The Puma Nation

Although the offer is conditional, Argentina have been invited to join the Tri-Nations competition from 2012.  They definitely deserve it – recent years has seen the Pumas come on leaps and bounds to fly up the world rankings, clearly emerging from the last World Cup as one of the best.  Regular high level competition against the All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks (who won the competition on Saturday) will make them even better.  This is very exciting news for world rugby!

Of course, I’m still rooting for Scotland to beat them in the Autumn test

Queen’s Birthday Weekend- Part 1

Peter & Sue flew down on Friday night to spend the holiday weekend in Sydney.  I think we managed to pack in a lot of activities and show them some bits of Sydney that they’d never been to before.

We started off on Saturday morning with a trip to Lakemba, which is a predominately Lebanese neighbourhood in Sydney’s southwest.  Our first stop in Lakemba was Abu Adam’s for some lovely sticky, flaky pastries with pistachio and rosewater.  We may have come home with a 1/2  kilo of assorted sweets, but at $17-22 per kilo it’s hard to say no.

Abu Adam was kind enough to give us a lunch recommendation (not to mention offer to fly someone to Mackay to deliver Sue some pastries), so we then headed over to Jasmin for some yummy food.  We had hummus, baba ganoush, foule, kofta, falafel, tabbouleh, sujuk sausages, kebbe, etc. . .  Everything was absolutely delicious!

After stuffing ourselves silly at lunch, we had a wander around the shops buying coffee, tea, spices and meats before heading back home for a bit of rest.

Saturday night’s main event was Wallabies vs Barbarians at Sydney Football Stadium.  The Baa Baas didn’t play as well as we’d hoped, but we still had a great time with 40,000 of our closest friends.

After the match, we headed to Chinatown for a late dinner at Mamak.  Mmm. . .roti canai.  We had lots of yummy Malaysian food, then dragged ourselves home to bed.  A very nice, busy day. 

And The Winner Is …

The Super 14 season came to an end this week and with it the office tipping competition.  The biggest difference is that whilst the rugby came down to the final game, the tipping was effectively decided weeks ago.  Amanda took the lead in week 4 of the regular season and has never looked back.  Occasionally people came “close”, but Amanda has been consistently head and shoulders above the pack – enough to be in the top 40 of the 10000 competitors  nationwide!

I wish I could say I taught her everything she knew about rugby, but I’d be lying – my disappointing performance only improved after I started taking lessons from her.  She has done exceptionally well and I honestly could not be more proud of her “scintillating” and “amazing” performance (just a few words of congratulations from our fellow competitors).

So I just wanted to say, for all to read – well done my love, I’m so very proud of you, my rugby super tipster!

Edinburgh Comes Top (Almost)

Of all the results in world rugby recently, perhaps the most exciting is that Edinburgh clinched second place in the Magners League!  It’s the highest position ever by a Scottish team, and we are absolutely thrilled.  Andy Robinson has clearly helped the guys unleash all the potential we always believed they had. Fantastic result.

The competition was tough – the team that won the league was last year’s Heineken Cup winners Munster, while the team in third, Leinster, are this years Cup winners.  Speaking of the Heineken Cup, not only was it great for Ireland to see another victory this year (having won the Grand Slam in the Six Nations), but the final was played out in Murrayfield.  Knowing that brings back some thoroughly enjoyable memories of being at the Final between Toulouse and Stade Francais three years ago.

Speaking of going to international rugby games with Dad and Sue, next weekend the four of us are off to see the Barbarians take on the Wallabies.  The Baabaas squad is packed, as ever, with top level international names – Martin Corry, Serge Betsen, Jerry Collins, Josh Lewsey, Geordan Murphy and Leinster’s own Rocky Elsom to name just a few.  We can’t tell you how much we’re looking forward to it.

First And Goal

One of my fondest memories of my first Christmas with Amanda is eating delicious crunchy crudité while cuddling up on the sofa and watching (American) football. That’s what we do here on Sundays in the winter. Everyone gathers around, and we nom and watch football. And that’s what we’ve been doing this afternoon. Amanda made a variety of sauces and salsa and guacamole, and off we dipped.

Coming at the very heart of winter means we always catch the final games of the regular season as we head toward the playoffs. Though they didn’t win their division (congrats to the Tennessee Titans), the Colts had safely secured their play off spot and still put on an exciting show today. The rest of the picture on the final day of the regular season is less clear. Even knowing the sport, it’s hard to follow – I didn’t realise that though our despised Patriots won today they still won’t make the playoffs unless our suddenly new favourite teams Miami AND the Ravens lose. The Dolphins will take the division with a win since they would have equal standing but a head-to-head advantage, and Baltimore will be keen to land the sixth seed, but if the Jets beat Miami and the Ravens lose, Amanda would be okay with the Patriots winning the division, but just this once. I’m still undecided. Do I like Brett Favre more than I hate the Patriots? It’s a tough one.

