team the declared itself the Superbowl favourites at the beginning of the season, have a real chance of not even making the playoffs. That would just be the ultimate in shooting oneself in the foot. Here's some advice Rex; shut-up and play, keep your comments respectful, and make sure your team comes ready to play, not to boast. Or else it will be a long and forlorn post-season for y'all! Yeehaw!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Sore losers
I have spent the last few days analyzing the reaction of the United States losing their bid to win the rights to stage the 2022 World Cup. If you were to believe most of the pundits I have heard; a) the U.S. was a sure thing, b) the U.S. was robbed, 3) no other country could possibly have deserved it, and 4) we should nuke both Qatar, the eventual winner, and FIFA headquarters in Switzerland. What a pathetic bunch of sore losers. You all make me sick. And yes, I am an American.
Let me stress some facts here. The world does not revolve around America, I know that may surprise some of you, but it's true. There are at least 250 other other countries in the world, and FIFA, the governing body, has 208 member associations, all of whom, probably would like to host the world cup. Why shouldn't it go to an Australia, an India, or... a Qatar? Yes, I understand all the arguments about infrastructure and all that, and the argument does have merit, but the U.S. hosted it very recently in 1994.
Qatar is being given the right to host, not just for their tiny country, but for the Middle Eastern region, and Qatar is certainly one of the more stable and secure nations in the area. Why shouldn't FIFA expand into new lands and increase the global game, especially in that region? Why does a negative vote automatically qualify as corruption or disrespect? Let's get on with the game. It will be the perfect opportunity for the U.S. to win the World Cup in virtually a neutral venue, where there are NO giant German, Italian, Brazilian or Argentinian shadows cast across the pitch.
Let me stress some facts here. The world does not revolve around America, I know that may surprise some of you, but it's true. There are at least 250 other other countries in the world, and FIFA, the governing body, has 208 member associations, all of whom, probably would like to host the world cup. Why shouldn't it go to an Australia, an India, or... a Qatar? Yes, I understand all the arguments about infrastructure and all that, and the argument does have merit, but the U.S. hosted it very recently in 1994.
Qatar is being given the right to host, not just for their tiny country, but for the Middle Eastern region, and Qatar is certainly one of the more stable and secure nations in the area. Why shouldn't FIFA expand into new lands and increase the global game, especially in that region? Why does a negative vote automatically qualify as corruption or disrespect? Let's get on with the game. It will be the perfect opportunity for the U.S. to win the World Cup in virtually a neutral venue, where there are NO giant German, Italian, Brazilian or Argentinian shadows cast across the pitch.
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