Have you watched any of Lando's starts, he makes a blowfly like direct and to the point?
But again, what happened and why doesn't explain the continual escape from scrutiny, but fear and influence does!
If Lando had not escaped scrutiny across 2 out of 3 races earlier in the season, when he basically forced opponents off the track without penalty, then Max would have probably won with points to spare and Lando might well have been consigned to 3rd spot behind Oscar.
If Lando has shown himself to be supreme at one thing, it's complaining loud and early to sway opinion, it's like when Dangerflog begs the umpires for special consideration after he's just freshly tunnelled another opponent!
Adelaide is usually a batting wicket, they may swap Doggett for Cummins and bring Lyon in for someone like Inglis, Inglis is wasted at 7 anyway and Cummins isn't a spud.
That leaves them Lyon with a chop out from Head for the spin variations.
Of course maybe Starc needs a rest, but to do that you'd have to be willing to load up Cummins.
I don't mind Bazball - both as a concept and a spectacle - but you do need a plan B.
Yes, they've mistakenly taken the Dougie Walters / Adam Gilchrist "100 in a session" spirit and tried to turn it into the default game tactic. But you just can't ride your luck for that long, especially given that the bowlers are now better prepared than ever before to deal with such tactics.
Also, Test Cricket does not get played on ODI or T20 pitches, so for me the Bazball style should always be selectively applied.
I dont get all the fuss. Sure, Piastris fortunes were somewhat out of his own hands, but he had a bit of an ordinary run that saw him back back to the field.
Its as much a bottle job as anything else.
Yes, I tend to agree, which is why I was barracking for Max in the end.
But it's stuff like the below image that is the slightly distasteful residue, keeping in mind other drivers were penalised for the same or less, some you may recall were even penalised for this happening after contact while cornering, they hadn't voluntarily driven off the track.
Runoff zones and margins are there for safety, not a shortcut. If Norris hadn't regained that place by driving off the track, Max wins the title! My concern is that Norris has done similar several times and not been penalised, while others have a one strike policy applied!
Another season over, but fans can't help but be left feeling a bit disenchanted with the result. Whether it's real or not the competitor begging and apparent favouritism leaves most experiencing events as a touch distasteful. We want one on one not one versus a team.
I get that in a team there is an "A" and "B" driver, not always for the reasons people think, sometimes it's capability, sometimes other peripheral issues. But in sport we want the best of the best to perform unhindered, and this season's result seems to fall well short of that.
So I accept the team decisions, what I don't understand is how drivers escape officialdom. Yet it seems every year the driver / team that escapes scrutiny for various infractions ends up the victor. The evidence this season is pretty stark reminder to fans that all is not equal. In the last 4 or 5 races we had the eventual champion escape penalty, not once or twice but on four occasions, while other drivers were penalised 5s, 10s or subsequent even grid places for far lesser infractions. As much as I'd like to think it's a sport, it's hard to dismiss the events. Perhaps I understand the lack of penalty int he final race, because the price paid would be massive, but the genesis of the problem was months old. We can explain away one or perhaps even two escapes as lucky, but when the numbers start to add up the cynicism is earned.
The whole season makes me feel like I've just watched a dodgy Olympic diving session where the Russian or China judges give contestants except compatriots a fail.
The importance of "the average age" is vastly over-stated.
You could average 25, then retire a broken 30 for a prime 26, replace a dud 20 with a 75 game 24 and the average would still be 25. None of which considers quality at all.
Congratulations to Starc. His form has been pretty solid for a while now, and is getting rewards.
Agree, credit when it is due.
I admit I'm not a Starc fan, basically because to me he is a 1 good game in 3 player, but he has been consistently good the last few tests, more so than at any time in the past. It's almost like something has clicked as he nears the end of his career, Pink Floyd wrote Time for a reason.
It’s a changing of the guard, and more so with the departure of Kez Peterson.
Nobody likes the tap on the shoulder, especially fans when it happens to a fan favourite, but it's always better to go a season early than a season late!
It would have been nice to see Peterson side by side with Cordner, if they were both at their peak, fit and firing, but it won't ever happen so it's just a pipe dream.
In any case, it looks to me like the coach is taking the AFLW side in a different direction, I hope the AFL team is watching. It's amazing the difference just a couple of players can make, I can also see this happening with the AFL squad as long as we don't cling to the old ways.
