There’s always a pre-requisite amount of sportsball on in Australia at any one point in the year, whether it’s soccer, cricket, AFL or Rugby League, but in the last week it seems as though the stars have collided for one of the most intense months of sportsing the sports world has ever seen. Have you enjoyed it? Hated it? Of all the sportsballs, which sportsball do you like the most?
I, for one, have been absolutely loving the World Cup. In fact I don’t think there’s ever been a World Cup like it. I’ve watched every single one of them since Italia 90, and this has been my favourite World Cup by far, and we’re still in the group stages. There have been so many brilliant games, so many special moments, and a barrowful of great goals.
Still, it’s a shame Australia had to get knocked out so early. But was there really ever any doubt considering the group they were in? Talk about your all-time bad draws…
Anyway, this is your place to talk about sportsball. Doesn’t have to be the World Cup: it can be anything you want. Drop it in the comments below friends!
Comments
36 responses to “Off Topic: Let’s Talk Sportsball”
I enjoy pretty much every sport, i could watch several games of NRL, AFL or soccer during a day and be ccompletely content. I could and have watched 5 days worth of test match cricket and considered it to be enjoyable. Tennis is probably my favourite sport to watch because i play as well.
BUT FUCK GOLF. GOLF TO WATCH IS THE WORST. NOBODY CAN CHANGE MY MIND!
I used to hate watching golf but then one day it was on I just decided to turn it on. I ended up watching it for several hours, it was very relaxing and thoroughly enjoyed myself. One day I might do it again.
Went to the Wallabies game on Saturday. Felt find of bad for France, really, Wallabies really dominated them. Good sportsmanship all around though, I’m glad the crowd wasn’t hostile or anything.
That’s as much sports discussion as I am capable of.
I’ve been abusing my body clock for the World Cup, and honestly it’s been worth every second.
Even though Australia’s campaign was pretty underwhelming (like you said though, not totally unexpected given their draw), I enjoyed watching them play and am looking forward to the Asian Cup where they’ll be up against more evenly matched opponents.
Jonathan Brown, one of the sportsballingest sportsballmen to ever sportsball, retired yesterday after a knock to the head gave him yet another concussion. It’s a real shame. The Brisbane Lions simply are not the same team without him.
As a life-long supporter of the Lions, it’s actually really weird news to react to. It’s hard to think of a player that epitomises the club more than Browny and to see him go out this way is hard to deal with. He was due to retire at the end of the year and was so close to kicking 600 career goals.
Still, he had three premierships, a Coleman medal, was club captain for a while, had some All Australians and pretty much every accolade available to him. The term legend gets thrown around a lot but Brown is most definitely a sporting legend.
Now for the Lions fans out there, here’s some hardcore pornography.
Wow some of those marks are crazy. Running backwards into a pack and the launching yourself seems so nuts.
The World Cup has been pretty great this year and it has a much better vibe and feeling than South Africa in 2010. I suppose it makes sense when all of South America are football fanatics and it’s kind of contagious.
I’ve picked Chile to win overall but they’ve drawn Brazil in the Round of 16. I reckon they can win but it’s going to be a pretty great and pretty darn close game.
Brazil has been better than South Africa because no Vuvuzelas.
So true. God I hated those things after the last world cup.
http://vuvuzela-time.co.uk/www.kotaku.com.au
Well played sir. Well played.
I used to like watching netball (no, not for that reason) and ten pin bowling on Channel 31. Not really a sports guy.
Does WWE count?
I really liked netball as well, sitting and watching the grand final on record yesterday was pretty great. I always find it fascinating that a team can still lose despite having such a tall Jamaican girl who can just about touch the ring without jumping!
5 games of the NBA finals were amongst the best I’ve ever seen. Spurs dominated the Heat from the outset of game 3 and never looked back. So happy to see Miami get taken down hard like they were.
Now I have to wait till September for my sportsball to come back. In the mean time I’ll stick with the AFL.
We still got the draft this Friday.. But yeah September is too far away!
Such a shame about Embiid.
Blowouts get old pretty quick imo. Yes, the Spurs played some of the best team basketball I’ve ever seen, but it made for a pretty boring finals. I thought last years was much better.
In terms of the playoffs as a whole though, wow…best 1st round ever.
Yeah a player who is already under the injury cloud sure didn’t need another one for his reputation. I wonder how much lower he’ll drop.
I think it’s unfortunate that the playoff system is based on wins in the competing teams conferences. I’d much rather have the teams with the best records versing each other rather than the playoffs culminating in a top team of both conferences against each other. The Heat most likely wouldn’t of made the finals if they were versing teams in the west the whole way through.
Those Spurs though played probably the best team basketball I’ve ever seen though.
World Cup… meh. I love playing soccer, was captain of my university team in the US, but I find it dreadful to watch.
NHL playoffs were great this year. As a lifelong LA Kings fan it was nice to see them win their second championship, but the whole of the post season was great.
Ice hockey is pretty much all I watch.
Basketball is boring because they score too much and only the last 3 minutes are ever interesting, plus they’re a bunch of diving pussies just like soccer players.
American football is awful, it’s simply chess with fatasses instead of carved wooden figures. An edited video of the six minutes of actual playing might be worth a watch.
Baseball is a yawn and cricket is like baseball on sedatives.
AFL I don’t really have anything against, I just don’t happen to watch it.
MotoGP is good this year actually, despite Marquez’ complete and utter domination.
The NFL website usually has some nicely edited highlights for each game which run a few minutes for each game.
