This will hurt me...

So Lara is gone. I'll always rate him above Tendulkar and Ponting as the best of his era. He generally raised his game to new levels against Australia, and in this period that has meant the best. It's a shame that the only test that I was lucky enough to see him in the flesh (November 2005, Hobart), he got two dud umpiring decisions and had both innings cut short. However, I was lucky enough to cheer loudly as he became Test Cricket's second-highest run scorer (passing Steve Waugh), yet he looked out of touch, with his timing off for most of the game. It seemed the end was nigh for Brian, and people were lining up to write him off. Of course, Lara being Lara, he came out in dreadful overcast conditions in Adelaide next test and hammered 226. That innings was a exhibition of stroke play, as he showed the world how to combine traditional shots with brilliant innovation against the world class legspin of Warne and MacGill. Tendulkar could only dream of such an innings in hosti...

I was a huge NWA fan ’86-’90, but watched a lot of the WWF ’85-’91 (NWA required complex tape trading here in Australia then). I read PWI, The Wrester and anything else that I could get my hands on. But I was so sick and tired of Hogan and Flair winning (either by stupidly ‘miraculous’ comebacks or cheap DQs ore interference, and the Warrior stuff just left me cold, aimed as it seemed at little kids. So I moved on to other things. I remember thinking how odd it was when people would tell me that Hogan, Piper and Savage were in the WCW (the new NWA, I was told), and that tag team wrestlers Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels (of the Midnight Rockers!) were battling for the WWF belt, I thought that they were joking. The WWF like their champs muscled hulks I thought. Eventually I started watching again in ’99, and there were few familiar faces. I knew who The Undertaker was (‘Mean’ Mark Callous), there was Owen Hart (the Blue Blazer), Ron Simmons (Doom), and the Big Bossman, but the rest were pr...

Bloody Richmond. Why do I tip them? They’ll do an Essendon from last year from here. Why everyone keeps bagging Richo is beyond me, I didn’t see Richo forcing Shane Tuck do his Jason Johnson impression (18 turnovers from 20 kicks) or make Pettifer be a gutless wonder and flinch away from putting his body over the ball. God they miss Coughlin. If they sort out his kicking, Tuck would be a very good player. Unfortunately he may do a JJ, get praised to the moon but still can’t hit a target at 30. It’s like Jobe, who they appear to have told “watch old tapes of Misiti. If you can’t kick, handball the bastard”. Jobe has a good handball, and is far better by hand than foot. He’s making less errors this year, because they appear to have identified and worked on his problems. They never did that with JJ. Nick Daffy is the example you wouldn’t want Tuck to follow. He lived off one good year for 5 or 6, and never bothered improving his skills. Skills-wise, Richmond look no better than the Geish-...