I always had a suspicion the great man would be back to terrorise the less speedy and it has happened in conspicuous circumstances. Looking back to the footage of Massa’s accident you can just catch a glimpse of someone wearing a red jumper and ear muffs throwing something onto the track. Fractured skull later and Schumacher is back in the game. Possibly a little wrongly but hey, he was no angel during his first career darer either, just ask Damon Hill.

Anyways courtesy of new partner sportingbet.com.au I provide the following prices for Notasmartmans Nominated Specials!

Melbourne Storm $2.50 to beat the Dragons $1.53

Brisbane Broncos $1.72 to beat the Raiders $2.15

Brisbane Lions $3.10 to beat Collingwood $1.37

New Zealand $2.75to beat South Africa $1.45

Michael Clarke to score less than 50 in both innings $1.02

Good luck if your enjoying a punt and happy hunting if you are up to other shenanigans.

Karmichael Hunt has made a decision to go and play AFL football. Good on him, I can’t say that he is going to be any real huge loss and like always another player will take his place. Who knows, he may be back in a few years anyways but for now, whatever.

It is making reasonable news in Brisbane as expected but it is the huge media coverage it is getting in the homeland of AFL Victoria that is rasing eyebrows. They are lapping it up like it is the biggest thing since the invention of the football. The part I am most interested is that the AFL and their supporters are showing the truth behind the matter. NRL players are the superior athletes! That is it, pure and simple! The extended coverage of the event is proof that they have been looking for a coup of this nature for a long time.

On the radio driving home tonight some niff nuff rang up and suggested that Carlton midfielder Chris Judd could easily make the transition from AFL to the NRL “proving that athletes in both games could easily interchange”. No offence to Chris Judd who is a very fine Aussie Rules player and athlete in his own right but the only position he could play in a heated game of Rugby League was chief orange peeler. He would be smashed from pillar to post and crumble into submission at the first taste of a facial while getting tackled.

If he does make the switch someone better tell him that in the fights in the NRL we actually throw punches and occasionally knock each other out unlike your piddly little attempts at fights where a good push counts as victory.

Welcome to a brave new world AFL fans. You can’t even find players good enough in your own ranks anymore. Next you will be chasing…. dare I say it…. soccer players!

Apparently I am still a chance of making the Olympics! Just when I thought father time had passed me by I flicked over to the news tonight to see that 6 world records have been broken at the World Swimming Championships in Rome. 6 world records on the first couple of days!? That has to be some sort of statistical anomaly surely?

One of two things is happening. Either those cagey Romans have relied on roman numerals to calculate the length of the Olympic swimming pool and stuffed it all up or, these super-dooper swim suits really do make a difference (the more likely of the two). Get me one of those!!

Bringing this all back to me, all I have to do is buy a pair of these swim suits and I am a locked in special for gold in England! My last swim, in a year 8 swimming carnival (not wanting to give my age but lets say 20ish years ago) will clearly be the best training available to tackle the worlds greatest head on… here goes

As I best recollect I stood on the starting blocks, heard the starters pistol and belly flopped into the pool stroking as fast as possible. At the halfway mark I stood up, looked at how far I was behind and thought….. nooooo I am miles away from the wall!! For a few moments my mind debated whether it was closer if I just went back but something inside me drove me on to the finish line. As I neared it I could detect that nobody else was in the pool anymore and the race had become a one man marathon. I stroked and stroked and five meters from home stood up and jumped to the wall!! Only 100 or 200 hundred people saw it, no harm done to my pride….

Maybe I should go back to dreaming about other things.

I have never been much interested in swimming since.

In my opinion he is out. If you watched any of him bowling during the last test you would have seen he was atrocious. He was pulling balls wide with pore timing in his action and then he was letting them slip out of the index finger too far right and going nowhere near the stumps. As McGrath showed us, you have to make the batsmen at least feel threatened enough to offer a defensive shot. All Mitchell was offering was easy leaves or lean back cuts and pulls for four.

