Womens Tennis

Ok, so the year is ending and there is we are all thinking about Christmas, the Boxing day sport, the holidays, and the Aussie Open.

Each year, mostly around Wimbledon, the tennis world opens up the can of worms called 'equal prize money'. Both the French and Australian Opens pay a slightly smaller amount to the ladies than the men, while the US Open was the first of the Major tournaments to offer the ladies equal prize money for winning the tournament. However, I would really like to challenge that, because, for me, it is not equal at all, and i like that the All England tournament had different prize money for the mens and the ladies tournaments. Why? Well let me out line it for you.

Firstly at the four Grand Slam events, the men play best of 5 sets, while the ladies play best of 3. i looked at the court time for the Wimbeldon 2007 of the two winners, Roger Federer and Venus Williams.
Williams had a shaky start to the tournament. However, she won all but two of her 7 games with in 2 sets. Taking a total of 642 minutes of court time.
Federer Also won all but two of his games by the quickest way method, but he only played 6 games due to an injury to Tommy Haas. His total tournament time was 747 minutes. So on average he spent 123 minutes per match, while Venus to about 92minutes.

Okay, so this is just a slice of the pie. The arguement can be made that Venus and Federer aren't a good test, however, Venus was under performing early, with two of her first three games going to three sets, and those two took about 2 hours each. However as federer went on his games took longer, meaning more competition. The vibe that I get from both the mens and womens is that the sets are closer, the court time per male player and female player is much different, easily the extra third that the above stats resulted in.

So why equal money. Equity, rather than equality. I would like to see the ladies have to play the full five sets to receive their equal prize money. Will it happen? I doubt it


LINKS
- "Wimbeldon to offer Equal Prize Money" Press Release from the All England Club
- "Wimbledon To Maintain Prize-Money Gender Gap" - New York Times, Robin Finn, 30 April 1999
- Venus Williams matches at Wimbeldon 2007
- Roger Federer matches at Wimbeldon 2007

Phillip Hughes

Ok, so if you haven't heard of him yet, that's okay. Why? Because he is currently playing his second match at state level.
The second youngest player to play for the state (after Michael Clarke), he has already shown that he fits into the squad, with his left handed stroke play. Opening the batting for NSW against Tassie on his debut, he knocked a lazy 51 (only at sr of 48...but opener, on debut, four day game). NSW won the match not having to bat again. As I type he is not out 65 of 82 in his second state match, a one-dayer against the Bushrangers.

So I would like to put it down in writing that i am interested in being able to see him bat some day soon. I think that he may be one of those players who may get the odd shot at the national squad, but will find his home much stronger in the state side. My mind goes back to players such as Greg Blewett, Stuart Law, and Matthew Elliot, all of whom have been amazing at state level, but have struggled to break into the national squad.

I hope that Cricket Australia, allow young Hughes to develop in New South Wales for a good few years before trying him in either the Twenty20, One day, or Test arena. He has some obvious natural talent, and it needs to be encouraged locally for a while before throughing him onto the main stage. That way we may have another Mike Hussey, rather than another Matthew Elliot (sorry Matty, love your game, but I'm sure you know what I mean).

Note: Hughes was out for 68 in his debut one-dayer for NSW.
Also a piece of interesting information. J is the middle initial of choice for the NSW team in the one-dayer vs Vic. with 5 players having their middle name starting with J. While there are 4 on the Vic side.

Links:
- Phillip Hughes Profile - cricinfo.com
- Victoria vs NSW at MCG 28/11/2007 - cricinfo.com

Other links
- Greg Blewett Profile - cricinfo.com
- Stuart Law Profile - cricinfo.com
- Matthew Elliot Profile - cricinfo.com

Australian Summer of boredom?

Are we in for another one of those summers of cricket where we wait for something to happen, and it doesn't?

Australia has just hosted Sri Lanka, and despite one batsman's resistance to the Aussie onslaught, the tests were all over by the end of day one.
While India, our next test opponents, are one of the top test nations in the world, they rarely do well away from home. And, like most visiting countries to Australia, it takes them a long while to warm up.
Could we see four more tests as one sided as the previous test series here? The answer, I fear, is a resounding, Yes.
India are currently hosting Pakistan, and the first test has just started. I personally am holding my breathe that India will be challenged by Pakistan, and be able to use the test series as a good warm up to face the worlds best. However, Pakistan are a team in trouble, and are very likely to just roll over and take what a beating. The test series before that for India was a series in England and one in Bangladesh. While both series were victories (England 1-0 with 2 drawn, and bangladesh 1-0 with one drawn) Neither can hardly be called convincing. The draw with Bangladesh, had there been a little more time, would have likely swung to the Bangladeshis. And the trip to England contained two drawn tests and a lost one day series.

The Indians have, in recent times, been under performers. Gone are the days when a devastating middle order consisting of some of the world greatest batsmen. While Dravid Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly take up the middle order, their potency has waivered, they are not the fearful combination that they were last time India travelled down under. Perhaps the reason for India's decline in the Test arena is that they have put too many eggs into the Twenty-20 basket. The middle order has forgotten how to craft together an innings.

Hopefully I am wrong, and from Boxing day 2007 India take it to the Australians, and we are all treated to a brilliant summer of cricket...but I am not holding my breathe.

Baseball World Cup and Aussie sport 1999

I was reading the other day about the fact that Australia lost to South Korea in their final game at the baseball world cup in Taipei. The game was play off for 5th place, leaving Australia finishing the tournament in sixth place. The powerhouse teams of United States, Cuba, and Japan taking the top three places.
The line in the article that I read that caught my attention was that this was the best that Australia had finished in a Baseball World Cup.("Australia finish best-ever World Cup", West Australian 18th November 2007) I was sure we had done better than this, infact I was sure that we had won such a tournament.
So I ran through the details in my head, sure of these facts: The final four was the three powerhouse nations, Cuba, USA, and Japan, along with Australia. The other thing that I was sure of was that it was that year where Australian's national teams seemed to win everything that was available.
So I did some Baseball based searches and found out a few things. It appears that there are numerous "world Cup" tournaments for Baseball...making it a little more difficult to make my findings. So I went for the search to find out the year, which was 1999.
It tiurns out that there was an "Intercontinental Baseball Cup" Held in 1999. Basically, the best of each region play off in a small tournement.
Australia defeated Japan in the Semi-final, while the united states were defeated by Cuba. The final was all Australias defeating Cuba.

This then lead me to thinking and trying to find all the sporting victories that we had during 1999.
Firstly,
Baseball Intercontinental Cup - IBAF (International Baseball Federation
Cricket World Cup, defeated Pakistan - www.Cricinfo.com
Hockey Champions Trophy, both Men and Women - Wikipedia.com
Rugby Union, we won both the Bledisloe - www.rugby.com.au and the World Cup (def France 35-12) - www.bbcnews.com
Rugby League We won the tri-nations - www.rlcup.com
Swimming, Won most medals in world Short course
Tennis, won Davis Cup 3-2 vs France - www.daviscup.com

Women's A-League

So the FFA (Football Federation of Australia) are planning to start a national competition for the women. This is being trialed, for want of a better term over the next few months. Ben Buckley says that the three match, three team challenge will be "a small test event as we look towards building the best possible model for our elite female players."

So how could a future national womens soccer/football comp work? Well as the A-League looks to expand down (ie creating a youth and/or reserve comp to run along the A-League) perhaps the future womens comp should be linked in with this. This being that, for example, Sydney FC play Melbourne Victory. Pre a-league kick off for the match is a youth game, followed by the womens comp, then the top game is Sydney FC vs Melbourne.

Any womens comp needs to run along side the A-league. We do not want to have our national ladies comp turning into whst has happened in the past to the womens cricket squad, where players post match became the stadium cleaners. Being ranked 12 in the world, the Matildas need to have a comp worthy of such a world ranking. (This compared to the Socceroos ranking of 39 - Source FIFA.com)

If the competition is to start next year, which seems to be the plan from FFA, these three games will need to be supported, so, make sure that if you are in Newcastle, Sydney or Brisbane, get along early, and show your support. Plus get to see Australia's most successful national soccer squad.


Dates:
Sunday 25 November, 2.25pm
Newcastle Jets Women v Sydney FC Women
EnergyAustralia Stadium, Newcastle

Sunday 9 December, 3.25pm
Queensland Roar Women v Newcastle Jets Women
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane

Saturday 15 December, 4.25pm
Sydney FC Women v Queensland Roar Women
Sydney Football Stadium

Further links:
+ Football Australia article

+ "Should there be a womens A-League Competition?" Aaron Kearney 22/October 2007. ABC.net.au

+ A-League

iPod Touch

So I have been lucky enough to be able get a new iPod touch. Man it is cool!
good sound, image, and has wi-fi, so I can surf the net, which is rather exciting. It is missing a simple notes programme, and the ability to add events to iCal.

I purchased in memory of my Pop, he loved music, and worked on the early computers in the beginning of what would become the pc movement.

George Knight

Last night my grandfather past-away.

