I was watching the replay of the Western Bulldogs’ victory over the Melbourne Demons on Prime Television in the early hours of this morning, and was quite amused by Dennis Cometti’s description of one of the Melbourne players:
He’s built like a fire hydrant, which is good unless you’re playing the ‘dogs
Next week the Bulldogs are up against competition leaders Geelong and I’m going to be out of town at the time. 2EC are the 3AW Football relay station near Wollongong, covering much of the South Coast on four frequencies. It looks like I’ll either be delaying my return to Canberra or enjoying a lengthy detour so that I can hear the full match, as called by Rex Hunt and Dennis Cometti.
(Oh, and congratulations Dennis, your amusing quote is the reason for the two-thousand-three-hundredth post on Samuel’s Blog)
2CC are broadcasting a Canberra Raiders match and you’re more interested in the Brisbane V Parramatta match, and you can’t stand the Channel Nine commentary team, so you mute the television, listen to the 2GB webstream, and use a PVR to delay the television coverage of the match by about ten seconds to bring it in sync with the 2GB webstream.
I’m glad that 2GB are able to stream their coverage of NRL matches (unlike the way the AFL’s radio partners are treated…a case of “you can’t stream the match, but we’ll stream your station through our website”)…if it hadn’t been for the webstream of Andrew Moore, Steven Roach and Peter Psaltis’ call of the match, I probably would have just gone to bed.
When it comes to sport commentators, a lot have a habit of making me find a way to silence them, but not Channel Seven and 3AW’s Dennis Cometti whose impromptu wit manages to amuse me and keep me watching a game, even when I’m not really interested in the game. Tonight’s AFL match was a good example…
“He’s seen the team hypnotist” said Dennis, in reference to a player who took a mark, instantly turned around and kicked a goal, the latter two actions almost without looking.
I was quite interested in Dennis’ appearance on the SBS genealogy series “Who Do You Think You Are” earlier this year. I have been planning on writing him a letter about that for a while…I really should do that soon.
During the week I noticed a handful of media outlets referring to the location of last night’s Titans V Raiders NRL match as “Skilled Stadium” which had me somewhat confused as Skilled Stadium is in Geelong and I can’t understand why the NRL would want to run a match in Geelong, especially seeing as the field is oval shaped.
I was intending on checking the accuracy of this claim during the week, but forgot, only to remember a few hours ago when I heard the result of the match. As it happens, the game was actually played at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast, a much more suitable location for a Gold Coast Titans home match.
Incidentally, if some of the letters in this post are jumbled, it’s because I currently have a blindspot just to the left of my visual focal point, so it is quite difficult to see entire words. I don’t recall looking at a bright object so I’m not sure where the blindspot came from…I just hope it doesn’t do what it did earlier in the year and expand for a while to the point where I could barely see a thing and had a rather unpleasantly large headache.
Yesterday’s one-day international cricket match between Australia and India at The Gabba was washed out by rain. The weather forecast for the next two matches has me concerned.
Match Two (February 5): Sri Lanka V India at The Gabba (Brisbane): Rain 23°C-26°C
Match Three (February 8): Australia V Sri Lanka at the SCG (Sydney): Showers 21°C-25°C
The fourth match is the first one to have a good weather forecast.
Match Four (February 10): Australia V India at the MCG (Melbourne): Mostly Sunny 14°C-26°C
The next match is in Canberra on the 12th of February, at this stage Canberra is in for rain until the 10th by which stage it will start to clear, in a couple days we will know more.
According to India’s cricket captain Anil Kumble, yesterday’s victory by Australia “should have been a draw”. According to him Australia did not play in the spirit of the game.
It’s nice to see that Mr. Kumble is capable of losing a cricket match with some dignity. There’s a term for it…”sore loser”.
Legendary Australian horse race caller Bryan Martin is retiring. Tomorrow’s meeting at Sandown will be the final race meeting he will call in a career which has spanned 36 years.
Bryan Martin has been a prominent voice in the racing industry, and in many cases has been the voice of the racing industry, and will arguably be most remembered for his call of the 2006 Cox Plate where he called Fields Of Omagh, a horse he part owns, to victory.
