Not in any way an excuse to sit on the net all day in front of the cricket

The Weak In Sport presents Day 3, by sessions.

Aussies crack morning glory: England out to lunch long before midday

SCOREBOARD
in a computery looking font so it looks vaguely official
Levi Strauss c Bimbo b Pigeon 12 (21) FOW 1/28
Captain Cook c Skwarne b Pigeon again 11 (15) FOW 2/28
Two down already, they could be fucked
Craig not out 41 (131)
Western Bulldogs c Gilchrist b Clark 5 (29) FOW 3/42
Lismore in the house, y'all
St Pietersburg lbw b Pigeon yet again 16 (38) FOW 4/78
Give someone else a go Pigeon you hog
A Fuckoff c Christ b Blee FA (2) FOW 5/79
Yeah, they're fucked
Grunt Jones not out 19 (49)

England, at lunch but hardly dining out, are 5/118
To avoid the follow-on, England need 285 runs and a minor miracle

Burning question of the morning
(well, more stinging than burning, unless you rub it with Deep Heat)
Do you get points for hitting Billy? Or does large amounts of personal satisfaction have to do?

Bowden, justifiably the least popular umpire in world cricket amongst players, found his vaudeville routine cut short after being felled by a full-blooded England pull-shot. Granted, having watched their innings to that point, any sort of full-blooded cricket shot was probably the thing he would have least expected, but he didn't need to flop onto the deck with histrionics that would have made an Italian wing-back blush. The answer, in case you're wondering, is no, you don't get any points for hitting Billy per se. Though five runs are awarded to the batting side if the ball hits his helmet... and it was a bit too far to the left for that.

Until next session, the Doctor is OUT. Presumably b McGrath like every other bastard.

___________________________

England undone by crack: kids, don't do drugs

SCOREBOARD
as above with the following minor improvements:
Craig c Tang b Clark-No-E for fitty
Wade Seccombe's Former Number Two lbw Ooh Ahh; he was only nineteen
Monty's Understudy c Haydos b Ooh Aah for a carton
Hogwild c Christ b Clark-No-E for donut
Harmlesson c Christ b Ooh Ahh for just as many
Androgynouson not out not much

England all out 157, a lead over NSW of 12 runs
Pity those other bastards are playing as well

Australia 2nd Innings, albeit completely unnecessary:
Clanger not out 7
Haydos not out 25 and going the tonk
Australia no wicket for 33, a lead of... Jesus that's a lot

This just in
A newsflash on the NZ news website has just breathlessly announced: ENGLAND HEADING FOR DEFEAT. Granted, the story could have appeared any time since Thursday morning. In particular any time since Australia declared their first innings closed/England's chances fucked yesterday afternoon.

Question of the session
Did Punter bail on the follow-on because the ACB couldn't afford the refunds on the Day 4 tickets?
If not, why the hell did he do it?
Take your pick from:
(a) To give his Dad's Army attack a chance to rest, relax and recharge the batteries on their mobility scooters
(b) For the hell of it
(c) Because he can't count high enough to work out Australia is winning by fuckin' shitloads
(d) Contractually obliged to let Haydos get a decent chance to cash in on his home track
(e) In order to manipulate the gamewinning scenario probability matrix from one favouring a victorious outcome to one in which the plausible likelihood of defeat is infinitesimally small and tending to zero (yes, we've been hacking into Buchanan's laptop again)
(f) He wants to get that other 4 runs he missed out on
(g) To install a Rheem in the collective psyche of the England entourage
(h) Actually thinks they're more likely to win this way (least likely)

All will be revealed in Session Three... possibly.

The Doctor is OUT.

___________________________

Oh God, make them stop, this is barbaric

SCOREBOARD
Australia 2nd Innings, not sure why they're bothering but they've gone ahead anyway:
J Langer not out 88
M Hayden run out (Hayden) 37
R Ponting not out 51
Australia 1/181, a lead so cataclysimically large it remains unimaginable by man

Question of the session...
...relates to the heavily promoted XXXX Gold Beach Cricket tournament. Would you really want to go and see decrepit 50-something has-been "legend" cricketers (when precisely did Gooch become a legend?) farting around playing beach cricket? Particularly if you have to drink XXXX Gold in order to get tickets in the first place?
For more information on their heavily promoted series, don't go to their heavily promoted website because it doesn't actually seem to work at the moment.

This is where the 'barmy' part comes in, apparently
The Barmy Army, the only supporters' organisation in all of sports which prefers to chant its own name over the name of the team it supposedly supports, has taken self-delusion to stratospheric new levels with their claims that Cricket Australia and Gabba security have conspired to hush them up, ex-KGB-dude-style, in order to ensure Australia a competitive advantage over England. Their leader, Field Marshall Gerald Pinkpastygit, maintains the conspiracy involved dispersing the Barmy Army's seating allocations all around the stadium rather than letting them congregate en masse, and having their trumpet player thrown out of the ground on Day 1. He further claimed many Barmy Infantrymen went on strike on Day 2 in protest at their treatment by Gabba security, and that their absence could be directly correlated to the poor form of their national side.
To which the Weak's regular readers and correspondents, all of which have all attended more than the odd game at the Gabba, would probably reply:
(a) Gabba security have ALWAYS been complete arseholes, they're not just like that with you
and
(b) They didn't throw your trumpet player out because he was giving England a competitive advantage. They threw him out because he was fucking annoying.

The real reason England are losing has nothing to do with the presence or otherwise of the Barmy Army, Barmy Army, Barmy Army, Barmy Army, Repeat Ad Nauseum, No Dazza I Don't Reckon We're Gonna Pick Up Tonight Eeeva. The Weak can exclusively reveal the TRUE CONSPIRACY underlying the performance, or complete lack thereof, of Johnny English against the hated convicts.

Take a good look at the heavy roller which Gabbo curator Kevin Mitchell Jr (no not the whiny guy from Jebediah) trolls across the pitch before each innings. The Weak's sources report that at a flick of the switch, Mitchell can deploy a squadron of microscopic ploughs which can introduce cracks into the pitch which are only present when England are batting, as a matching set of small dispensers filled with Selleys Space Invader repair the cracks when the pitch is rolled prior to Australian innings. Disbelieving cynics might ask why noone at the ground has noticed this dastardly scheme in action, but as the Weak's sources maintain, at the time Mitchell is wreaking his unholy havoc most crowd members are conveniently distracted at the time by the Milo Kanga Cricket kids, who are sledged unmercifully by both sides of the Ashes divide.

Balanced against these revelations should probably be the fact that the Weak's sources are on smack.

Today's List of Things Not To Do At The Cricket

• Piss off Gabba security. This extends to chanting 'Blue top, blue top' at cute policewomen.
• Stick your wrist in the way of a middled Haydos straight drive.
• Get yourself run out when your skipper has failed to enforce the follow-on solely so you can have another dig in front of your home crowd.
• Wave your flag at Justin Langer over the bowler's shoulder while he's taking guard. He's a little Mr Cranky Pants with no sense of humour about such things.
• Play for England.

The Doctor is OUT.

Ashes up date: dance of the flaming arseholes goes horribly wrong

At the end of Ashes day two of a scheduled twenty-five, England are losing by five hundred and forty-nine runs, and are batting for a draw. Half of their recognised (or at least recognisable) batsmen are sitting in the dressing sheds trying to come up with a better excuse for going home than old mate Marcus managed to come up with.

Normal service has been resumed.

In fact, fuck it, we'll just play with the NSW guys and stop counting the others.