His performance in the tour match over the weekend apparently was no better. Its hard to know without seeing it but all reports are that he was still out of touch. I know comparisons to McGrath are a little unfair as he was one of the best ever but Stuart Clarke has been nearly as reliable as McGrath used to be. In my view his consistency is an invaluable cog in the wheel if Hilfenhaus’s swing at the other end, is going to come into its own.

I am not sure about the pitch for the next test at Edgbaston but I have been a fan of McDonald’s bowling so far and swing is an important factor. If the pitch is a turner than I am leaving Hauritz in, just, but if there is any hint that it wont turn then the Ginger Nut is in! His batting will be an asset also.

Sorry Mitch. You need to sort your self out and get the rhythm back you had. It can be a very tough thing to find at times and it may even take an apology to mummy to get there. Good luck, I hope you catch a break!

As a supporter since their first game (at a young age) I am very concerned about the current prospects of the Brisbane Broncos! Maybe I have had it to good for to long? I have had years of strong Australian cricket teams, competitive Australian Rugby teams, a fair share of Qld origin winning teams and like clockwork I could rely on the Broncos to make the Rugby League Finals.

Now, all this appears to be falling apart at the seams and my once mighty Broncos are about miss the finals for the first time in a long time. As it stands near the end of Round 20 we are just out of the top eight with 22 points.

1 Dragons 32
2 Bulldogs 28
3 Titans 28
4 Storm 27
5 Sea Eagles 24
6 Panthers 24
7 Knights 24
8 Cowboys 22
9 Broncos 22
10 Wests Tigers 20
11 Rabbitohs 19
12 Eels 19
13 Warriors 17
14 Raiders 16
15 Sharks 14
16 Roosters 12

The Broncos run through to the finals is not without its problems but there is room to get some good performances on the board a score some points for the dreaded for and against statistic. Its not all doom and gloom.

Canberra = should get the two points here
Cronulla = would hope we can beat them
Penrith = they will be fighting for a finals birth too. Is a must win!
St George = A possible game we could drop but ideally we need to beat them
North Queensland = Another team fighting for survival and a dangerous challenge
Canberra = For some reason we play the raiders again. Must win and win well.

It is actually not the worst run home they have ever had so I am hopeful they can find some form for next Saturday nights game in our nations capital. We are also going to have to rely on teams like the Knights and Panthers to crumble out of contention. If Lockyer can start to tackle and put a few games together we are a chance.

But I am not sure, do you have any thoughts on the final prospects of the Broncos?

It is nearly to much for one sports fan to handle with the Formula 1 circus showing Hungary what its all about. The Moto GP boys tearing up the tarmac in England and the Nascar boys are at Indianapolis to show them how it’s done for the Brickyard 400.

Watching the formula 1 qualifying last night I was smiling to myself as it reminded me of how far we had come from the dark days of not knowing who was on pole until Daryl Eastlake and Alan Jones would basically tell us moments before the actual race started. It was a rather confusing session with the timing screens going down twice and the second time they we went down during the final minutes which left us all wondering who had gotten pole. Unfortunately it was not Mark Webber but hopefully he can pull off an awesome start to fight for the lead.

Another incident during qualifying left me perplexed and it wasn’t till this morning when I saw the following photo that it made sense. A spring appears to have come off Barrichello’s car, bounced around the track for a few seconds and hit poor old Felipe Massa in the helmet. I thought it may have only knocked him out but the below photo shows it was a little more dangerous than that. Hopefully he will be ok.

It seems that my previously suggested deal between the UFC and Affliction was not quite 100% correct but a deal was done.

I have been bashed from pillar to post by those on the forums at bloodyelbow.com and sherdog.com for suggesting that the UFC would entertain my idea but in the end I was a lot closer to the truth than some of the nay sayer’s.

Trilogy has been cancelled and Affliction are back sponsoring fighters in the UFC. “Stranger things have happened” and will continue to do so.

This leaves a whole bunch of open questions that will be discussed but for now we will leave it with.

Gooooooonnnnne