Talking Sports like gals do shopping

I would just like to say that no matter what happens tomorrow in Soweto, the Stormers of the 2010 season can hold their so high, you’d think they all have been smoking the green leaf. Bulls fans, say what you like about this statement above: That im preparing myself to soften the blow of tomorrow’s loss.. Or Im using this blog as an excuse incase we lose.. Say n think whachu like but to be honest, if you had asked any Stormer fan in the beginning of the season if they’d take winning a home semi-final & play their old rival in an epic final in Soweto, They would take it!!!

But now that we’re at the end, lets go back to the beginning… Here are some snippets I took out of one my blogs called: You smell that?? Super Rugby is Back Baby!!

I read the previews of each team the sarugby.com team so comprehensively put out for us rugby fans n the way they see it come semi final time, it will be the Bulls hosting the Stormers & the Saders hosting the Brumbies. They also called the Bulls to win the whole thing. I’m not so sure about that.. & I’m not just saying it because I’m a stormer but I don’t think you can call it so clear cut & dry.

& here are some questions I asked in that  same blog:

-          Will the real Dan Carter stand up? You know the one that was the best player (let alone flyhalf) in the world just a couple of   seasons back. The same can be asked of the Crusaders.

-          Will the Bulls again bulk under pressure of being defending champs like they did back in 08?

-          Can the Stormers & the Sharks constantly play at a high level throughout the season?

Well the Stormers & Bulls certainly answered my questions in big way and congrats to them both.

Back to my Stormers, because this blog is about them, so join me Stormer fans as take you down memory lane and just SOME of the highlights for me of the season and because it’s the highlights, I’ll only talk about the games we won…

• Opening game against the Lions, Jaque Fourie against his previous team and how does he steal the Stormer fans’ hearts?? By running over his former teammates for a lovely try. Final Score: Stormers 26 – Lions 13
• The game against the Waratahs, I was really nervous about but the Stormers’ tenacious defense (what was to become the backbone of our success) and 2 scintillating tries by Habana put me to sleep that night.

Final Score: Stormers 27 – Waratahs 6

•  After a narrow defeat (literally) at the hands of the Brock Harris & George Smith, the Stormers bounce back with a bang, giving the Higlanders a duck with the Newlands faithful accepting their apology for the previous week defeat.

      Final Score: Stormers 33 – Highlanders 0

• Next up were the Canes, and after this win, was when I started thinking semis.. I also remember this game for “Slow-mo” Nakelivuki probably having one his best games in a Stormer jumper

Final Score: Stormers 37 – Hurricanes 17

• Ever since the Cheetahs beat us in a Currie Cup semi-final in the mid 2000’s on our homeground, I’ve always been nervous playing against them.. But once against the Stormers defence came to the fore.

Final Score: Stormers 21 – Cheetahs 8

• Coming a bit stuck against the Force, we really handed it out to the Blues the next weekend.. & who can forget Gio Aplon’s break to set up my 3^rd favorite try of the season. Awesome!!!!

Final Score: Stormers 33 – Blues 21

• 2004 we put 50 points past the Blues in their own backyard and even though we didn’t manage to get the half century this time against the Chiefs, this game definitely share the honour with that Blues game as: The best game the Stormers played on NZ soil. This game also produced the try of the season (for me that is).

Final Score: Stormers 49 – Chiefs 15

• After losing against the Reds in Brisbane (another aussie opposition we should’ve put away) we came home to play the 7 time champions, Crusaders and I didn’t know what to expect… & I certainly didn’t expect the Stormers to beat them so convincingly. Jaque Fourie scored arguably the individual try of the season and the Stormers loosies shut down McCaw. It was beautiful!!!

Final Score: Stormers 42 – Crusaders 14

• Yes we lost against the Sharks, n thx for that Slow-mo, our attention quickly shifted to the Bulls game. And eventhough they didn’t bring their best side down to Cape Town, a victory against will always and forever be sweet!!!

Final Score: Stormers 38 – Bulls 10

Now throw in there finishing 2^nd on the log, conceding the least amount of points and tries AND winning our first home semi-final in our history, you have a very successful season so far. So IF we should lose tomorrow, we should hold our heads high & reflect on how much we have actually achieved this season.

So with that, I’d like to say.. Thank you for an awesome season & Goodluck Stormers!!! I’ll be knap-ses right behind you guys from the beginning till the end!!! NOW GO TO SOWETO N MAKE THE CIRCLE BIGGER!!!!! N LETS SHOW DEM!!!!!  one last time: GO STOOOOOOOOORMERS!!!

Im outy

I just do not know what to say, what to write, what to comment when it comes to the Proteas.. wait, I just thought of a comment: Gaad damnit!! Again!!?? Are you kidding me!!??

