As many of you are aware during the rugby union season I write for the fantastic pinkrugby.com.
This year is no different and here is my preview of this year’s Super 15 season: http://pinkrugby.com/2013/2013-super-rugby-preview
Feedback always welcome!
Well last week was a bit of a disaster for multi followers: we just couldn’t catch a break with some of the upsets that arose. Following the mantra that when you fail the best thing to do is to try again and this week I am again tipping a five leg multi that I expect will lead to a good payout for followers.
It is a massive weekend in sport again and the multi starts tonight with the blockbuster at Etihad Stadium between the Geelong Cats and the Essendon Bombers. The Cats come into this fixture after being belted last week by Collingwood and their key forward is struggling with the kicking yips at the moment. They are also missing Jimmy Bartel through suspension. The Bombers have been one of the form teams in the competition so far and seem to have had the tactical measure of the Cats in recent seasons that lead to a four point victory in the corresponding game last season. To me the Bombers are a young team on the rise while the Cats are coming to the end of a period of dominance (if they lose this game this will represent the first time they have lost 6 games in a season since 2006). I am tipping the Bombers to win this one in the close one and cover the very short line of -3.5 points.
Leg 1: Bombers to cover the line (-3.5 points) against Geelong at $1.92
Our second leg comes from across the Tasman on Saturday afternoon where the New Zealand Warriors host the Newcastle Knights. The Warriors close loss last week to the Broncos saw them drop out of the top 8. They won all of the key statistical categories in that game however so they ought take some confidence out of that. Konrad Hurrell returns to the Warriors lineup for this fixture. The Knights have been in moderately poor form this year but have won three of the past four days and welcome back Neville Costigan this week. One of the highlights of this match will be the battle of the wingers in Manu Vatuvei and Akuila Uate and, frankly, the team with the winger that makes the least mistakes may will win this game. The Warriors have made Mt Smart Stadium a fortress in recent times winning ten of their last twelve fixtures and I think this will be a difficult one of the Knights to win despite their recent excellent form. That being the case I am tipping the Warrior to win this game and cover the line.
Leg 2: Warriors to cover the line (-10.0 points) against the Knights at $1.90
The third leg of this weekend’s multi comes from the South Island of New Zealand and more particularly the city of Christchurch where the Crusaders host the Bulls in the first of two Super 15 Qualifying Finals. In my preview of the weekend’s Super 15 action on the excellent pinkrugby.com I tipped the Crusaders to win by 11 and I am sticking to this tip for the multi. That means that I expect the Crusaders to cover the line of -9.5 here.
Leg 3: Crusaders to cover the line (-9.5 points) against the Bulls at $1.92
Super 15 rugby is also the focus of the 4th leg of the multi. We return back to the other side of the ditch for the second qualifying final at Lang Park between the Reds and the Sharks. Again, I refer follows to my preview of this fixture at pinkrugby.com where I tipped the Reds to win by 9 points and I am sticking to this tip in the multi. The line here is -5.5 points and I think the Reds will cover this here.
Leg 4: Reds to cover the line (-5.5 points) against the Sharks at $1.92
The anchor leg of this week’s multi again comes from the world of Formula 1. This weekend Formula 1 action comes from Germany and I think the best bet in the race is to pick the form driver in the championship, Fernando Alonso, to finish on the podium. Alonso is at the top of the championship and appears to have the car under him to go all the way this season. He is also keeping his car on the track more than in recent seasons and expect with his speed for him to be up the front at the end of this one. I am not sure though that he will defeat one or both of the Red Bulls and thus am only prepared to tip him for the podium here.
Leg 5: Fernando Alonso to finish in the top 3 in the German F1 Grand Prix at $1.72
This multi will return a healthy $23.13 per dollar invested for punters. Good luck and good punting for the weekend.
Shumpty
Check out my preview of Round 18 of the Super 15 here …. http://pinkrugby.com/2012/super-rugby-predictions-2012-rd-18
Is a massive round of Rugby and I for one can not wait!
Shumpty
Another exciting weekend of sport awaits us and for something different this week I am going to try and pick for readers a multi bet that should lead to a handsome return. Earlier editions of Shumpty’s Punt have been met with some comment about the inappropriateness of glorifying gambling. I do not write this blog to specifically offend people and I apologise if I do. Equally if you not a punting fan, I suggest you exercise your right to choose and decline to read any further into this post.
That now said, onto this weekends action and the weekend multi. All prices quoted are from sportsbet.com.au.
We will start with tonight’s AFL fixture between the Swans and Cats at the SCG. This game is the match of the round for mine and features two sides coming off a bye. The Swans have the best percentage in the AFL whilst the Cats have struggled for peak form all year. I am leaning towards the Swans in this one in front of their home fans in what presents as a tight tussle.