New South Wales 1st Innings 2/146 dec
M Clarke c Strauss b Anderson 56 (94)
A Gilchrist lbw b Hoggard for blot but we're not counting him cos he's a Waca
B Lee not out 43 (61)
S Clark b Flintoff 39 (23, yes 23)
G McGrath not out 8 (17)

England 1st Innings 3/53
A Strauss c Hussey b McGrath 12 (26)
A Cook c Warne b McGrath 11 (24)
I Bell not out 13 (59)
P Collingwood c Gilchrist b Clark 5 (29)
K Pietersen not out 6 (28) and being outscored by Extras


And the Logie for 'Most Random Use Of Superfluous Technology' goes to...
After a promising start, Channel Nine's whizz-bang new thermal camera, ingeniously called 'Hot Spot', has faded disappointingly in the keenly contested race to be the most pointless piece of technobullshit employed by the gadget-obsessed broadcast team. Hot Spot, despite being as informative and relevant as A Current Affair, particularly during Ricky Ponting's innings of 196 (a double hundred with Swedish rounding) - as the SMH observed, there's only so often you can get ratings mileage out of showing a neat white spot right in the middle of someone's bat - while obviously stupid, can never quite get near the astonishing pointlessness of Nine's 3 Mobile-sponsored ball tracker, ingeniously named '3 Tracker', on the basis that if you think really hard you might actually come up with a potential point to Hot Spot's existence. 3 Tracker is not only without any justification for its existence, but looks totally wank on screen. By comparison with these two, Snicko (which definitively proves that various things can make noise when in contact with each other) and Hawkeye (on which basis we can clearly and obviously make all umpires redundant in favour of a demountable full of fat IT nerds with bumfluff stubble and debilitating addictions to Jolt and internet porn) are more essential for an Australian cricket broadcast than Richie in a cream jacket. Sorry, a cream, bone, white, off-white, ivory or beige jacket.


Dad's Army 1 Barmy Army 0
Are the Barmy Army the only travelling sports fans anywhere in the world, in any sport, who in times when their team are struggling and need a lift (to wit, for the English cricket team any time other than 2004 and 2005), choose not to shout messages of support or reassurance but instead start chanting THEIR OWN NAME in an astonishing orgy of masterbatory narcissism?

One between-overs camera sweep around the Barmy Army will turn up more red crosses than a refugee camp. England fans bring the flag of their nation, the St George Cross (and they are, for being associated with such a shit country) along to cricket games and string them up in the hope that it will inspire their countrymen (and the couple of Saffers they traditionally pick as well) into great deeds. Unfortunately, rather than inspiring England to victory, aforesaid large red crosses usually end up being used as batting targets by people like Stuart Clark.

One of the most puzzling features of the ubiquitous Barmy Army England flag is the equally ubiquitous English football sides stencilled or sewn across the flag. The most puzzling feature of these flags is that the teams with their names or initials so emblazoned are always completely, utterly, hideously shithouse. Just in ten seconds of crowd-shot montage late on day 2 there were flags for Sunderland, Derby County, Reading, Swindon Town, and most embarrassing of all, Newcastle United.

So The Weak's Question Of The Day is directed toward the Barmy Army:
Is there anyone here who supports a football team that isn't fucking terrible at football?
Or is that why you're down here in the middle of football season?

The Doctor is OUT.

Ashes up date: well, it's one way to get the urn through Customs I guess

Some random musings on Test 1, Day 1 of Ashes Series 2006/07:
(some of which have been foreshadowed in earlier media commitments, reproduced here because the Weak In Sport is even fuckin' lazier than the design team at Porsche)

Scorecheck courtesy the Daily Excremeter (kudos to Sticks Reporter AJ):
Australia at stumps 3/346 from 90 overs, mostly of gutter slop
Dick Poontang not out shitloads
Cheap Hussey not out quite a bit really, less than his average but

Gooooorne:
Jamie Oliver, c Fist Slip b Fuckoff for 21
Damien 'I'm not really Welsh right boyo' Martyn, c Doing Something Stupid b Thought Told You To Fuckoff for 29
Unshaven Monkey, can't remember how he got out, don't really care for 82

Bowling figures:
All shithouse. They even gave Craig a over and he got 0/12.

Shot of the day: Punt's big loft that finished a pube inside the long-off rope... then again, take your pick. Seriously. It's cluttering up the garage, and what are you anyway, a fucking gold digger? Go chop a leg off and attach yourself to Paul McCarthy.
...Oh, really? Bugger, that joke won't work anymore then.

Half-arsed move of the day: a certain skunk-haired Yaapie trying to reenact the Greatest Hits of Simon Jones from the first day of the last Ashes test here, sliding to retrieve a ball and almost leaving his kneecap in the grass - not really what Engerland kneeded at the time. Worse still, he didn't replace his divot. Ill-mannered bastard.

Ballsed-up prediction of the day, if not the Weak: ah. Apparently not yet time for a Bex and a good lie down for the unshaven midget half of the opening partnership. Typical nuggety knock from the Dark Knight of the top order. Although Jaques would have got a century.

Beer of the day: Mac's Hop Rocker Pilsener. Unless you were in Koala Drive, Townsend, in which case it was Ted, and not even that boring old bastard who coaches the ABs.

Questions of the day:

1. Which is more racist - calling someone a stupid Indian or picking a useless white guy instead of him?
2. Are NSW playing any state games this week, and is anyone left to trundle in from the end that MacDuff isn't from? (Bracken doesn't count, he's having his hair done this week)
3. Can anyone definitively say whether the new Nine onscreen graphics are actually an improvement or not?
4. Did they sell the old ones to Seven for the golf coverage?
5. Who or what is a New Ranger?
6. Does this mean Ranger Stacey from Totally Wild has finally been pensioned off?
7. Is there any tangible benefit to having three commentators talking at once rather than two?
8. Is there any tangible benefit to Mark Nicholas?
9. Can someone tell him not to present himself on Australian television as such a limp-wristed, preening, self-congratulatory fop, to the point where even Heals in the fuckin' pinkest of fuckin' pink ties (no, not salmon, PINK) couldn't out-ponce him? Man up, you soft Pommy bastard, you're going to be here for a bloody long time
10. Is Billy Bowden just taking the piss?
11. Did you know Steve Randell was released from prison a couple of years ago?
12. Have those two ever been seen in the same room together?
13. If they have, are you hoping like the Jesus fuck that it wasn't at a kiddies' party?
14. Is the thermal camera the most stupid, vapid and pointless idea, object or concept since Kyle Sandilands?
15. How long before Poontang royally cracks the shits over the Poms' interchange policy in the field? They've exchanged members more often than the Bulldogs after a big night out in Coffs...

Hmmm, nowhere to go from there really. Other than onto Day 2.

The Doctor is OUT.

The Weak In Sport's 60th Edition Spectacular!

Yes, The Weak is turning sixty. Another Weak older, another Weak saggier. Wondered where that smell was coming from.

To the Weak In Sport Newsbench. We couldn't afford a Newsdesk, it's actually just a couple of milk crates and an old bus stop sign.

AB negative: bloodletting likely after French farce
Stade de France, Paris, Saturday: Team upheaval, mass selection changes and possibly wholesale firings are expected in wake of the dismal performance by the New Zealand All Blacks™ against the French. The ABs performance could only be described as an abject failure, never looking like winning... by the traditional forty points they usually beat the French by. Headmaster Graham Henry pulled no punches in his assessment of the game. "We were poor," noted the man known as Ted to his friends, both of them. "Worse than poor. Worse even than this hideous excuse for facial hair that I've taken to sporting on this tour. Can someone buy me a Philishave for Christmas please? Fuck's sake." Pundits both in the press box and at home lambasted the performance and tried vainly to find a way to blame it on Ma'a Nonu, largely because he wears eyeliner like a big dreadlocked poofter and makes various overly macho ex-rugger media personalities rather uncomfortable about their sexuality. However, most commentators eventually blamed English referee Jeremy Pompous-Twatt's policing of the scrum, particularly his ludicrous insistence on penalising Carl Hayman for boring into the side of French hooker Notime Toulouse at a 45 degree angle to the point where Toulouse ended up with an inner ear infection from Hayman's beard.