I know … it gives me a headache just to think about it. I’m heading back to the sofa for some more noms.

Gutted

It’s after 3 in the morning, and we just saw Scotland lose 10-14 to the World Champions, South Africa.  It was a game they apparently had no chance in, but a game they could so easily have won (f@%king Parks)!  A very exciting game and quite a crushing loss – how are we supposed to sleep now?  We are, however, in complete agreement with the commentators – that is the best we’ve seen Scotland play in a long time!  The future’s bright, the future’s blue!

I Feel Dirty

Due to Amanda’s influence, I am a big fan of American football.  Due to having ESPN and watching lots of Sportscenter, I have been known to keep up with the basketball, particularly when we get towards the end of the season.  Heck, I even watched a game of hockey in a bar once.

Baseball, however, is where I draw the line with American sports.  It’s not a racialist thing, mind.  I find it just as dull as the cricket (don’t tell the locals!).  A game of baseball can go for hours and hours and still end up with single figure scoring.  I’m sorry to all those who love it, and particularly Debi to whom I most often ridicule the “sport,”  but I just don’t like it.

So imagine my horror upon finding that on and off across a lazy Sunday afternoon I’d managed to see almost an entire game.  I don’t care that it was a world series game (I know I don’t need to point out the flaw in that name).  It was still baseball!  I found myself somewhat understanding the strategy, appreciating the skill … yeuch … I feel unclean just recanting the tale to you.

I’m off for another shower, and I hope it washes off the shame.

British American Football League

Yes, you read that right.  And no, I’m not talking about the beleaguered NFL Europe and the long defunct Scottish Claymores.  It turns out that there has been an American football league in the UK for over 20 years.  There are three divisions, a number of conferences in each and around 50 teams playing across the country.  And what’s more, the Edinburgh Wolves have been playing at Meadowbank stadium since 2002!!

I don’t know what’s worse – that I had no idea the sport was even played in the country, or that there was a team playing right in the heart of Edinburgh?!  All that time Amanda and I were staying up to ridiculous times in the morning just to catch a little action on channel 5 … we just had no idea.  If we had, you can guarantee we would have been there for every game!!

NFL, as with any sport, has it intricacies but it’s really not hard to pick up the basics.  And what better way to spend a summer Saturday afternoon than with some top quality live sport.  So consider yourself on notice those of you in the vicinity – the next home game (there was one yesterday, who knew) is July 5th at 4pm and it will set you back a PALTRY £3!!  Gavin, Mark, Simon, Neil … you have NO excuse!!

The Slap Of Death

Euro 2008 kicked off at the weekend (do you see what I did there) and arguably the worlds 2nd largest football tournament is out of the stalls and running (do you see what I … oh … wrong sport).  This weekend saw some inevitable results, with the Croats and Czechs putting the hosts Austria and Switzerland to the single goal sword.

Of most interest were the group C games, the so called group of death.  Between Italy (world cup winners), France (world cup runners-up) The Netherlands and Romania (both currently top 12 in the world) this is
a tough group.  But honestly, are the two world-cup finalists – the two teams responsible for Scotland not making it to the tournament – really so confident that they don’t even bother to win their first matches?  If the Scots had made it through they would have played their tartan hearts out.  Not the Italians and the French.  If they even make it through this round they’ll be lucky.  Such a waste!

In more local football news, it seems the Australian Football bods (the FFA) have been trying to pull the wool over the eyes of FIFA, the sport’s international governing body.  In this year’s A-League final, one of the goalkeepers got himself a lengthy ban for slapping a ref.  Firstly, the FFA granted an appeal to shorten the ban.  Then they added a temporary break in the ban … conveniently situated to allow him to play at the Olympics.  FIFA clearly weren’t chuffed, and lets just say he won’t be playing again for quite some time

I guess it’s my turn. . .

I’m feeling much better today. My voice is still froggy, but at least I have one. Scott has done very well holding down the blogging fort this week, so I thought I’d give him a break. So. . . it’s Saturday then. Where did the week go? I guess I spent most of it hiding under a blanket, so it’s not terribly surprising that I missed it. And I can report that Scott made so many hot toddies this week that we’re out of whisky. I do not endorse mixing medication with alcohol, but Lemsip Hot Toddies- that’s all I’m saying. 

On a completely unrelated note, if any of you in the UK are outdoorsy types and are interested in canoing, Scott’s step-brother Dan has just launched a new website: ORCA- Open River Canoe Adventures.

Check out Dan’s video of their trip canoing around New Zealand in 2005: