Tenacious Crocs, The New NBL and a Lousy Soccer Match!

HATS OFF:

Kudos must be given to the Townsville Crocodile's NBL team. After losing a tough game in Adelaide on Friday night 80-79 , they travelled to Melbourne last night and smashed the Tigers by 35 points 103-68. The Crocs hit 15/30 three pointers and shot 55% from the field for the match. Notable mentions must go to Russell Hinder who uncharacteristically hit 6/7 three pointers. Luke Kendall from the Tigers didn't feel like passing on the night putting up 21 shots only to make 7. Last, but not least, Mr Mark Worthington may feature in the blog this year for all the wrong reasons. To start, losing his cool against the NZ Breakers and then a poor game against Townsville shooting 3/10! Can't wait to hear his excuse!

PHOTO: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/Townsville_Crocodiles.jpg; nbl.com.au

MY BEEF:

The NBL chose to run with an eight team competition instead of taking a year off to reassess. What a mistake that has turned out to be. The year off would have given the clubs a chance to rethink their current strategies and look for new/more sponsors to help them financially and create some exposure. What do people have to say about the new rule changes that are slowly ruining our game? I thought that the NBL, by keeping the product on the market, was looking to be exciting? Its only been 3 weeks and I cant stand that the games only last 40 minutes instead of 48 or that a player can only have 5 fouls instead of six. Fans at the game or the smart people who watch it at home on fox sports are left wanting more! Wait probably attending the game is smarter as you don't have to listen to those woeful commentators. The ten minute quarters has limited excitement, only one team has cracked the 100 point barrier, only because they shot the living hell out of the ball! I mean how exciting is a 71-59 or 79-74 scoreline, this all happened in one week! BORING! The five foul rule is limiting the fans from seeing the best players on the court for longer periods of time. Now when a player gets two early fouls they are sitting the pine for some time! A big issue that has arisen so far is the scheduling of games! Whoever wrote up the draw for this competition must have been smoking some heavy stuff. Please explain how the Gold Coast had to travel to Cairns to play on Wednesday night then two nights later play in Perth. It doesn't make any sense and I can't believe the people who reviewed the draw passed such lunacy!

LOGO: http://www.aussiebball.com/forums/uploads/monthly_06_2009/post-1-1245901898.png

A LITTLE PUZZLED:

Last night at the Sydney Football Stadium 40000 people went to see the Socceroos play against the Dutch. Did the 40000 fans get their moneys worth? They certainly didn't! Fans braved the wet weather conditions to watch Australia field one of their strongest sides, with a few exclusions, only to build a wall at the back to stop the Dutch from scoring. This obviously worked, however it just meant the Socceroos were passing the ball more in their own half then trying to take the game on. This indicated that the game mustn't have meant much seeing since they barely tried to score, so why not rest the big stars and play some of the young guns! It may have made the game a tad more exciting plus allowed the younger roos to play in front of a monster crowd and gain that experience needed for the World Cup. Injuries do occur and one of these guys may be the one to fill a key position. This is why I'm puzzled! My Beef or Hats Off to the Socceroos? Hats Off for a draw against a football giant or My Beef for the lack of excitement and disappointing 40000 fans. Is this the type of soccer the Socceroos are going to play at the World Cup, i surely hope NOT!

PHOTO: http://www.newcastleunifc.com.au/media/WEBSITE%20PICS/Links/ffa.gif