I don’t know an awful lot about Bryan Martin, except for the fact that just about every time I have taken any notice of horse racing, his voice has been there. For me at least, Bryan Martin is synonymous with horse racing. However, as I don’t know much about him, I will defer to the good people at racingandsports.com.au and their article on Mr. Martin’s retirement.
Bryan’s close call to the end…
Wednesday, 14 November 2007: Australia’s number one race caller Bryan Martin will hang up the binoculars this Saturday 17th November at Sandown, after a stellar 36 years in broadcasting. Loved by both television viewers and radio listeners alike, Martin is best known for calling his own horse, Fields of Omagh, to win two Cox Plates.
Beginning his unofficial career by calling plastic horses on string on the family kitchen table, Martin quickly developed a love for the sport of racing and a passion for broadcasting – “I started my career as the mail boy at 3AW in 1966, anything to be involved in the profession!”. From there he moved to 5DN in Adelaide, back to Melbourne at 3UZ, 3DB, Sport 927 and finally switching mediums to head up the charge at Racing’s own station – TVN.
Taking Australian Racing to an International level, Martin has called in many countries around the world including Dubai, Hong Kong, New Guinea, Canada New Zealand and every state of Australia. But his most memorable international call was of the 1990 Japan Cup, where he was broadcast to every English speaking nation in the world, only to call Australian favourite Better Loosen Up across the line “Before a crowd of 187,000 fans, it was like calling at the Olympic Games of Racing”.
His thrill at calling horses he loved was taken to a new level, when in 2003 he called his horse Fields of Omagh to win the W.S Cox Plate, for television, radio and on course. His dream was to be repeated in the 2006 Cox Plate, when Bryan called FOO in the horse’s last race before retirement “I knew deep down he could do it, and though it was close to call, I just knew in my heart he had got there”. While the champagne flowed, so did the accolades for a most professional race call against the toughest of odds.
Recognised by not only the public as brilliant in his field, Martin was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for Services to the Horse Racing Industry, twice awarded the “Bert Wolfe” Award for Media Excellence, and has been an Australia Day Ambassador for five years in a row. Most recently, Martin was awarded the Kingston Town Award by Moonee Valley Race Club for Services to the Cox Plate.
While ever present in the racing media, Martin has worked behind the scenes with his passion for the sport driving him to set up many racing programmes. He was a critical part of establishing the Australian Racing Hall of Fame which he has chaired for the last five years, Champions – the Racing Museum, and Living Legends – a rest home for retired Australian and International racehorses, and home of Fields of Omagh. When Bryan calls Correct Weight for the last time this Saturday at Sandown, it will be with a twinkle in his eye “Maybe I’ll join Fields of Omagh and the other retired racing champions at Living Legends!”
For the record, Bryan is photographed with his wife Jill in the second photo.
Official results:
1st: 6 – Efficient – Win $22.40 – Place $7.00
2nd: Purple Moon – Place $1.80
3rd: Mahler – Place $4.00
Quinella $76.10
Exacta $176.90
Trifecta $1431.00
Dividends are Super TAB dividends which are used by ACTTAB, the Victorian TAB and a few others. Dividends may vary in your area.
Where they all finished:
1. Efficient
2. Purple Moon
3. Mahler
4. Zipping
5. Dolphin Jo
6. On A Jeune
7. Blue Monday
8. Master O’Reilly
9. Sculptor
10. Lazer Sharp
11. Douro Valley
12. Sirmione
13. Princess Coup
14. Tawqeet
15. Eskimo Queen
16. Scenic Shot
17. Black Tom
18. Sarrera
19. Blutigeroo
20. Railings
21. Tungsten Strike
Scratched: Gallic, Maybe Better, The Fuzz
If you need help with a gambling problem call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in the ACT, or your local gambling support service.
As I’ve said half a dozen times in various places already in the last twelve hours, I’m usually quite hopeless at picking Melbourne Cup winners, so I was going to let the computers at ACTTAB pick three random horses instead, but then I had a nap and woke up with three numbers stuck in my head for no apparent reason, and therefore my tips are:
1 – Tawqeet
3 – Blutigeroo
15 – Scenic Shot
I will be putting these three numbers in as one of ACTTAB’s $15 cup packs which will provide me with a $1 win and place bet on each horse, and a boxed quinella and trifecta with all the horses. The bottom line with this is that I will get some of my outlay back if one of the horses comes first, second or third, and I will get more for combinations of first, second and third.
If you decide to have a punt, do so with care, only bet what you can afford to lose, and all the best with it.
The race takes place at 3pm Melbourne time (GMT +11) and will be broadcast live on the Seven Network and affilliates, Sky Channel, most radio stations (in Canberra 2CC and 2CA have access to the official radio feed of the Melbourne Cup from the official radio partner Southern Cross/Macquarie/Fairfax Broadcasting (depending on who owns that bit of the company right now)), and will also be live on the various webstreams such as ACTTAB Radio, 2KY Racing Radio and Sport 927. All the webstreams will sound the same but I expect some of them to hit capacity, which is why I provided multiple options.
The race results will also be published here, just like they are every year.
If you have a gambling problem call Lifeline in the ACT on 13 11 14, or the relevant gambling helpline in your jurisdiction.
This morning I had a conversation with John Kerr around the time that a French Open tennis match was concluding. During our conversation John interrupted with the final result of the tennis match, and innocently asked me a leading question about the tennis players involved. I’m certain that the answer to this question was “yes”, but I didn’t really know and could only inform John that there a few sports I find more dull than tennis.
I really don’t care about tennis, the scores are mildly interesting, but the matches go on forever…twenty minutes is about the limit for me when it comes to watching tennis, after this I just can not possibly watch that ball getting hit backwards and forwards any more.
Oddly I can watch similarly repetitive sports, such as cricket, golf and lawn bowls for hours.
As the morning progressed, I started thinking about other sports which bore me to tears…the one that instantly sprung to mind was synchronised swimming which, to me, is probably the single most boring Olympic sport currently in existence.
However, when I mentioned it to myself, I accidentally said “synchronised dimming”, and this got me thinking, only a week or so ago the International Olympic Committee were considering adding skateboarding (another sport I can’t stand) to the Olympics in an effort to appeal to a younger audience, and naturally this got the more light hearted talkback radio shows discussing other sports people would like to see in the Olympics. This morning, after thinking of “synchronised dimming” I started to work out what it would entail as an Olympic sport.
The premise is actually quite simple. Teams of an arbitrary number of people compete in a light dimming competition. Each team member controls one dimmer switch attached to one light, and together the team have to put on a light show in synchronisation with whatever music they choose. I haven’t the faintest idea how the scoring would work, but I would imagine that if the dimmer switches were on a wall, bonus points could be awarded to the team that does the best dancing whilst controlling the lights.
I wonder, if I was to submit that idea to the International Olympic Committee, would there be any chance of seeing it in the 2016 Olympics?
Two Canberra Raiders NRL players have been suspended pending a police investigation into a pursuit through Bruce last night.
According to AAP, Todd Carney and Steve Irwin are the suspended players.
ACT Police say a 20-year-old man handed himself into the City Police Station last night, and faces three charges including failing to stop when directed by police, negligent driving and driving whilst disqualified.
Whilst AAP, the Raiders, ACT Police and the NRL have failed to name the twenty year old, it is clear from the Raiders website that Todd Carney is twenty years old, and Steve Irwin is twenty-three.
As there is an ongoing police investigation here, comments will not be allowed on this post, and I remind you that the traffic offences are only alleged at this stage.
Thanks to 2GB’s Continuous Call Team via 2CC for the tip-off.
Update 3:52pm: Added link to public version of AAP article. End Update
Seeing as I tipped Richmond to defeat Geelong, I think it is quite fair for me to say that Richmond’s embarrassing loss was, in one word, terrible.
I’m not sure if it’s a record, but Geelong must be very happy with their thrashing of Richmond by 157 points, 35.12.(222) to 9.11.(65).
It must have been an incredibly boring game to watch, most of the quarters went for well over 30 minutes due to the number of goals scored, and whilst I congratulate the Cats, I’m glad I wasn’t watching as I wouldn’t have had any chance of sitting through it, instead I was more than happy to just watch the scores tick by on the MyTalk Live Scores website whilst doing other things.