Weather to blame in Wallabies loss: Australia doesn't have any
Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Sunday: The Wallabies, a rugby union team (at least it appears that's what they're attempting to play) made up from inbred Hoorays from Australia's finest private schools and all-boys colleges, have maintained the Australian tradition of young ex-pats on 'OE' in Europe of going out, getting a bit silly and making complete embarrassments of themselves, losing to Ireland by 21-6 in a who-cares fixture held in horizontal sleet at Lansdowne Road. That's the Irish rugby ground not the pub at Chevron Renaissance on the Goldie. Australian coach John 'Knuckles' Connolly attributed the loss to the weather, pointing out Australia didn't have any. "We stopped letting weather into the country years ago," Knuckles explained. "John Howard banned it years ago, part of his refugee policy. Rain is un-Australian." The last prospective sighting of rain on Australian soil, according to the consensus of opinion among Australian sports journalists at the game, was actually on some piss-ant island south of Melbourne. "Some of the V8 guys thought they'd seen some in the recent round in Tasmania," said one, "but that turned out to be residual precipitation from Lowndes still bawling his eyes out after Bathurst."
Despite Greg Growden of the SMH and Peter Jenkins of the Daily Terrorgraph acclaiming the result as a Knucklicious tactical masterstroke solely on the basis of its likelihood to confuse the New Zealanders, the Wallabies' prospects have further dimmed with the recent theft of Knuckles Connolly's secret playbook, containing all of the amassed wisdom which convinced the ARU (or at least Growden and Jenkins) to give him the job in the first place. Unexpectedly, this is reportedly not a completely blank single sheet of A4, but a large list entitled 'Excuses'. Having successfully blamed weather for losing the Ireland game, in future games Knuckles intends to blame global warming, gravity, entropy, and the decline of feminism in post-modern society. Not on the list, apparently, is picking a team of totally fucking wank players and training them to play like busted arses.
Meanwhile, for the third Sunday night in a row, Eddie Jones giggled himself to sleep.

Shane! Shane, come back!
The Gabba, Brisbane, yesterday: This just in: apparently Shane Watson is good all of a sudden. Who knew. Judging by efforts to get the heroically mediocre all-rounder's strained hamstring ready for Thursday's first Ashes Test, Watson is the only man standing between the Australian cricketing nation and a metaphorical red hot poker jammed up the country's collective sporting date. Accountant-In-Chief John Buchanan explained the Australian selectors position on Watson, which appears grounded neither in recent form, Test record, or any other basis in fact. Unfortunately Buchanan explained their position in a desperately, soul-sappingly boring monotone that made everyone present want to throw themselves off the Story Bridge, a temptingly brief taxi-fare away.
"We sought to undertake an exacting and comprehensive statistical analysis," droned Buchanan, "evaluating the historical performance of the English batting lineup in Ashes contests against a range of variables, correcting for all accepted parameters that may have a biometric or informatic bearing on the outcome."
For God's sake make the man stop.
"Then from the vector-based algorithmic model thus derived, we extrapolated a series of potentially statistically significant factoids that..."
At this point The Weak drifted off to the sweet release of sleep, but by copying another journalist's notes afterwards it appears that Buchanan's plan is based on a fairly simple tenet:
"In the past seven Ashes contests, more English wickets have been taken by bowlers called Shane than by bowlers with any other first name," explained Buchanan when he finally deigned to get to the fucking point.
Should Watson's bid for match fitness fall through, the Australian team have been scouting potential replacements, the Weak can exclusively report having hacked into Buchanan's laptop by way of an email virus advertising implant surgery for certain, um, appendages. Namely his personality.

Shane Bond
Pros: Can bowl a bit
Cons: Crocked all the time. Also not from this country, but unlikely to matter (prior art: N. Fien, K. Hunt, W. Mason, R. Crowe)

Shane Gould
Pros: Proven sporting record
Cons: Drinks soy milk instead of VB. May be a bit of a girl.

Shane Kelly
Pros: Keen to get into the gym, particularly the exercycle
Cons: Keeps falling off the exercycle when his foot slips off the pedal

Shane Dye
Pros: Without fear. Without nerve. Short enough to get even stump-high half-volleys 'wided' as bouncers in ODI games.
Cons: Keeps falling off the exercycle and being trampled by everyone else in the gym

Other potential options: Shane Horgan, Shane Williams, Shane Heal, Shane Webcke, Shane St James, Twania Shane

History never three-peats
Stamford Bridge, London, any time between August 2005 and yesterday: English glamour club Chelsea FC defeated Premiership rivals [insert name here] overnight by a single goal to nil in a dour, scrappy affair more representative of Conference League football than a side compiled at vast expense with the proceeds from flogging off most of Siberia's oil reserves. Following the Blues' recent run of success despite not playing anything looking remotely like football for many years, Chelsea have announced that in future they will not bother fielding a side at all in Premiership fixtures, but will rely on unshaven haught-merchant coach Jose Mourinho psyching out opposition teams and psychologically destabilising referees in his pre-match comments, intending to secure one-nil victories through nervous own-goals or dubious penalties, and hence an inevitable third consecutive Premiership title. When questioned on Chelsea's new tactics on the basis that this was 'anti-football', Jose Mourinho sniffed, contemplated his nails and scoffed: "To you, perhaps. To me, it is the ultimate expression of my art. Bow down to pragmatism, your new God." Mourinho ended the press conference by bidding the Fleet Street hacks what he described as a traditional Portuguese farewell, "Sua irmã, mija curvada," which he translated as "Good health, good heart". It was some time after Mourinho had left before it was worked out that what he had pronounced actually translated as "Your sister cannot piss straight."

A picture tells a thousand words; knowing this column, half of them would probably need bleeping out













Thorpedo calls press conference to finally make that big announcement which we've all been expecting for several years... no, not THAT big announcement, the OTHER one














Young John Wayne Montoya seems to be fittin' in good with them NASCAR folks now, y'hear

















Assume the position, boys...


The Doctor is OUT.

Escort service

1979.
Far from just being a dreary slab of self-indulgent navel-gazing grunge whining on behalf of Slaphead Billy Corgan and his dysfunctional Pumpkins, 1979 was actually a period of 12 months that occurred in the late 1970s. As late into the late 1970s as possible, as it turned out. And 1979, judging by the following, was a very long time ago.

• Malcolm Fraser was PM of Australia, and at that point still had his pants on
  
• The developing legend, corporate trademark and later self-parodying cliche that became Peter Brock won the Repco Round-Australia Trial in the new Commodore, as well as Bathurst by six laps in the old Torana, in between a lot of pants-work of a different description
  
• Some old bag called Thatcher was newly in charge of the Poms. Didn't amount to much though
  
• Bon Scott, John Lennon and John Bonham were all still breathing, and in Bon and Bonzo's case, skolling beverage by the hectalitre
  
• Chappell's underarm problem, Ronald Reagan's frightening ascent to the seat of all power in the Western world, and Bob Hawke's speech about his bum with reference to employment relations vis-a-vis the America's Cup, were still years into the future
  
• St George won the comp
  
• And the Ford Motor Company won the world rally manufacturers' championship with their Mark II Escort RS1800 and a bunch of fear-deficient Scandie lunatics called Bjorn, Hannu, Ari and Stig.

