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Anyone watching/following the current world cup?

It seems so long ago now that a virtually unknown back-up QB for the New England Patriots replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe. The rest, as they say, is history. Of course, I'm referring to Tom Brady. Tom Terrific. Touchdown Tommy. The G.O.A.T.

At age 41, Mr. Brady is heading to his ninth Superbowl. It boggles the mind really. Love him or hate him, the numbers don't lie. Credit needs to be divided between a whole cast of talented characters including coach Bill Belichick, owner Robert Kraft, and a diverse and viable Patriots roster but it's Tom Brady who takes center stage and here are a few reasons why.

Regular season wins by a starting quarterback (207)
Most passing yards, regular season and playoffs (81,431)
Most passing touchdowns, postseason included: 590
Most touchdowns thrown to different receivers (71)
Division titles (16)
Playoff games started (39)
Playoff wins (29)
Playoff touchdown passes (73)
Playoff passing yards (10,917)
Super Bowl appearances (9)
Super Bowl wins (5)
Super Bowl MVPs (4)
Super Bowl touchdown passes (18)
Super Bowl passing yards (2,576)

Congrats to the Patriots and Tom Brady. This transplanted fan is rooting for ring #6.

***KICK-OFF IS SCHEDULED FOR 17:00 (SA TIME)***


Today's referee is Angus Gardner from Australia.

To date, Gardner has refereed in 17 Test matches, five of which involving South Africa, with the Springboks winning two of those.

The two assistant referees are Jerome Garces from France and Ben Whitehouse from Wales, while Irishman Olly Hodges is the television match official (TMO).

THIS opening game of the autumn period is set for Saturday, November 3.

Kick-off is at 3pm. (UK Time)

It's two years since South Africa played England here, when the hosts ran out 37-21 winners.

May the best team win.

NFL fans who boycott the games because of the National Anthem protests by some players are the losers in the debate.
I have been watching NFL football since I was 6 or 7 years old. Every Sunday I looked forward to watching my home town team the Detroit Lions with my Mom and Dad. My Mom who was born in England also was a fan of the Lions and sometimes she would scream louder than my Dad at the TV screen.

I have fond memories of watching the Lions for 60 plus years and I am not going to let some 2 or 3 hundred protesting players ruin the game I love.

My opinion of the players is two fold. It is their first amendment right to protest anything they want. It is also my right to voice my opinion of them and my opinion of them is I consider the protesting players to be over paid America trashing wealthy ungrateful ingrates who I call 'A$$holes'

People can boycott all they want, but I consider it their loss. I refuse to turn off the game that I love all because of a few hundred 'A$$holes'.

That's my take on the NFL National Anthem protests.

This morning I was to coach & play for an all-star team I put together to win the New Jersey State Championship.
The team I played on last year won it all and I put together a much better team this year.

It took lots of planning over the last 2 months and many phone calls and emails to make it come to fruition.
After some cancellations (i.e. death in the family, etc..) and some notifications,
that some players could only make the early games and other players could only make the later games,
I spent a lot of time making various final line-ups for different games late last night.

So, early this morning I get a call from the tournament commissioner, that the fields took a hit last night from heavy rains and that the first game would be delayed an hour from the scheduled start time.
But, he would update us after he got to the fields.

So, I contacted all the players immediately to update them, as some players are traveling quite a distance.

Then, I get a call, that the fields are unplayable today and that the tournament is postponed until tomorrow
morning.
So, I re-contacted all my teammates to relay that message.

Thus, this morning there was a whole lot of guys all dressed up in uniforms with no place to go.

Hopefully, the same thing won't happen tomorrow morning.

Look, I can do this without you.
You are just slowing me down.
I know how to do this and win.
Just watch me.



Apparently, it's not all that uncommon.
It happened recently at Belmont.
But, that's not on Youtube yet.

Best of luck to the Irish Hockey team in an hours time in the World Cup Final.

It's been over 150 years since we've appeared in a final, so many of that squad have since retired, but we're back with a new batch of green killa's.

Will our long wait finally come to an end this afternoon. Dare we dream.

(admittedly the wait wasn't particularly arduous for me, as I only found out we had a team in this morning's paper. )


Go on Ireland

England lock Joe Launchbury says they are "desperate" to end the Test series against South Africa on a high at Newlands this Saturday afternoon.

The Red Roses have already surrendered the series after losing the first two Tests in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein.

I personally think they (English) will win the match as the South Africans are complacent with the 2 wins in the bag.

Hope everyone has a great day. Scammers and Trolls too

I can see why people find playing a sport attractive; it’s fun and the component of trying to beat an opponent gives it an extra edge, particularly for competitive types. There was a time when it was quite common for a firm to have a works football team, playing in a league consisting of other works teams. Apart from the personal challenge there was also the pride of your place of work to uphold. Other -non participating- employees could also take a legitimate interest in these matches and share in the glory or disappointment of the outcome. There were also inter village cricket matches with a similar reason for taking place. This all seems reasonable and it isn’t difficult to find purpose in it.

What I don’t understand is how sport became professional. Paying people to play a game seems quite odd to me. Being a completely non productive activity it more properly belongs to the category of hobby or pastime than profession. Regardless of how expertly someone can manipulate a ball with his foot, is it logical that the financial reward for showing that off is often far grater than that received for being a highly skilled tradesman, who actually produces something useful?

It could be said that there is entertainment value in sport, but why? It only becomes interesting if you have an interest in the outcome but why on Earth does anybody care about the outcome? It’s not like any of us has a real connection to the people we are cheering on and willing to win. It just doesn’t make any sense, the only good reason for sport is for its own sake, the involvement of money makes it completely senseless.

The World Cup should be abandoned immediately and I should get the £2 I invested in the works sweep stake back. And I’m not just saying that because I drew Senegal.