Swans by 1-39 ($2.25)
Later on Friday evening England host the West Indies in the third one day match of their ongoing series. Whilst I am often loath to bet on the shorter forms of cricket for obvious reasons, I like England here to continue their domination of the West Indies despite the return of that man Gayle.
England to win ($1.70)
For the third leg of the multi attention turns to the Australia v Wales Rugby Union clash at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday afternoon. So far this series has involved some excellent and tight rugby from both sides with the Wallabies stealing a victory in Melbourne last week. With the Welsh coming to the end of a longish tour and the Wallabies injecting new blood in the form of Kurtley Beale I expect the Wallabies to prevail again here in what again could end up a close score line.
Australia by 1-12 ($2.60)
In the interests of not getting too greedy I will limit the multi this week to four legs and for this the fourth and last leg I have found a little bit of value in the Formula 1 race from Valencia. This F1 year has been a nightmare for tipsters with seven different winners from seven races. That being the case I am going to avoid tipping a winner and tip Sergio Perez from the Sauber team to finish in the points (Top 10). Aside from one DNF in Spain Perez has been one of the most consistent drivers in the paddock and I expect him to again pilot his Sauber machine into the points.
Perez in the Top 10 ($1.72)
All up this multi if it gets up will pay $17.11 for each dollar you place on it. I have gone with $25 for my investment.
Outside of the multi, I have decided to round out my bets this weekend with a bet on the Sonoma Toyota/Save Mart 350 (NASCAR). This is a road circuit and Australian Marcus Ambrose is the raging favourite to win his first race of the year in this race. Anything can happen in these races but at $4.50 I consider Ambrose excellent value and will be placing some of my hard earned on him.
Good luck for anyone having a punt this weekend and as always if you don’t have the cash to spare don’t bet: it is simple really.
Jesse Stringer’s assault charge and subsequent suspension from all Senior AFL activities for the remainder of the year has pushed the Australian Rugby Union’s decision to select Kurtley Beale for this weekend’s test match against Wales to the forefront of the minds of most sports followers this week.
The conundrum of allowing a player of any code accused, but not convicted, of a crime to play at the highest level of their code is not a new one albeit it is one that in the digital age in which we live more focus than ever before is placed on.
This is not a problem that is going to go away: simply put the sportstars of today are becoming younger and, whilst all conduct can not be talked away as juvenile hijinks or just “boys being boys”, young men (and women) are the demographic most likely to end up in some form of trouble with the law when alcohol is involved.
In recent times we have seen a variety of approaches from clubs and the administrators of those clubs to allegations of inappropriate conduct. Variously across the codes and in no particular order, some examples are:
This is a small sampler of the punishment meted out by clubs and administrators across a number of sports in recent years for questionable player behaviour. I make no comment on the strength or weakness of the punishments given out above. They are what they are.
In addition to the examples above, and I note that I do not purport to know all of the facts of either case, now Messrs Stringer and Beale find themselves before the Courts on assault charges. In both cases alcohol was involved. Indeed in the case of Stringer the drinking before the incident has consistently been described as a “marathon”.
When one traverses all of the cases noted above, the common element appears to be the involvement of alcohol. Equally, it also must be noted that some of the “offenders” noted above are repeat “offenders”. The travails of the likes of Messrs Carney, Friend, Seymour and Lui are not isolated incidents or one offs: the matters noted above are portions of ongoing conduct which, again, has been consistently alcohol fuelled.
Whilst sports fans lament the lack of a “punishment” for Beale’s alleged conduct, there seems to me to be two far greater concerns arising out of the Beale and Stringer cases. They are:
For the latter question, the usual glib responses are “they are just young men having fun” and “the problem is not alcohol, it is people pestering the stars when they are just trying to have a quiet drink”. I can not accept either premise: if you are not a sportstar you are not absolved from punishment if you are an idiot or abusive when you are drunk. The alternate glib response is “but that is the way it has always been” also does not fly with me because community standards have changed since the days of listening to your sport of choice on the transistor radio.
My personal view (and I admit I have had my own problems with alcohol in the past) is that there is a problem with alcohol in sport. Part of the problem is obvious and is that, unlike most 18-25 year olds going out for a night on the town who have to pull up when their funds run out, sportstars have an unlimited available spend when they go out. Of course they, the sportstars, are going to get drunk: presented with an bottomless wallet wouldn’t you?
The former question is one to which there is no answer other than the punishments being meted out are not having a deterrent effect. Equally, even if they were, I wonder if a player full of their chosen liquid refreshment would even think of the consequences before they step over the line like the players in the examples set out above.