Since those nostalgic days of yesteryear, to state the bleeding, haemorraging obvious, a lot has changed. Not for St George of course, who are still to win anything other than Easiest Dirtied Playing Strip In The NSWRL/ARL/NRL, 1908-present. But since Ford's 1979 manufacturers title, world rally has become totally unrecognisable. The then-state-of-the-art Escort RS1800s which the heroes of the era once fishtailed through the forests to victory would be utterly trounced by a current model Golf diesel driven by your grandma, let alone the modern crop of turbocharged, bewinged, all-wheel-drive, gravel-spitting monsters which contest the world title today. The Escorts, legendary in their own lifetime, were rendered obsolete overnight with the introduction of the turbo AWD Audi Quattro A1 in the early 80s; so compared to today's factory rally weapon, the Focus WRC, the rear-wheel-drive, non-turbo, four-cylinder Escort RS1800 looks like an absolute toy.














Faaaarrrkkk

















Told yers

Ancient, outclassed, prehistoric shitbox or not, the RS1800 Escort was able to boast one competition feature which subsequent world rally championship entries from Ford have never offered on their options list: a world championship. At least until yesterday afternoon on a winding strip of forest road south of Raglan, when a 1-2 finish for the factory Focuses (Foci?) in the Rally of NZ secured the world title for the Blue Oval for the first time in 27 years. And you local Ford tragics thought it was a bit of a hassle waiting eight years for another Bathurst win. Ford's inability to win the world title even when blessed with the fastest car in the field (since the introduction of the original Focus WRC in 1998) and some of the most talented driver lineups in WRC history (case in point, the pairing of Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz throughout the late '90s) has long been the standing joke of the WRC paddock. Regardless of the speed of their equipment and the talent of their drivers, the Ford works rally team could traditionally not be relied upon to correctly organise and/or host a pissup in a brewery.















Colin McCrash, about thirty seconds away from retiring from another WRC event

So what's changed this year? Have Ford finally cracked it? Has 27 years of incompetence finally given way to a new, hard-edged competitive spitrit?

Ah, not so much. More that all the other decent factory teams have fucked off to do other things, basically.

Citroen, who most recently dominated WRC, pulled out at the end of last year to develop their new C4 WRC car for 2007, leaving the privateer Kronos team to propel Seb Loeb to his inevitable third consecutive drivers championship. Ford may have won the manufacturers' title, but they couldn't stop a bunch of privateers in a five year old car winning the drivers'. Top work, BP-Ford World Rally Team.
















You can't park 'ere. We are too excluuusive.

Peugeot, who dominated the first half of this decade, quit rallying at the end of last year to have another crack at Le Mans sports prototypes - which they'd pulled out of in the mid-90s to develop their 206 WRC car.
















TOTALly sideways

Toyota, who dominated for half the 1990s with their Celicas and Corollas, ditched world rally years ago in order for their rally team to spearhead their push into Formula One - which kinda explains Ralf Schumacher's affinity for gravel traps, it's what the baseline setup is designed for.











One Ralf prepared earlier

Mitsubishi, who dominated the other half of the 1990s, pulled out of rallying in recent years in order to go broke. Fortunately, they've been helped in this by the selfless folk at the ABC.












Buy one of these and help keep good honest Aussie bogans in work - both at Mitsubishi's Adelaide plant as well as the nation's Highway Patrol units.

And Subaru, who won all the events which the other teams didn't in the last dozen years, might as well have not turned up given that they're contractually obliged to run on Pirelli tyres. They'd get better grip from Cheng Shins.




















Two potential scenarios in which a Subaru Impreza WRC might win some form of competitive motor race in the proximal future

Subaru mightn't have won the actual motorsport component of the Rally of New Zealand, but they comfortably stitched up the competition in the publicity stakes, with perennial MotoGP world champion (perennial meaning 'every year starting with a 2 that isn't 2006') Vale Rossi turning up in a privately entered matt-black '05 Impreza WRC, personally funded out of the spare change in the back pocket of his leathers, and having a bit of a go at playing in the mud with the big boys.

Having lasted approximately half of one stage on his only previous WRC outing, in a Michelin-backed 206 in the 2002 Rally of Great Britain, Rossi took it fairly easy. By 'fairly easy' read 'eleven minutes down by the second day'. To begin with he was slower than a wet weekend in Hamilton - ironically enough - and the strain and effort was telling on the gollywog-haired Italian. He described the early, torrentially sodden stages on Friday as being very long and draining, and requiring huge amounts of concentration, respect and patience. 'Just like the drive to Bologna Airport'. However, by Sunday he was setting comparable times to some of the WRC regulars, and while Rossi is in absolutely no danger whatsoever of actually being competitive anytime soon, there might be the makings of a half-decent rally driver there. In about five years, once he's become sufficiently bored with riding around in circles being pursued by half a dozen Hondas.

In the meantime, next year sees the return of the works Citroen team, plus Mitsubishi (if they can scrounge the cash), Peugeot and FIAT as Super 2000 teams, Subaru may end up on decent tyres (they're down at Bob Jane T-Marts as we speak), and Suzuki will debut their new WRC car aiming for going full-time in 2008, when they'll also be rejoined by Hyundai. So who'll come out on top?

Who else?












All hail Sebastian Loeb and the Citroen C4, 2007 World Rally Champions.
Better pencil him in for 2008 as well.

The Doctor is OUT.

Rated and slated

By now everyone with half a cerebral cortex and/or two-fifths of a clue knows full well that The Weak In Sport with Dr Yobbo™ is Your Only Source for up-to-the-minute sports news, views and booze-fuelled spews. But is The Weak In Sport with Dr Yobbo™ just wholly and solely about sport? Well, yeah. That's why it's called The Weak In Sport with Dr Yobbo™. Ignoramuses.

However, people still come up to me and say, Yobbo, is sport all you think about on a Hourly Daily basis? To which I of course answer that's Doctor Yobbo to you arsewipe, and you can take your You Am I references and stick them up your fundament. But no, it's not all about sport at The Weak In Sport with Dr Yobbo™. Despite what I just said before and stuff.

This Weak the Weak rifles through the dusty filing cabinet of Current Stuff and lets our eager readers in on the issues that matter. Ever felt uncomfortable about a controversial issue and wondered what your opinion should be? Worry no longer, you ignorant 'tard. Welcome to The Weak In Sport: Rated and Slated. Or, if you prefer, Slatered. Which presumably has something to do with an ignonimous departure from the scene in a haze of Charlie and the vapours from arthritis remedies.

OK, so most of it's still about sport - it's what it says on the label after all.


RATED
This Weak's imperial thumbs up go to:

Obscure, unpronouncable Czech Pilsners. They're spelt like the winning clue on the short-lived TV gameshow Wheel of Dyslexia. They're pronounced with the sound of Thor, Norse God of Thunder, gargling underwater with a mouthful of marbles. They taste like, really good, ay. Check out the Random Euro Shit aisle at Dan Murphys, take something home and tell me I'm wrong.

Phil Jaques. Consecutive hundreds against the Test-strength England attack. Come in Justin Langer, your time is up.

That new Commodore. It's a taxi. It's a rental car. It's a fleet runabout, a family trolley, a ubiquitous slab of metal. It's fucking gorgeous. It's the BMW 5-series that BMW couldn't figure out how to draw because their head of design Chris Mangle stuck all the design team's plastic rulers in the oven so the bastards can't draw a straight line anymore.

