The Commonwealth Games

Might be the 'just over the liner'.

Usain Bolt - a phenomenon, not only as a racer.

Pearson won. Hopefully the cringeworthy media fawning will end...or at least slow down.

3 golds at the track today. How's JGk feeling.

Actually just checked the medal count and am wiping egg off face.

Yeah. I am home and hosed.

That and 'it's all coming up JGK' are two phrases I never expected to see here.

I blame skully.

I bet MrK is regretting only lobbing a lobster on the 6s!!!

skully wrote:I bet MrK is regretting only lobbing a lobster on the 6s!!!

It was on betfair so it was a thin market.

NETBALL! My word, what a terrible sport.

Basketball for Moving Statues.

Basketball with all the excitement, fluidity and vital movement taken out.

I see a forward locked in position, a yard in front of the net, taking what seems half a minute to line up and very deliberately shoot - completley unopposed, like a penalty in rugby but at point blank - and then, if she misses and the ball falls back toward her, catching it again and repeating the time-suspended unopposed static goal attempt. Well, really ...

It has every look of a game devised in conditions when physical contact (and grace) were reserved only for priests and nuns in loco parentis et Dei.

Surely it's time, in this day and age, for it to be merged with its more mobile and exciting sister sport.

PeterCS wrote:NETBALL! My word, what a terrible sport.

Basketball for Moving Statues.

Basketball with all the excitement, fluidity and vital movement taken out.

I see a forward locked in position, a yard in front of the net, taking what seems half a minute to line up and very deliberately shoot - completley unopposed, like a penalty in rugby but at point blank - and then, if she misses and the ball falls back toward her, catching it again and repeating the time-suspended unopposed static goal attempt. Well, really ...

It has every look of a game devised in conditions when physical contact (and grace) were reserved only for priests and nuns in loco parentis et Dei.

Surely it's time, in this day and age, for it to be merged with its more mobile and exciting sister sport.

So England lost?

The bit of a game I had a look at was actually Jam v Aus. Yellow all over the place. But mostly standing still.

But then, some of us don't judge sports mainly by how well our country(wo)men are pumping up our egos!




Since you (appropriately enough) bring it up the sour grapes angle ... it seems (FWIW) the Englander women haven't done too badly. ~ Even in the BizarreMovingStatuesBall.

And (the BBC Sport website claims) about 4x more golds, and medals, than your lot overall. Because of all your farqin quotas and corrupt administrators, of course. ...

Nice trollin'!

Aye Pete, funny you should bring up the medals tally despite you not being jingoistic in the slightest.

What is ever funnier to me, having read most of your pontifications over the years, I cannot recall you ever make any mention of being involved in any sport in any way. Not playing, officiating or administering in any way.

But still you seem to be superior enough to make snide comments about games such as netball and bowls without any knowledge whatsoever about the skills or fitness levels concerned.

But then again, I suspect being a know it all without any requisite experience, is what floats your boat.

Have to admit, i find netball very tedious. Dramatic finish to the womens Hockey with Aust winning on penalties.

Big Dog wrote:Have to admit, i find netball very tedious.

it's good for your eyes, for the most part though

Netball's fine. All the movement is off the ball. That's the point.

JGK wrote:Netball's fine.  All the movement is off the ball. That's the point.

It made poms cry so that has to be a good thing too.

Seeing them tear up at the hockey not much later was even more hellafunny.

Any knighthoods coming out of these games?

You're a cruel man, Woody.

Netball is actually a really enjoyable sport to play but I can understand how people may not like watching it. And it takes a lot of skill to discipline one's feet not to step.

Bolt - sports personalty of every year. What a race, what a guy.