It’s a glorious day today, for the Brumbies are not in the Super 14 Rugby finals. Despite having lived in Canberra all my life, I do not support the local side, in fact I can’t stand them. I’m a Canterbury Crusaders fan (that’s a short but interesting story that I’ll get to in a minute), and despite not following the Super 14 all that closely, I can honestly say that I am very pleased with the way the premiership season has ended.
The Brumbies needed a few things to go their way to get in to the finals. They needed to defeat the Highlanders, which they did 29 points to 10, but they also needed a rather large victory by last placed Queensland Reds over the Bulls. The match got under way at around 3am Canberra time, and before long it was obvious that the Bulls were going to easily win the match and rub the Brumbies out of the finals. The Bulls did so in style, convincingly thrashing the Reds 92 points to three. A perfect way to end the Brumbies’ season from distant Pretoria, South Africa in my opinion.
Also interesting (and good for the team involved) is the news that the Sharks are the first ever South African team to finish on top of the ladder in the Super 14. Admittedly the Super 14 hasn’t been going for all that long, but it’s an important record which will be carried with pride by the Sharks.
The finals consist of the Sharks, Bulls, Crusaders and Blues, which means that no Australian team is in the finals.
Now, the story about why I follow the Crusaders…it dates back to when my age could still be expressed in single digits, I was about three or four at the time when Dad asked me who I wanted to follow in the AFL, after listening to a list of teams I picked out the Bulldogs (then Footscray, now Western), and subsequently chose the same team mascot in the Rugby League, effectively choosing the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. Moving on to when I was about seven or eight years old, it was a Sunday night and National Nine News was on the television, and they were reporting on the Rugby Union results, they said that Canterbury had won, I latched on to the name thinking that it was the same area as the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, and despite it not being the same area, and instead being across the Tasman Sea, the name stuck and I have followed them ever since.
This could be why I despise the Brumbies so much…they are the local team and the local media treat them with some bias, and it is something peculiar about Canberra that we have so few local teams that they all get treated with some favourable bias, but I think the Brumbies are a special case. In the NRL the Raiders get some favourable bias, but the media tend to accept that a lot of Canberrans don’t give two hoots about the Raiders and support other teams, however the Brumbies, being one of only two teams within hundreds of kilometres, get treated like they are the entire competition (RiotACT provide roughly the same amount of Brumbies bias as the rest of the local media, see the linked article for an example), they are an annoying waste of excess media time in this town, and I for one just can’t stand them. The news that a thrashing of another team many thousands of kilometres away has directly affected and destroyed their hopes of a finals berth has made my day, and possibly my week!
Hooray! For some inexplicable reason Channel Ten are doing two fantastic things tonight. Firstly, they are broadcasting a Saturday night AFL match live rather than on delay, and secondly, they aren’t using their horrible commentary team.
For some reason they are rebroadcasting Fox Sport’s coverage of the Kangaroos V Swans instead of using their own commentary team. Fox do a much better job than Ten, their graphics are better, the camera work is better, and best of all the commentary team is better.
And as a bonus for the Canberra based AFL fans who enjoyed 3AW’s brilliant AFL coverage for the last two years before 2CA canned it, 3AW’s Clinton Grybas is the lead commentator for Fox on Saturday night.
For once I can actually sit down and enjoy a match being broadcast by Channel Ten…they should consider sub-contracting all of their coverage out to Fox Sport!
I mentioned it the other day, but just to make sure that the people who keep searching for it actually find what they’re looking…Canberra’s 1053 2CA are not covering the AFL this year. If you want to hear the AFL on the radio then you will have to make do with the ABC coverage which I don’t think is quite as much fun.
Alternatively, 3AW, who 2CA sourced the AFL from for the last two years, still broadcast it, and they have a webstream. See their website or the AFL website for details.
Legendary Australian horse race caller Bryan Martin is retiring. Tomorrow’s meeting at Sandown will be the final race meeting he will call in a career which has spanned 36 years.
Beginning his unofficial career by calling plastic horses on string on the family kitchen table, Martin quickly developed a love for the sport of racing and a passion for broadcasting – “I started my career as the mail boy at 3AW in 1966, anything to be involved in the profession!”. From there he moved to 5DN in Adelaide, back to Melbourne at 3UZ, 3DB, Sport 927 and finally switching mediums to head up the charge at Racing’s own station – TVN.