Jeremy Coney's pitch reports. He's on smack - he has to be - but for making a 30 second soundbite ref 22 yards of dirt thoroughly entertaining throughout the ICC Champions Trophy, much kudos. Likewise fat eejit Radar Riley's efforts trailing the field on-course at the Strayan Open over the weekend - some of the most inspired randomness ever to reach the airwaves. Though the reference to dipping his chips in Nanna's shagpile, or whatever he was on about, was a bit of a worry. Likewise anytime they actually put him on camera - ended up looking as drunk and tottery as he sounded.

Jose Mourinho. The world's greatest wind-up artist and purveyor of the don't-give-a-fuck attitude to end them all. More power to him. To best judge the impact of Mourinho on opposition teams, just have a chat to perennial European rivals Barcelona, who he's sledged out of contention in consecutive UEFA Champions League Of Champions League Of UEFA matchdays. Their midfield man Edmilson: "The worst thing about playing Chelsea is having to listen to Mourinho afterwards. He talks absolute bollocks. He should shut the fuck up." An outside chance for the world sledging title jointly held by Grenn McGlath, Skwarne and Marco Mattress.

Scarlett Johansson. For reasons completely different to the above.


SLATED
The Weak is royally not amused by:

Intelligent Design. Fairy stories masquerading as science, being taught to kiddies who don't know any better. Verging on child abuse.

Knuckles apologists. Seriously. Was Eddie that bad after all? You lot waged a campaign to get rid of him - Greg Growden of the SMH and Peter Jenkins of the Murdoch press - in favour of this fat old clown with less clue than Inspector Gadget and a game plan about as coherent and well-executed as the voice-over dubbing on the Flight Centre commercials?

Leaf blowers. Loud, wasteful and unnecessary. Use a broom you fucking lazy bastards.

The coaching of Richard Stuart. Tell me you couldn't do a better job than him in convicing the most talented rugby league team in history not to lose to outfits as rubbish as Great Britain (or to be more accurate, a couple of counties in the north of England) and New Zealand (for most of the game in Melbourne). Seems the Eastern Suburbs Chooks actually do know a shit coach when they see one, because they fired him and hired Chris Anderson. The organisation behind the Cronulla-The Shire Sharkies, being essentially a shower of 'tards, did the opposite.

Celebrity bullshit turning up on news broadcasts. TomKat's wedding. Madonna's re-enactment of the Stolen Generation. Brit 'n' K-Fed boganing up the place. How the fuck is this news, people? Get this shit off the 6pm bulletin.

The Killers. A clusterfuck of the worst of 1980s New Romantic whinge-pop and the high-pitched whining of emo, add to which dumber lyrics than a Vengaboys reunion gig and a practising Mormon as a frontman. Fuck me. Even Rock Star Colon Supernova suck less than these tools.

People hanging shit on Marcos Trescothick for being depressed and being dismissed from the Ashes tour, c&b the Black Dog, for 0. Likewise people hanging shit on Thommo for thinking he was hanging shit on Marcos Trescothick for being depressed, and being dismissed from the Ashes tour etc. Jeff Kennett: fuck off. As the man largely responsible for the perpetual levels of depression in the state of Victoria, you're not qualified to make any statements what-so-fucking-ever.

Victorians. Nuff said.

Graham Henry's ads on Sky Sports promoting the end-of-year All Blacks Eurotrip. Only those mired in NZ with regular access to Sky TV will know the true horror of these. Scenario: Ted Henry strolling pensively through a forest in black and white, haunting piano and strings underscoring his thoughts (echoey voiceover): 'They're a good side... It's a big challenge... I hate to lose... I want to win!...'
At one point in the ad before the England game he holds a rose, sniffs it, and turns to the camera: 'Beautiful... but dangerous.'
For the France game, we hear him think, 'They say its the country to visit if you're in love.' Then turns to the camera and tells New Zealand, 'But we're not very romantic. Are we.'
In short, the finest example ever seen of a man made completely of wood, in an ad made completely of cheese.

What do you think? I'm Tommy Smyth with a Y.

Actually no I'm not. If I was, I'd shoot myself.

The Doctor is OUT.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

...If Lillee don't get you then Thommo must. With the pre-Ashes sledging, if nothing else.

A week out from the first test in Brisvegas we take a look at the two teams, the coaching staff, the umpires and the grounds. Then we write some ill-considered crap about each of them. Why change a winning formula?

Firstly, both sides' First XIs, in order of those who handle the planks, the gloves, the(ir) balls, and the duty of warming the bench. And, of course, the poor suckers in charge of managing the egos, which with this lot would be like herding cats.












ENGERLAND

PLANKS
Andrew Strauss, opener
Chippy ex-Saffer, head hewn from granite in the Graeme Smith mould. Hates Graeme Smith. Scores buckets of runs. Arsehole.

Alistair Cook, top-order if in no way top-notch
Younger than my brother. Otherwise nondescript. Likely replacement for Stresscothick - can open (which presumably makes him a can opener).

Ian Bell, somewhere in the middle-order
Middle name: Ronald. Nickname: 'Belly'. Walking non-event.

Paul Collingwood, midfield enforcer
ODI specialist, latterly called up to the Test arena. Not exactly a master sculptor with tools in hand - less the artistry of Michelangelo, more the pragmatism of a lifestyle TV handyman, his batting style is all MDF and biscuit joins. Named after a AFL team best known for having complete wankers as fans, and chairmen.













This guy wanted to bone Jessica Rowe. And not even in that way either.
Choad.

Kevin Pietersen, down the back with the riff-raff
Another Yaapie refugee. Stupid hair, Bokke lineage, celebrity lifestyle, abundant talent in direct proportion to level of self-interest (indexed exponentially) - reputedly this England generation's answer to Tony Greig. Not that Tony Greig is a question in need of an answer (other than 'For the love of God, WHY?') in this or any other generation.

Andrew Flintoff, swings both ways
Large and in charge. Useful lower order tonk-merchant and seam-up quick bowler who made various arsey left-handers look a bit stoopid on English tracks circa mid-2005. Reputedly this England generation's answer to Ian Botham. Reputedly proving that this England generation is a piss-weak knockoff of thirty years ago.

GLOVES
Christopher Mark Wells Read, hiding behind the sticks
Selected on the basis of his ability to catch a cricket ball while standing behind the stumps, as distinct from the previous encumbent. Not selected on the basis of his being at all interesting. Has three first names, one of which is a spare surname, and none of which are interesting. His nickname is 'Reados'. The Australian team don't have a moratorium on shit nicknames, apparently.

BALLS
James Anderson, left-arm quick
A good, reliable ODI bowler, which is a polite way of saying he's as much of a Test bowler as Jack Newton. Fits in well to the current England team on account of his stupid haircut and ability to make Freddie Flintoff look good. Went OK in the warmup game against the SpeedingIsFuckenTops Blues despite the match being played on a pitch laid by the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority.


















SCG curator Groundskeeper Willie and his team preparing the square for the England game

Matthew Hoggard, right-arm relatively-quick
Chubby, flop-haired unit, nothing special. Decent outswinger to the righthanders, which on his last tour down here presented itself as a tasty looping inswinger to the lefties' pads which Haydos et al absolutely dined out on. Got his revenge last season in the Great Fluke of Twenty-Oh-Five, but will again be cannon fodder on flat Strayan decks.

Steve Harmison, right-arm fast
Has no neck. Seriously, look at the guy. They don't call him the White Gladstone Small for nothing.

Mudhsuden Singh Panesar, left-arm orthodox
Unlikely cult hero, beloved by media and Barmy Army alike, despite just being Phil Tufnell in a beanie. Inevitable target of pissed bogans bellowing inane racist abuse, like telling him he got off a stop too soon on the Underground, or calling him Phil Tufnell in a beanie. Cricinfo.com: "His batting is certainly not the worst England have had at No. 11." Considering some of the thumbless monkeys who've batted eleven for the Three Lions, that's damning with no praise whatsover.