I just thought that I might write a couple of things about him.

He was my discussion buddy for all thing football. We would often talk about our teams chances hopes and failings. He was a life long Carlton supporter, in his youth he played, and was close to being selected for the navy blues.

These moments are something that i will treasure for a long time, and be thankful for as well.

Memento - Chris Nolan

Ok, I don't know if anyone has seen this amazing piece of cinema, but I want to own it on DVD.
So, I check out Big W...they don't even have it on their books, the same with JBHI. The best that Ebay can do for me is Blu-ray.
Numerous other DVD stores online don't have it.

So where does one go to find a rare DVD?

I'm lost, at times during my search I felt that perhaps I had just imagined the film, and it never really existed. How can a film of such cleverness simply disappear from the face of the earth...how is it possible?

Back

Weirdness...last week, after about 5 visits to the physio, my back was the worst that it has been for a long time. So serious pain was felt, that is for sure!!!
when i went into the physio on Friday and told him how I had felt, he looked rather shocked. Upon feeling and looking at my back, he noticed that the muscles around the spine were spasming.

we decided that the reason for my pain was the strengthening exercises that we had done during our last session. It appears that my back is so sensitive, that these stretches totally set it off. So it means that I am back to some very basic stretches for a while. Hopefully this week will be much better and mean that in the next month or so, I can really begin to recover and really start to strengthen my back. I don't want to give up the limited sport that I get to play, so must try to remain on good terms with the back.

Go The Hawkies

I was so hoping to be able to go the the Hawthorn vs Sydney AFL game in Sydney in a few weekends time, so so so looking forward to it. BUT...when I went to buy tickets, they had sold out!! So sad. But also annoyed that I hadn't made an attempt to purchase them earlier! So now I will have to just watch it on the box for a bit and go to see the Newcastle Jets play their first home game.
in the meantime eBay might still be my friend

Wow - Month of july

I just realised that I did not post one blog during the month of July...that is terrible!!!!

Heaps happened, went with Sarah to Melbourne, saw a play (great play, official thanks from the writer was given to Sarah!), went to see an AFL game at the Dome (pee'ed next to a few of the S Kilda coaching staff, and ran into Stephen Silvagni) among many other things!

So, I guess that is me getting back into posting blogs.

Transformers

Last night I went to out to see the new Michael Bay film, "Transformers".
However before hand we decided to go out and have dinner. I was looking forward to a nice meal, not cooked by me, but...
We went to Bene venuti's, a little italian restaurant. I ordered the Spaghetti Neapolitana. It tasted to me like a tinned spaghetti...you know the stuff, it was just that the tomatoes were a little bit thicker.
I couldn't eat it, probably just a third of the plate...it was so annoying. Anyway, the desert menu looked alright. looking through, I went for my fav on the menu, Creme Brulee.
When it arrived, they said that they had run out of ice cream, so it was just a little creme brulee dish on a big plate...I went for the ultimate creme brulee luxury, the cracking of the surface...nothing...disappointment...then the first bite brought even more annoyance...it was not even set!!!!!
Aargh!!!!!!

But the movie made up for it all!!!!

Was great, stuck to orignal characters plots and all, very well done, PLEASE NO SEQUAL!!!!!

Paper towel vs Electric dryer?

I have often thought about this topic when visiting public toilets (seem to have been to a few over the last few months of travelling).
Having completed the tasks, I go and wash my hands, then then a difficult decision needs to be made, Do I use the paper towel, or the electric dryer? Both sides have arguements for and against, but it is some of the other matters that catch me on this.

Greenies:
So is it better use use paper towel made from trees, or electricity that is made from digging up and cutting down?
I asked a Greens friend of mine this question, and I was perplexed when his response was "I've never thought about it" I thought that they would have a standing order on something like this (mind you a couple of elections ago the greens at my electorate were the only ones to have non-recycled glossy paper how to vote cards)

Hygenie:
Which is more hygenie efficient? Personally I would prefer to use the electric, especially if I didn't have to touch anything else in the toilet. But paper towel is useful to use to turn the taps on and off...

So many choices to make...anyone have anythoughts?

We are powered again!

We have just had the power come back on again...right as I was about to drift off to sleep. Typical.

It has been over 70 hours with out power which has been fun. We have lots of candles, a bbq, and friends with power and a shower (thanks Bake).

The hassles now come when we have to throw out the contents of the fridge, luckily the freezer is great, and the stuff inside is still frozen (well was yesterday morning).

I am a fan of power outages, they can give you a great reawakening of yourself. You can drop all thr crap that takes focus in life (tv/computer/light) and give you time o just enjoy the nothingness that often engulfs powerless nights.