You know you cant even say they choked because choking is a verb.. meaning you actually doing something.. These guys aren’t choking anymore.. it look like the life was already dragged out of our national cricket team. You know before you guys misunderstand me, I just wana make one thing clear: I don’t think we choked in the World 20 competition, the guys just neva pitched up. Poor form of senior players, poor strategies, poor selections were all ingredients that gave us a successful recipe for failure in yet another international competition. I realize that the 20-20 cricket requires different strategies to the ODI’s but WTF is so hard to understand the following cliché’: “GO BIG OR GO HOME!!” I’ll repeat that for you again SA batsmen: Go big or go home!!! Gez you guys chose the latter!! Coz our bowling wasn’t half bad in the tournament.. I mean apart from that opening spell against England & that closing spell against India, the bowlers can atleast look a fan in the eye, but the batsmen oughta be ashamed of themselves esp 1,2 & 3!!! & for this I blame poor selection as well as poor strategies!!!

Kallis has improved a lot when it comes to this format of the game, he’s pushed up his strike rate (a bit) and, and, and, and that’s about it. In this tournament, he showed us the Kallis of old again, first looking to get his eye in or get a good score regardless of what the team needed. Of all the SA batsmen who scored 100 runs or more, Kallis had the lowest strike rate. It was obvious to see that Smith was off form and the only reason why he’s there is because he’s captain. Period!!. With these 2 struggling (and yes, I’m going to say Kallis struggled) more pressure was put on the middle order to up the anty, score boundaries, yet not lose wickets. Look at these horrible stats:

And what was the plan with the openers anyways?? Graeme tells Kallis to start going after the bowlers because Graeme is the captian? Or Kallis telling Graeme to go after the bowlers because Kallis is the rock that will bat right through the innings?? AND THEN NEITHER OF THE TWO GOES AFTER THE BOWLERS BECAUSE THEY FEEL TOO IMPORTANT FOR THE TEAM’S SUCCESS BUT IN THE END PUTTING THE TEAM UNDER EVEN MORE PRESSURE!!?? Coz that’s what it looked like to me. & you could see that everytime Gibbs, AB or even JP came in, they were already behind the eightball or did they expect Albie to do what he did against NZ in every single game he plays? Yeah right..

Well we’re out of the competition and pretty soon we’re going beat our next opponents comprehensively in an upcoming tour and all will be ok again in the land of the Proteas until the next tournament begins. Frustrating thing is, I’ll probably always support them because they represent me but just because I’ll support them doesn’t mean that Ima like doing it.. not now anyways..

Im outy

I love sports.. Or lemme rephrase: I love watching sports!! Eventhough I can watch any sports except for car racing (& until recently wrestling), I follow 4 sports diligently: In rugby I support Province, Stormers & the Springboks. In soccer I support Real Madrid (will explain later), Bafana Bafana (coz I have to) & Brazil. In Cricket I support the Cape Cobras, the Proteas & the Dehli Daredevils and eventhough I don’t really have a favourite team in NBA basketball, I have a couple of favourite players.

It’s so awesome to know that my beloved Stormers for their destiny in their own hands. We’ve had an unbelievable season so far but now we’re in the business end of the competition and anything but a home semi-final victory will, to be quite honest, a bit disappointing really. It’s great for Alistair & the boyz to focus on one game at a time but a fanatical fan like myself have already done my own calculations and predictions and right now I’m already at WHERE ARE WE GOING TO PLAY THE SUPER 14!!?? I’m not gonna speak about Province & Boks now as there are still plenty of time to do that so I’ll switch on to soccer.

Thinking back on the season, it basically came down to 2 games for Real Madrid of what couldv’e been & what could still be. The draw against Lyon in 2^nd leg at home in the Champions Leauge & the loss against archrivals Barcalona also at home: NUFF SAID.. I was a very late bloomer when it came to watching & supporting soccer, in fact I thought it was the most boring game ever but after much peer pressure from one my friends, I started watching it. I then obviously needed a team to support and told him it could be any team except for Manchester United because almost everyone I knew that watched soccer supported them. Then I saw this add on the telly about the Champions League and they showed that awesome backheel kick of Radondo (playing for Real then) against Man U where he went pass 2 defenders, drew the keeper to him, then passing it to Raul for easiest of tap-in goals. And from that point onwards I was a Real Madrid supporter. Little did I know that we then just bought some guy named Zinedine Zidane who changed my respect for football forever. Who can forget that left foot volley shot to give Real the lead & trophy against Bayer Leverkusen in 2002!!?? AWESOME!! Unfortunately that was also the last time that we won that trophy but that’s just how it is in soccer I guess.. or in sports in general. Now I wasn’t a fan of the huge amount of money we spent prior to this season, shiet I didn’t even like Cristiano Ronaldo, but he plays for my team and therefore I have to support him. We’re 1 point adrift from leaders Barca in the league so who knows maybe we can still get some silverware this season.