Monty about to do something utterly unprecedented: catch a cricket ball

BENCH
Marcus Trescothick, opener-at-large
Retired hurt. And unhappy. And a little stressed, poor pet.
Other than that, big boofy left-hander, mostly harmless. Decent slipper. (Although The Weak prefers ugg boots.)

Robert Key, mid-table obscurity
Fat little ruddy-faced bugger. Scored a century vs Australia A in Hobart last time out here. Otherwise a waste of time, space and calories. Likely to be sent out here in place of the Thick One (see above). Would be better off if they sent Robert Smith. At least he has decent shot selection under pressure. And is thinner.





















Old Goths never die... it's part of the whole deal apparently. But they do get flabby and jowly and their mascara runs because they're so fat and sweaty all the time.

Geraint Jones, keeper of the faith
...The faith that the useless midget will actually catch the ball, which is rarely supported by what the Weak likes to call Actual Events. Born in PNG to Welsh parents, former understudy to Wade Seccombe at the Queensland Moo Cows With Bollocks. Mr Jones's work behind the stumps habitually results in more forlorn byes than the departures terminal at Sydney airport. Originally picked for his batting; when that went to shit, so did his first-team chances in last year's Ashes series. May yet get a guernsey if the England brains-trust (presuming they have either) decides to try and out-Gilly Gilly again.

Sajid Iqbal Mahmood, right arm vaguely-quick
Like most express bowlers of Pakistani descent, Saj Mahmood is tall and wiry, capable of busting out reverse swing, and is on performance enhancing drugs. Possibly. Saj (rhymes with 'sweaty vag', which can't be a coincidence) appears none too worried about racist sledging from pissed bogans after the character descriptions thrown his way by the British Pakistani crowds in their recent test series - think 'traitor' with a series of abusive prefixes and/or suffixes of your choice.

Ashley Giles, slow left-arm orthodox
But we're not here to discuss Giles' cognitive capacity or his religion, we're here to talk about his abilities as a cricketer. Which are like most private companies: limited. No better or worse than Monty Python but not really rating well in key minority demographics. His inclusion in the Test squad was ridiculed by SCG McGill as 'irrelevant'. Another instance of the pot-kettle nexus rearing its obsidian-shaded crown, MacDuff. Furthermore, you're not getting a run either, you big chinned tosser.

EGOS
Duncan Fletcher, coach
Wanker.















STRAYA

PLANKS
Matthew Hayden, opener
Tall, arrogant, God-bothering left-hander. Born in Kingaroy, a location otherwise famous solely for peanuts and Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Thinks he can cook. Marginally less annoying than Jamie Oliver. Only person in the past 10 years to have set a Test scoring record without being Brian Charles Lara. OK, so it was against Zimbabwe, but Lara got his against England. Twice. Now we're talking third world cricketing entities. Main weak points: his prophensity to play around his front pad, and his being from Queensland.
















Coming soon to a bargain bin out front of a bookstore near you.
(At least it's preferable to Steve Waugh's interminable bloody tour diaries.)

Justin Langer, opener
Little shit. Gets hit in the head a lot, proving either than his technique is suspect to short-pitched stuff, or that fast bowlers do have taste and discernment after all. Batting technique reminiscent of professional woodchopping, and about as interesting to watch... actually that's doing the fat blokes with the axes a great disservice. Brown-noses his fellow opener to the point where it's commonly believed he gives his favourite food as 'anything Haydos cooks'. Was appalling last Ashes tour, will probably be just as rubbish this time around. Make him go away. Please.

Ricardo Puntering, first drop
Face like a pug dog with a compulsion for getting into scraps, plays the same way. Has carried on the philosophy of Complete Arsehole Captaincy that Allan Border picked up from Ian Chappell and passed on to Steve Waugh. (Tubby had lost it down the back of the couch when filming a Fujitsu commercial.) Kept falling over for cheap LBWs early in his innings throughout the last Ashes. Would want to have fixed that or we'll send the lads around. Will be unceremoniously fired, disgraced, hung, drawn and quartered should the Poms leave with the Auld Urn still in their keeping. Fun to watch with bat in hand, though.

Damien Martyn, middle of the order, middle of the road
The Weak's rural and regional (aka Out In The Fuckin' Sticks) correspondent AJ Hooligan regards Martyn as the most elegant, graceful and technically correct batsman in the side. For a time there he was the most elegant, graceful and technically correct batsman OUT of the side. Didn't last long however, unfortunately. Threw toys from pram recently when Dennis Lillee dared to point out that half the Strayan outfit were in their mid-thirties, and as such, just might be eyeing off retirement before the next Ashes go-round. Will never been forgiven for ousting Dean Jones from the side on his debut. Or for subsequently giftwrapping the SCG test of 1993/94 to the Saffers with astonishingly poor shot selection in the face of the enemy (or at least Donald and de Villiers). Or single-handedly losing the Ashes to England with an accrual of 178 runs in all innings batted. In short, needs to score runs, or will be lynched.

Michael Hussey, middle order (give or take a slot)
Another gifted leftie, one of the fresh-faced young breed who've swept into the Australian XI in recent years; 'fresh-faced', as in 'remembers to shave' (memo Langer et al); 'young', as in 'not yet 35'. If he'd played in place of state teammate Martyn in the 2005 Ashes series, Australia would not have lost. Physiologically incapable of failing to score runs. (Now if that doesn't jinx him nothing will.)

Shane Watson, all-rounder (i.e. shit at everything)
Like state teammate and fellow all-rounder Symmo did before him, Watson has spent a long time in the Australian setup without actually producing anything to suggest he actually deserved the position, other than a reputation as being decently mediocre with both bat and ball. A good all-rounder, like Freddy Fuckoff, is worth having. An indifferent all-rounder, like Ian Harvey, Shane Lee, and both Watson and Symmo earlier in their careers, is a waste of a lower-order batsman. Watson may prove he belongs under the former and not the latter in this series, but right now it's a little from Column A and a little from Column B.

GLOVES
Adam Gilchrist, catcher/designated hitter
Lismore be representin', y'all. Big ears, big bat, colourful gloves, even more colourful technique. Enjoy it while it lasts; Gilly can't have that many years left in him now.















Age might be catching up with him, granted, but at least he's working on a career after cricket

BALLS
Shane Warne, right-arm wrist-spin
Unknown youngster. Turns it a bit, apparently. Some weight issues.

Brett Lee, right-arm Ludicrous Speed
Brett Lee does seven Weet-Bix for breakfast. Imagine if he ate them instead of defiling them with his night tools? Somehow, when noone was looking, Blee turned into the all-rounder his fat brother never quite amounted to.

Glenn McGrath, right-arm glacial
Older than God, but with better control of line and length. Has finally overcome a chronic sense-of-humour failure that debilitated his likeability for much of the 1990s. Currently shares world champion status in the discipline of sledging with S.K. Warne of Hampshire, Victoria and Australia, and M. Materazzi of Internazionale di Milano and Italia.














Sledging is tops

Stuart Clark, right-arm decently quick
Like McGrath but less creaky. Will get a run if Bracken doesn't, and vice versa. Hopefully there'll be someone left standing after all this who'll be able to roll the arm over for NSW in the state games - MacGill can't bowl from both ends, no matter how much the other side might want them too.