Those wooden "sharing cups" are interesting. And the reactions of the athletes as they receive them amusing, from "What the??" to "cute" to "odd". Looks like the sort of cup Woody might enjoy


I was surprised the England hockey women got as far as they did. The more adventurous team won - the England set-up coming off the back of an 11th place in a recent world tournament (World Cup?) it seems, were clearly out to play deep, frustrate the Aussies by dogging their creative moves and neutralising their attacks (sapping stuff), with only occasional counterattacks. It almost worked! Until they made the mistake of trying to play out time with too long to go, and most heinously, clearing the ball anywhere (hence giving away possession all the time). The equaliser was fortunate as regards timing (a few seconds to go) - but the victory quite deserved. The English women looked spent. (Apparently they had adopted the same tactics in the semi-final, but had been fresh enough - apart from anything else - to squeak through the penalty shootout that time. You can't do that every time.) Tears understandable then, but hey, they'll survive. They need to believe in attack a bit more. Seem to have the talent.

taipan wrote:Aye Pete, funny you should bring up the medals tally despite you not being jingoistic in the slightest.

What is ever funnier to me, having read most of your pontifications over the years, I cannot recall you ever make any mention of being involved in any sport in any way. Not playing, officiating or administering in any way.

But still you seem to be superior enough to make snide comments about games such as netball and bowls without any knowledge whatsoever about the skills or fitness levels concerned.

But then again, I suspect being a know it all without any requisite experience, is what floats your boat.

One more time, taipan. Because you just don't get it, do you.

Read it again. I brought up the medals tally precisely when you - without foundation - slid in yet another falsehood, a fake accusation of sour grapes. And notice: that tally was an answer to your baseless claim, and included none of the "we are great" chest-beating you always get up to when boasting South African superachievements (with you, it's woe betide anyone who found or finds a shred of imperfection in Steyn, Smiffy, Kallis, AB, Kallis, De Kock, Elgar - you immediately buzz in like a pricked hornet to attack your hero-slighting "opponent" (though curiously it seems Prince, Amla, Philander were and are always vulnerable, and fair game for criticism - funny, that).

I have played various sports, and believe I understand a few sports fairly well. Whereas - the rather greater problem - you vastly overestimate your seemingly unique masterful authority, which allows you always to be right (and others wrong) as it suits you. And to twist what others say, whenever it suits your very strange self-esteem to do so.  

It's the highest of ironies you accuse me of acting "superior" and being "snide" - which are absolutely your fortes on this Forum. And not only towards me. You alienate and antagonise for "fun" - you demonstrate this yet again in your latest posts against me, and you constantly "tackle the man", seeking desperately to discredit others - and thus conveniently avoid the point made.

That's what I meant about you "wearing the glasses". You seem to believe all are as strikingly mean-spirited and constantly bullheaded as the contributor you view in your personal (troll) mirror.

Did you not even realise - for example - that my mention of "the Golden 60s" of South African rugby was a sardonic reflection on the boorheads, and their twisted versions of supposedly superior South African reality in those Good Old Days of white supremacy?  


If there were a vote for who is this Forum's Pied Piper, it might well be a close run between, say, Dello and Danny - with a few other contenders. Good points, backed up where needed with fact, good humour, even in exasperated circumstances, a sense of give and take, and an encouragement to others to read and participate - in short, an asset to this forum.

But it would be absolutely pointless to have any vote for the Forum's Snide Sniper. Finally you'd win something hands down. Absolutely no contest.  

Might frustrate you to get that gold medal though. Without a contest, without a fight. Scrapping and picking fights (to feel good?) are clearly your game - a habit you have demonstrated again, and again. And yet again. .....

I think you guys should kiss and make up and have a cuddle.

Nath wrote:

Big Dog wrote:Have to admit, i find netball very tedious.

it's good for your eyes, for the most part though

Have you got base-of-post cam or something?

JGK wrote:Netball's fine.  All the movement is off the ball. That's the point.

Bit stop-start and statuesque, though!

Like "Irish dancing" was tamed for Good Catholics (no arm movements, nothing sensuous, all zonally designated), netball appears like a strange taming of basketball.

Thank God for the ceilidh in those old days of Church dominance. At least there was some limited physical contact that was not the devil's work. Mind you, the priest/nun WAS watching very closely .....

vilkrang wrote:I think you guys should kiss and make up and have a cuddle.

I've opened birthday wish threads for the guy, offered congratulations on his son's job, congratulated South African sportsmen without a murmur of doubt (not just cricketers, Chad Le Clos, and errrr, Pistorius - oh well), etc etc.

Makes not a shred of difference. The love is all one way!