The NHL playoffs were a great watch this year.
I’m a huge NBA and cricket fan. Watching the world cup at the moment as I like soccer but don’t really follow the A-league because it’s shit.
I’ll watch and bet on anything, except tennis. I understand the rules, and the competition. It is akin to boxing – one gladiator against another, no time outs or anywhere to hide, but it’s just boring – and that’s coming from a guy who watches golf. Horses for courses I guess.
The WC has been great – but how our goalie keeps a position in the national squad baffles me. 2 goals I saw (1 from Spain and 1 from Chile) should have been killed but he let em both through.
J Brown will be sorely missed, him and N Riewoldt are the last of the great packmarkers. But it’s time to go Browny, you’ve a family to support mate, thanks for the memories. Legend.
Looking forward to the cricket season starting up, and the NFL’s return. need something to keep my punting going, the NHL, NBA and the netball have finished up, the MLB is going strong but without the WC it would be standard fare (AFL/NRL).
I’m tipping Germany for the cup with Belgium as a smokey.
GOOOOOO WHITEFISH!!!
I don’t watch much sport these days, but I used to watch heaps of NBA. I also don’t mind watching American Football (Gridiron), Baseball, Golf and Tennis.
All Blacks games are pretty much the only sports I’ll make the effort to watch, enjoyed watching the Rugby World Cup though, even got Sky (NZ version of Foxtel) for it.
In my opinion, there are are only 2 TYPES OF FOOTBALL: afl & soccer, not both codes of rugby, here is why: both soccer and afl mainly uses the foot against the ball especially when scoring goals, whereas rugby is 95% bulldozing your opponents while carrying the ball, 5% kicking the ball, that is why “football” in my opinion is used loosley for rugby, whrreas afl & soccer are true football
AFL looks more like basketball and football had an ugly child to me.
It’s called football because it’s played on foot, not because of the kicking. Think instead of polo which is on horseback.
I know it doesn’t make much sense these days, but learning that helped me accept why it’s called that.
btw soccer is all I’ll watch, and even then rarely.
Bringing the tech back into sportsball, how fantastic has the HD feed of the world cup been on SBS? I haven’t seen anything that HD since they stopped broadcasting the test channels.
Don’t even get me started on HD.
Memo Channel 7: If you want to bid for the AFL, USE FKN HD CAMERAS!!! seriously, I have foxtel and the difference between free to air and subscription is like a radeon or amd card and NES graphics.
It’s an absolute abortion that a national sport can be broadcast at such a low production value.
Channel 9 aren’t any better, put some repeat on your HD channel while you broadcast the origin in SD!
Australia could have got a result against both Chile and Holland. It’s disappointing it didn’t eventuate. We were even ahead in the Holland game and blew it.
Also, YES FINALLY THE BLUES WON AN ORIGIN SERIES!
I commented recently that I just don’t get soccer. However, I’ve found myself watching the odd World Cup match here and there and really enjoying it. Still don’t understand the tactics, but the atmosphere of the World Cup bleeds through the television – it’s immense.
One thing I will NEVER like with soccer is the blatant dives players take for penalties. It is just so unsportsmanlike (is that even a word?). Of course penalties need to exist, but the players use every opportunity, however slight, to weasel a free kick from the umpire and it is not a tactic I agree with. In fact, blatant penalty dives should be punishable with a yellow card – I mean absolutely blatant, not borderline.
I used to watch more AFL but I just don’t like the way the game is played as much anymore. It used to be all about kickin to the big forwards, rough and tumble, a bit more scrappy. Now the players are so skillful and fast that the need for large forwards has been removed, the game is far less rough and tumble. Just watch a 90’s classic game to see the difference. I live next to a decent footy oval and I prefer watching the locals play, it’s much more like old times.
I’ve found this year that the play acting is considerably less than in previous World Cups that I’ve seen but I agree with you it is a blight on the game no matter how often it happens. I play for a Sunday league team and even at that level the play acting needs to happen if you are going to be rewarded for a free kick, not great news for me as a defensive midfielder lol.
Agree with you on the AFL note as well, I work within the AFL talent pathway and watching even 16-18 year olds run around compared to the 90’s AFL is like comparing apples and oranges. Keep an eye out for 2 metre Peter Wright to play in the AFL next year who’ll herald the era of tall marking forwards again 😛
I’ve particularly loved this World Cup, I love an underdog story and seeing all of the smaller teams like Chile, Algeria, Colombia doing well is very warming to the heart. Even Australian who left without a win came away with something, showing their class against Holland in particular in what could be described as a year of transition.
There’s lots of sportsball on at the moment with the AFL, Netball grandfinal and NBA finals recently has been many a sports lovers dream. Wimbledon has started a couple of days ago and I only found out it started on the radio this morning, crazy stuff!
All these sports are cutting into my gaming time though, my pile of shame growing only exponentially higher with the Steam Summer sale on XD
Any sport i can watch i will hell even Curling is great viewing… NBA is usually my go to though but i have had a rough month with the Heat losing… Glad my AFL team is doing alright though, Tossed around the idea of watching the gaelic football stuff on one of the channels the other night but thought sleep might be better. Damn work has cut into my WC viewing though which has annoyed me a bit.
Roller derby! /joking
Beach volleyball is the best! Channel 9 used to put it on as filler. Maverick and Goose vs Iceman and Slider was also a classic.
Loving this World cup and I agree that it’s the best so far. So many good games and emotional moments.