BENCH
Phil Jaques, opener-in-waiting
Give him the gig, for fuck's sake. Even if it's just to end the homoerotic Christian love-in that constitutes the top of the order. Nuggety left-hander, technique unorthodox but sturdy. Could have played for England. Didn't. Fuckin' legend. Finally got a run when Langer missed the Boxing Day Test last year, whereopon he had to introduce himself to his skipper before the game.

Simon Katich, anywhere but here
As above. Not the test debut stuff, but the nuggety unorthodox lefty schtick for sure.

Brad Hodge, somewhere in the middle
Victorian.

Michael Clarke, Last Of The Recognised Batsmen™
Centuries on debut, both at home and away. Since then, fuck all. Flashy, impatient, good to watch, not so good to rely upon. Needs a fuckin' haircut. Single-handedly devalued the Allan Border Medal by winning it the same year he got the arse as a first-choice batsman. Can bust out some random left-arm tweak on occasion that confuses people no end, like the six Indians he got for nine runs in Mumbai.

Andrew Symonds, has a go at everything (including the ones Warney turns down)
Undisputed cult-hero heavyweight champion of the land, on the basis of some fearsome hitting, that infamous 140-odd in the World Cup vs the Pakis, and being drunk all the time. Not as orthodox as fellow Bender of Bananas (notwithstanding his time as a Tasphobian), the elementary Mr Watson, in either technique or approach; probably counts against him in the Test arena, though he's now a fixture in the ODI team. Could have played for England. Didn't. Another fuckin' legend.

Mitchell Johnson and/or Shaun Tait, too young to know better
Young quicks, blisteringly rapid, scattergun approach to line and length, only to be used under adult supervision. Smokies for a Gabba/WACA start if the first morning grass is ankle-length and swaying in the breeze. Qld Bulls Hit captain Jimmy Maher has declared in recent media commitments that Australia would be 'mad not to pick' Mitchell Johnson. Then again, this is the same Jimmy Maher who turned up on the Footy Show full as a very full boot, and when Fat Arse Vautin asked how he was travelling, pronounced "I'm as full as a coon's Valiant".















When reached for comment, the aforementioned coon's Valiant responded that the opinions of Jimmy Maher were not of any interest, as Maher had consistently proved to be a failure at international level. Furthermore, he was also a banjo-playin', moonshine-sippin', cousin-fuckin' yeehaa who could fuck off back to Innisfail, if there was anything left of it after Larry, any time he liked.

Nathan Bracken, left-arm swinger (no not like that)
A good, reliable ODI bowler. Stupid hair. Would go well in this England side, actually.

Stuart MacGill, isn't Warnie
Big-chinned Westralian transplant, now based at the ground his initials spell out (it's easier to remember where to turn up on match days). Drinks a lot of wine. Talks a lot of bollocks. Isn't as good as Skwarnie. Has barely two shots in his batting kitbag, the splayed-elbows forward defence and the hideously unco comedy haymaker over midwicket. Despite all that, or maybe because of it, SCG MacG should be a moral inclusion in any Australian XI.















DO something, MacDuff

EGOS
John Buchanan, accountant
The Weak has long been of the position that the only role of the 'coach' in cricket is to take you and your compadres home afterwards, woefully off-chops, with one of your number hanging their pasty arse out of the window and the rest of you leading the massed choir in a lusty rendition of "I wish that all the ladies... were cows on the farm... and I was the farmer... I'd..." Anyway. Buchanan has taken to his role as Australian coach with his model seemingly being Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger - the dispassionate, analytical approach, the endless mind games, the unbearable tedium of watching him in press conferences. Warney thinks he's shit, and that's enough for us. Again, make him go away. Please.


THE UMPIRES STRIKE BACK

And now a quick visit with the men in the middle:

Billy Bowden (New Zealand)
Creepy. Don't let your kids near him. I'm telling you, that ain't arthritis that makes it crooked like that.

Aleem Dar (Pakistan)
Short. Usually wrong. If he's standing at your end, just hope for the best.

Steve Bucknor (West Indies)
The greatest umpire still standing in world cricket. Wrong just as often as any other bastard, but much, much cooler about it.

Rudi Koertzen (South Africa, or Zimbabwe, or somewhere where they 'tork lork thus')
A message for you, Rudi: why'd you lose the beard, bro? That looked cool. Noone fucks with a old grey haired dude with a white hat and a big fuck-off beard. Mind you, nobody fucks with Rudi on the best of days.

Darrell Hair (Australia)
A curly one. Recently cut short.




















Now he'd figured out how to download the Paris Hilton sex tape onto his new video iPod, Bowden was showing it off to everyone


AROUND THE GROUNDS

Our man Nostrildramas (heavily disguided) gives his picks for the likely results this time around:

First Test: Brisbane Cricket Ground, Nov 23-27
The ground better known as the Gabbo* will turn on a sticky first morning, a lively strip in a queasy shade of green. Both sides will play plenty of quicks, and there'll be tears before teatime for any captain dumb enough to win the toss and bat - they'll be fielding by four. For all those who'll be stewing at home watching Pommies sitting in the seats they couldn't get: just remember, the only beer available in the ground will be XXXX Gold.

*This is either a rather clever Simpsons reference or a rather stupid typo - we'll leave our dear reader(s) (if any) to figure out which.

Second Test: Adelaide Oval, Dec 1-5
Pitch will be vaguely lively for half a morning, a road for four days, then will break up and turn on the last. Buckets of runs to be scored, particularly if the cowards have the ropes in; if not, cricket anoraks worldwide will get a collective anticipatory half-mongrel from the prospect of being able to scribe a FIVE ALL RUN down to the long straight boundaries into their scoring books. Fuckin' losers. Troublingly, England usually win Adelaide; more positively, they usually lose all the others.

Third Test: WACA Ground, Dec 14-18
This will be a bone-white strip of concrete, with lots of pace, bounce and runs. Expect both teams to run with as many fast bowlers as they can fit on the team bus to the ground, and a symphony of chin music from all involved. Ten points for the first guy to ping the shield on the front of the helmet. Double if it's a six-footer like Haydos.

Fourth Test: Melbourne Cricket Ground, Dec 26-30
Ah, the Boxing Day Test. By now, all going as expected, the Ashes will be safely back in Strayan keeping, all of you will be drunk, and Dr Yobbo will be a father. We didn't say it was all good news for mankind. Bill Lawry will bang on about the fantastic Victorian crowds, ignoring the fact that Melbourne's such a fuckin' hole people will turn up to anything to break the tedium.

Fifth Test: Sydney Cricket Ground, Jan 2-6
Too late too late will be the cry, when the Ashes series has passed you by. The entire ex-pat Pom population of Bondi turns up only to find the Ashes long gone and Skwarne and MacDuff ripping it past their hapless homesick losers at right angles.

And then there'll be a bunch of one-dayers, with the NZ Black Caps making up the threesome. Quite apt really: England's ODI side are fucked. Australia to beat NZ in the finals, but the Kiwis might pinch a game out of the three.

So it is written.

The Doctor is OUT.

Sing when you're minging

Only eight more sleeps until Ashes Day One, folks. That's eight more sleeps until Freddy Fuckoff wins the toss, England bats and are all out before tea. With a nick-nack paddy-whack etc. Altogether now: They've got better songs than us, doo-dah, doo-dah. Do you think we give a toss, oh-doo-dah-dayyy.