It has been funny laying in bed here silence, seeing nohing but the sky, and having that broken often by the sounds of a chainsaw. the contrast is so markable.

Real life must go on, but I am thabkful to God for those moments where I am able to stop and gather my thoughts (and His) and begin to move forward again.

The Rains

Tall is safe and well dispight all the rain, winds and beach bound tanker.

Lots of crazy stuff going on. I had an ok nights sleep last night, lost of wind, branches flying off trees and such. Had three people stay at my house last night on the loungeroom floor.

There is lots of water around the place, and tree branches everywhere.

On my street we have no power, and likey to have none until monday or so. There was a tree over laying over the road a little down the street from my house. It was being kept up from the ground by power cables. Apparently there are many incidences of this on my street alone.

Sarah was at Chloe's house in Hamilton (in Newcastle) yesterday afternoon, and by 9 pm they had to evacuate from the house, as water was about to come into the remaining part of the house. They waded through the water to reach a safer place to rest. (Cars were filled with water, almost covering some cars).

Plenty of houses have been effected, some drastically, and other only in parts.

I haven't been to see our latest landmark, the tanker lodged on Nobbys beach. I am sure it will be around long enough for me to get there to have a look. There have been plenty of warnings to stay at home as much as possible, and predictions of hard winds and rain again tonight.

Weekend Ball Games

Our soccer team has had some issues the last few weeks, and I have come home not only sore, but annoyed and frustrated at lots of things (mostly at the way I handled things). But this week saw some things turn around a little.

Firstly we had a few players away, which meant we were going to start on the back foot. Luckily we had some of the second team back-up and help us out with numbers. Secondly we had a different referee, which helped all our guys sigh a big sigh of relief. Thirdly, we were on our game, against a nice group of guys.

I ran hard for most of the game, towards half time I was totally trashed, so much so that I had to lay on the turf a few times leading into the half time orange break (we don't get oranges though :( )

We played well through the second half, Crowy scored a pearler from just in half way, and, while we wavered a little, we held strong to keep them out for the rest of the game.

I won man of the match. Which brings me to my point:
I played hard, but don't really feel that I played much better than usual, but in the eyes of others I did. Perhaps that just means that my fitness levels are increasing, which then in turn means that I can perform at maximum skill levels for a longer period. Or maybe I am kidding myself, and I did play awesomely, or maybe everyone else was blinded to my stuff ups this week.

What ever the case was, I am still sore, still struggling to catch my breathe, and a little werey of what this next weeks game will be like.

NEEDED!!!

We are in need of a cork board (or something we can stick pins into) for our office. We have a map of Newcastle and want to be able to put pins in for schools, churches and other contacts in it. The map is 100cm by 75cm.

Don't think we have a budget for it, so if you have some chipboard out the back or something that will work, let us know!!!

At the moment it is just stuck on our divider boards which you can't put pins into - it is too thick.

Productivity v2

Another pattern that I have noticed is that you have one really productive day, and it is usually followed by a day that is the opposite (like yesterday and today).
It is an interesting phenomenon!

Maybe the euphoric feeling that is created with a day when things just fall into place, creates a huge 'upper' that can only be followed by an equally moved 'downer'.
Or perhaps it is that a day when things fall into place is 'perfect' so when the following day anything that does not quite work means the day is worse than the previous, thus creating a feeling of incompleteness.

Maybe I should just stop writing and make something productive happen...like coffee, or chocolate....mmmm chocolate!

Productivity

I often come in to work with grand plans of how productive I am going to be for the day, then, fall flat on my face. Often the reasons for failing in my plans are not entirly my own. Some else is away, can't get intouch with a key person, a job takes for ever...

But other days, those nice days, the list of things that needs to be done, seem to take no time at all. By like lunch time, that huge list of things to be done, is well gone. I like those days. I am kind of having one of those days today, which is so sweet.

There must be a good formula for productivity. I aim to discover it, to master it, and to make it work for me!

I will start with this:

planning+reality^2+desire+team=productivity

and see how it goes.

First Post

What does one write in a first post for a new blog spot that one fears will become like every other method of trying to keep people up to date on happens -dead! ?

Hmmm...

Currently I am waiting for dinner to be cooked. Updating my address book, as much a I can, and thinking about all the things that I need to do over the next few weeks. We have 5 more AusLife seminars in the next 3 week, and it is going to be nice to be able to settle a little afterwards and catch up on things that have yet to be done since returning from the West.


All of a sudden, this looks like it could be a good post, we shall see what the future has in store.