My sporting weekend
Unusually for me I did not have a tickle all weekend though I had some golf bets in the week. Sometimes I just want to watch sport free of angst.
I started with the Bledisloe Cup as I’m watching a good deal of rugby in preparation for the forthcoming World Cup.
I had little doubt that there would be a reaction from the All Blacks after their defeat to the Wallabies at Perth and sure enough they won comfortably.
I was particularly impressed by the winger Bridge on debut who covered every blade of glass.
If players of this calibre are up the selector’s sleeve then the rest of the rugby international world better be scared.
Next up the Test which I followed on TMS. I love this programme but recently it has been “dumbed down” by the new commentators and their random conversation about what they are doing that night, food and drink, Strictly Come Dancing and the latest on social media.
It’s a cricket progamme and conversation should be confined to same.
This was the joy of the old TMS, which could keep cricket chat going all day when there was no play to the extent it was often more absorbing when rain did stop play.
It’s now been “radio fived” for a more youthful audience who probably don’t tune in anyway.
I agree with Duggie Heath that starting at 10.30am would have created a closer finish. After all county games begin now at 10-30am and the final Test at the Oval is in late September by which time the nights are drawing in.
As to the golf, the Czech Masters was won by Belgian Tom Pieters.
I was on Adri Arnaus, a 22 year old Spaniard of whom I had never heard.
In fact he was runner up in the Andalusian Masters.
His chipping was exemplary but he failed to sink crucial putts and I see him more as a Cabrera Bello and Miguel Jimenez than Iberian Major winners like Seve Ballesteros, Sergio Garcia and Jose Olazabal.
The Fedex field now narrows to 30 after the US PGA BMW event at Medinah was won comfortably by Justin Thomas. Here is another fine golfer in his twenties but, sadly for the future of the game, Tiger Woods not qualifying was the bigger story.