The Proteas, ai the Proteas.. This shit isn’t even funny anymore. You know they compare them to the NZ rugby team becoz they too are chokers but unlike the Proteas, the All Blacks have atleast won everything they could win (multiple times actually) since their World Cup victory in the very 1^st World Cup tournament. Watching the 20-20 game last night against NZ, I didn’t even get excited (ok apart from Gibbs’ 1^st catch) and I don’t I’m going to unless we finally get this gaad damn monkey off our back and win a championship. But, having said that, I’m still right behind the boyz (without getting excited offcoz).

I started playing & watching basketball in the late 90’s so its quite obvious what team & what player I supported: The Chicago Bulls & Michael Jordan. But MJ is now the president of another team and the Bulls are busy rebuilding. Now eventhough they were my team, I can’t see myself supporting them anymore.. In fact, I cant see myself supporting any team anymore because I’ve realized that when it comes to the NBA, I support the players and not the teams. And right now the guy that I support is Lebron James who can still win a NBA title this season. People, this guy is a freak!! OK for you guys that only watch soccer, cricket & rugby I’ll try to explain what I mean by freak: If this guy was a rugby player: he’d have the size & strength of a loose forward, the pace of a wing & could kick for poles much better than your average goalkicker. If he was a soccer player, he would be able to play anywhere on the field & if he was a cricketer, he would open the bolwing & batting & do it superbly and still be able to play wicky if needed. Just an unbelievable athlete. *did you nike gave him an $80 million contract before even played a game in the NBA!!??*

Now I know I didn’t talk about all my teams that I support, but there will be time for that. Final thought: Stormers kick ass tomorrow!!!!

Im outy

First and foremost.. To my beloved Stormers, thank you so much for such a thrilling & entertaining game of rugby. I was so nervous prior to the game, I even made a small accident with the car but I’m alive and well and so are our chances of hosting a home semifinal and maybe even a home final. But as the dust settled & as the body started recovering from the mad celebrations I began pondering on our result of this weekend: Were the Stormers just that damn good or was this a shadow team of the Crusaders we all know?? And then I started thinking about the Super 14 as a whole and there are some satisfying as well as some worrying things for all 3 countries involved this competition. 

Ever since the competition started I’ve been keeping records each week’s results. It’s kind of a hobby just to see how well I compete with the experts of the sa rugby & planetrugby websites when it comes to predicting the teams results before each round. Looking at the results now (& please note I’m no mathematician when it comes to numbers so I might be wrong here and there) I’ve found some interesting findings:

Look at the table below and maybe you’ll see the same satisfying AS WELL AS worrying stats I saw:

Please note this is home and away results coz these days if you’re a good team, you should be able to win anywhere.

Now as you can see of the 8 games the Bulls and Stormers played against Aussie opposition, we’ve only won 4 but of the 9 games we’ve played against NZ opposition we’ve won 8 with one more game to come (Bulls vs Saders).

And of the 14 games the other sides have played against NZ teams, they’ve lost 9, drew 1 and managed to get 4 w’s with 1 more game to come (Lions vs Blues). Of the 10 games they’ve played against the Aussies, we’ve only won 1 so far with 2 more to come (Force vs Cheetahs and Sharks).

Now Ima put my head on the chopping block and predict the what’s gonna happen the following 2 weeks:

Round 13

1. The Bulls will beat the Saders
2. The Cheetahs… uhm.. I dnt tink they’re gonna make it against the Force.
3. Lions will lose against the Blues

Round 14

1. Sharks will beat the Force

So after my predictions, the table should look something like this:

So as you can see (& if my predictions are good) overall our results against NZ teams look good but against the Aussies, it’s a bit worrying. The only question is: come tri nations, will it still be like that?? And even though I didn’t do those stats, I bet you that it will show that even though NZ teams “struggled” against their SA opposition, they did better than us against Aussie opposition which if I’m correct about all of this, the tri nations should be very open this year. Very open!!! Open like you-can’t-even-be-sure-if-you’re-gonna-win-playing-at-home open.

So after we’ve beat the living crap out of eachother in the Super 14, we’ll come together as one once more to form a formidable Springbok side who I think will have a great chance to defend our title for the 1^st time in our history.

Ps: Lions supporters, im sorry, but I didnt know who I could add to this pic above.. I wanted to add Baywatch but I think he’s played for Boks yet..

I’m outy