Khawaja out is a step in the right direction but replacing him with Inglis?
The squad is welded in, looking at Shield form right now you'd have to say Inglis is bit lucky, but perhaps Australia is buying into the Bazball ideology a bit more than fans would like.
To me the Poms look brittle, if an old fashioned test batsmen comes out and makes 300 against them they look to me like they'll disintegrate.
I wasn't that impressed with how we finished the day, nor was I impressed with Smith's captaincy, his field setting was downright lunacy. He set fields like a bloke who did not want to go out and bat last night. D-Grade muck, suburban cricket clubs would sack a captain for that rubbish.
I'm a bit disillusioned with the selection policy as well, if true then no wonder Lyon is miffed. The Gabba is a known wicket taking venue for quality spinners because the good spinners get wickets with bounce. All in all, it doesn't come across to me as a Test Cricket mentality, it's looking more like a dog and bone(dog and pony) show.
I talked to some Australia Protest types today, it was clear to me many participants have been misled, either accidentally or deliberately the people marching aren't all marching under the same banner. That's a problem, because the neo-Nazi types are using the participation and attendance as a recruiting medium.
A had to ask them why they were marching, most said they were protesting against illegal immigrants. I had to question this, they qualified it with queue jumpers who arrive by boat or plane and stay in Australia illegally, that is either without a visa or beyond the visa term. When I asked them how many arrived by boat last year they gave me a range of answers from a thousand to tens of thousand, when I pointed out the total head count for boat arrivals last year was about 150 people they refused to believe it. They have been told illegal immigrants number in the hundreds of thousands, I asked them are they against immigration, and they said no, they are only protesting illegal immigration. But that is not what the event organisers stated in the media, they were pushing an anti-immigration message. It demonstrates how devious the organisers really are, with disinformation, and deception used to recruit participants.
Hard reality is exposed in the numbers. On average about 500,000 legal immigrants or visa holders arrive in Australia each year, that's 12,500,000 over the last 25 years and the average is remarkably stable despite what some political parties claim. In any one year there are only about 70,000 in total that remain illegally, the average illegal overstay is only 4 weeks, most leave once they are alerted that their vias has expired. So the longer term overstays are about 35,000 as a percentage of 500,000. But of course a small percentage of the overstays are multi-year overstays, so that 35,000 must really be a percentage of 1,000,000 or more. I've been told the real-world percentage for overstays hovers around 0.2%, 1 in 500.
Over the same period the population has grown about 7,000,000, the doubters looked puzzled when I told them this, because they don't seem to think anybody leaves or dies.
One of the protestors I talked to today was the daughter of a legal Mauritian boat arrival immigrant, 50 years ago, what do you think the Ex-Kiwi Neo-Nazi protest leader thinks of her, and would he reserve a spot for her child in his private home school program?
The solution to this violence problem is to support VicPol and it's actions, not undermine it, the problem for everybody at the moment is the left wing govnerment is basically creating and anti-police legal structure.
Add to that, many of the same people most loudly complaining about machetes and calling for vigilantism are the same ones throwing rocks at the police lines, it's ironic this weekend that many roll up to the Australia Protest, an event effectively organised and managed by a white neo-nazi New Zealander.
Some only see what they want to see, and the right wing media only report what they want to see.
When Trump's loses a debate, deal or discussion, it's either not reported in the right wing media or they basically lie about the outcome. Most of Trump's winning isn't real, it's a fantasy, like any school yard bully he's all bluster and no substance.
This issue about "attracting" a KPP, we've BigH and Weiters, one is a Coleman medalist and the other an AA defender.
Pretty much every available KPP trade option will see themselves behind those two in the pecking order, and they will certainly be behind Cripps as a F50 2nd or 3rd tall, so a trade or FA might not see us as such a destination.
Even so we obtained Dean via the Draft and that has potentially already solidified our position longer term.
As far as KPPs are concerned, at the moment as a selection strategy it appears to live or die by each season's AFL rule changes. Personally, I can't see any stability coming out of the AFL decision making process, it will be interesting to see what happens in the next draft / trade period as Tassie become more involved. The 200cm types might be in the gun because they are the hardest to find some quality, just being 200cm isn;t enough as we have learned from Lemmey and Mirkov, and it's likely the AFL won't want Tassie disadvantaged by loading it up on 2nd Tier options.