That being the case, I do not think the question of whether a player charged with a crime should play for their team after being so charged is the right question. As fans we need to be asking of the sportstars and the people who coach and administer the games we all love whether enough is being done at all levels to seek to stop the cycle of alcohol fuelled violence that continues to pervade our daily sports fixes. I, for one, do not think enough is being done: the evidence that this is the case is available for all to see above and in the sports pages every day.
In the end of course, after all of the hypothesising above, we are still left with the scenario where two elite sportsmen have been charged with assault and one is playing for his country on the weekend while the other is sitting on the sidelines. I am left to wonder: how many more assault charges there needs to be before the question I raise in the preceding paragraph is seriously considered?
The question of the treatment of match officials is one that has been firmly on the lips of many in recent weeks given the seemingly many and regular displays of petulance we have seen from the stars of many sports. It seems, based on the evidence before me, that respect for match officials in sport in general is at an all time low.
Pondering this issue over the last couple of days the thought that kept coming back to me was the question “what happened to the umpire is always right?”. As I recall childhood spent trundling medium pacers and standing at fine leg / second base in summer and kicking balls of various shapes in winter, the only rule that as young participants in sport that was drummed into us other than “have fun”: was that the umpire / referee was always right.
Indeed, as I, and a sampler of friends from those many moons ago, recall it the rule went something like “even when the umpire is wrong he is always right” and it had a punishment for breaking it that involved a clip over the ear from a parent and a sit on the sidelines the next game.
On the premise of what sports fans have all witnessed over the last couple of weeks across many codes either the rule that we all played by as kids in my generation was not pressed on professional sportsmen when they were kids OR something has happened that has changed the kids running around the local sports grounds into the petulant performers that grace our screens on a regular basis.
It is important to stop at this juncture and briefly examine what I am complaining about here. Obviously I watch a lot of sport and these are the things that I have seen that have concerned me in just the last month:
1. The regular habit of dummy halfs in rugby league throwing their hands up in disgust at seemingly every play of the ball that takes one second longer than they think is appropriate.
2. The regular habit of rugby league and rugby union teams who are waiting for a decision by the television match official to walk back to their own half in anticipation of a try being awarded.
3. The claiming of catches by fielders in the slips in test matches were the fielder could not possibly think they have caught the catch.
4. The captains of teams in both rugby codes regularly and vociferously questioning any call that they consider to have gone against their team. Such questioning now seems to, as par for the course, include swearing.
5. Tennis players questioning every call in an attempt to keep themselves in the game during an obvious losing cause.
Such behaviour appeared to reach its epoch in the first State of Origin game where the captain of the New South Wales team had a running battle with referees and was heard to quip “this is your first State of Origin isn’t it? You can tell” among other choice lines.
Put simply: there is not a game of sport that one watches these days in which such questioning of the match officials is not seen.
Now I acknowledge that the business of sport is big business these days and I also acknowledge that never have players whilst they are on the field been under more scrutiny with the advent of microphones on referees lapels and cameras focused on every facial expression of the players. These competing interests mean that on the one hand it might be said that a wrong decision can have a bigger effect on the team that the decision goes against and on the other hand we as fans get to hear and see more of the interactions between players and officials.
That said, I actually do not care what excuses players and codes might roll out to defend player behaviour in this regard because it is clear to me that changes need to be made. This was really sheeted home to me when my father told me anecdotally about running the line in my nephews under 7 rugby league recently. He (my dad) was shocked when one of the combatants quipped to him after one call “you aren’t doing us any favours are you”. The kid was seven.
If this is what our future stars think is appropriate conduct (and I know my sample size is small) then now is the time to do something about it.
Trying to get back to the rule that the match official is always right seems to me to be an appropriate starting point for the codes that are presently in the news on this issue and the only way that it seems to me that that “golden” rule is going to return to the games we love is for there to be strict punishments for breaching the rule.
Some sports deal with this well. In baseball, if you show dissent you are thrown out of the game; regardless of the state of the game and the position the player / coach holds. In cricket, players who dissent (and this includes the simple act of lingering after a decision is made and looking at the umpire) are punished on a sliding scale that runs from fines through to bans.
Conversely, other sports such as rugby league seem to treat the problem by resting the blame with the match officials themselves. This is simply not good enough.
Whilst I do not advocate a baseball style removal from the game for dissenters in all sport, it seems to me that that is nearly the point we have reached in order to bring the players back into line.
Sport is already playing a losing battle with video games, tablets and junk food and does not need the future generations (and their parents) to be put off by the poor conduct of the stars of the game. Sport also does not sports fans to turn off their TVs and stop watching because they simply can not stomach the whinging any more. Perhaps now is the time for serious action to be taken.
Until such action is taken (and I doubt it ever will), sports fans such as I are left with the continuing lament about the decline of the rule “the umpire is alway right” and our fingers lingering over the off buttons of our remote controls.
Shumpty Speaks 