THE MEMORY ROMAINS
Match of the Weak in the Premiership saw Arsenal host Liverpool at the Plummett Airways Stadium, Norf Laaarnd'n. Arsenal are yet to lose at their new home ground since moving from Highbury (aka 'The Library') Stadium at the start of the season. For their part, Liverpool have played half a dozen away games so far this season and have managed to accrue the stupendous return of... one point. Garnered from one draw, five losses and absolutely no wins whatsoever. Liverpool's shitbox away form has been blamed on many things - coach Rafa Benitez' squad rotation policy, the poor form of captain and midfield general Stevie Gerrard, not having Harold Kewell's hairdo around the place for comic relief on the training pitch - but the culprit, as ever, is patently obvious. Liverpool play like shit away from home because they're asked to play looking like shit away from home - their pus-yellow away shirt looks like Romania on a bad day. Like the day at the '98 World Cup the Romanians all dyed their hair blonde after they beat England - and went on to play even more shit than they looked, losing to Croatia.





















Not a good look, on any level


















As above - in fact the Pool away strip's so fuckin' ugly this one guy just started to whale on Stevie G out of sheer aesthetic disgust

So Arsenal went on to win three-blot - no change there then - leaving most observers to ponder the inevitable impenetrables from the fixture. How good are Arsenal when their opponents allow them to play football? Are Liverpool the ultimate 'cup team' - brilliant on their day, appalling the other 364, and as consistent as freshly minted dog sick? And is 'ASNL' the ultimate cop-out from TV networks attempting to provide a truncated team-name abbreviation for the score-counter in the top corner? Granted, the other options aren't that appealing. There's only two of them. One option is ARSE. The other is A'NAL. Either way, they're buggered... which is roughly how Liverpool are feeling at the moment.















"You expect me to wear THIS hideous thing? C'est le merde!"


ENGLAND ARE RUBBISH
And on so many levels. But we'll begin with egg-chasin', the game they play in Heaven. Not sure how they fit all those fat bastards inside a choccy-coated icecream, but knowing them rugger buggers, no points for guessing what happens with the big stick. England played Argentina last weekend and lost by the same score that Australia beat Italy by, suggesting that at best, England are as good at rugby as a bunch of poncing, self-obsessed, promenading mincers more interested in cultivating their hairdos than playing rugby. And they're probably not much better than Italy either. The Argentina result was allegedly a shock-horror result for the ongoing train smash that is English rugby, or English sport in general, but the actual surprise isn't that great; the last time England actually defeated Argentina was in the Falklands.


INSERT GRATUITOUS USE OF THE TERM 'CHEESE EATING SURRENDER MONKEYS'
Meanwhile, World Number One met World Number Two and did Number Two all over them. New Zealand have played France in France twice in the last 24 months, in each case with the pair ranked 1 and 2 in the world, for a net score of ninety-two points to nine. Memo to the French rugby association: stop scheduling games against the All Blacks at this time of year. You don't need to honour Armistice Day by surrendering to anyone in a snappy uniform just out of habit.

As for the Wallabies... uh, yeah. Fuck they're terrible. Even if the Italian 'diving like Louganis' gene clearly crosses the oval ball/round ball divide, judging by the Oscarescent flop enacted by the guy Brendan Cannon chinned. It's time for action, people. We could fire Knuckles, we could bring back Nobody, we could stick the whole team in a hessian sack and beat them with a length of pipe just for entertainment... but what we need is a much, much more incisive, innovative, plan. And I gots me one.

Anyone know if any of those All Blacks have an Aussie grandmother?

Even a great-grandmother would be fine. All else fails we can probably Photoshop the paperwork.





















"Am I not Kiwi enough?..."

Anyway NZ, swap you this guy for one of your halves? Dan? Byron? Fuck it, we'd even take Steve Devine back since you're not really using the bastard


ENGLAND ARE RUBBISH, PART TWO
Which brings us to the Current Ashes Holders (and don't that just make you wanna spit) and their warmup game against Australia A, better known as the New South Wales cricket team. (Use of the name 'SpeedBlitz Blues' will be punished with large volumes of indiscriminate violence.) Following Phil Jaques' back-to-back centuries against the England bowling attack, it seems the only thing missing from his overall game appears to be a Baggy Green. Or being mid-thirties, unshaven, obnoxious and fervently God-squad, which seems to be the established means of securing an innings-opening slot in the Australian first XI. Meanwhile, Marcus Stresscothick's bottle remains at large. Also missing without trace at press time are Freddy Flintoff's away-swinger, Kevin Pietersen's humility, and any point to Ian Bell.

















Man, that's some bad skunk


GIBBER NOW, PAY LATER
Largely ignored amidst higher-profile stories of the Weak was the retirement of former MotoGP 'first loser' Sete Gibernau, largely because noone really gives an arse about him. Gibernau, Rossi's bitch in 2003/04, had an appalling season this year for Ducati, blighted with injuries sustained in the first corner pileup at Catalunya which also bashed up Marco Melandri, Loris Capirossi and the world's ambitions of not having a Cletus from Kentucky winning the biggest prize in two-wheeled motorsport. Gibber's season was also blighted by him not being very good any more; teammate Capirossi, injured or not, strung together three wins on the same bike (more, of course, than 'champion' Hayden) and even that old bugger Bayliss who they got across from World Superbike managed to win the last GP of the year - on Gibernau's bike.















Bayliss riding it like he stole it. Given that he's a former house painter from Taree, not a huge departure there

So Sete's been sent packing in favour of young Kurri muncher Casey Stoner, and rather than turning out for a B-grade squad like Kawasaki, has decided to pull stumps. Making world rally ace and part-time factory Yamaha rider Valentino 'Stig' Rossi into something of a Nostrildramas character; after the pair barrelled into each other on the last corner of the season-opening Spanish GP in '04, Rossi declared the precious Spaniard would never win another MotoGP race. A big call considering Gibernau had won half a dozen races in the previous two years and was his closest championship rival... but as it turned out, Rossi was proved correct.
If only he'd said it about Hayden instead.


EEJIT OF THE WEAK
Finally, in keeping with the Mo' Sport theme from last Weak's award to pissed Canadian bogan Paul Tracy, this Weak's award goes to whoever the hell designs the circuits for the A1GP people, particularly that used in last weekend's inaugural (and probably final) street race in Beijing, on which it was easier to pass gallstones than cars. Not only did they decide to stick the manhole covers down with Blu-Tac, these lads also stuck in a hairpin so tight that some teams considered fitting handbrakes and getting their drivers to bust out the old Scandinavian flick.















No prizes for guessing which nation busted out the 'safety orange' paintjob. Rumours that the Dutch team are about to sign a sponsorship deal with Yellow Cabs of Brisvegas remain unconfirmed.

And yeah, that's our lot next in the queue in the green and gold conveyance with the Fosters stickers - the Strayan team scored a podium with young Karl Reindler steering, swerving, ducking and dodging, and trying to pretend he wasn't in any way German.


Der Doktor is OUT.

News of the Weak

This Weak we're following in the finest traditions of LESBN's flagship show SportsWanker: sure it's just our usual superficial and libellious wrap of sports news, but this time we're flogging off our coverage to the highest bidder. This massive sellout is brought to you by IMG Sports Marketing Incorporated.


English Premier League News
Brought to you by Fudge Hair Styling Products and Brett Lee Chunky Gold Chains Ltd

In Premier League news, perennial crap London side Tottenham Hotspur beat competition superpowers Chelsea at White Hart Lane in the Premiership for the first time since... ever. The last time Chelsea lost to Spurs, the Premier League was still a twinkle in Murdoch's eye, Paul Gascoigne was thin (relatively) and first division football was stacked with more mullets than a south coast fish co-op. It was 1990, time for the Guru. (That's Guru Josh not Eric Grothe). Many pundits have asked how this could possibly have happened - table-topping CFC falling to bottom-half Spurs, at the ground known to Blues fans as Three Point Lane. Who better to ask than Chelski Football Blub coach Jose Moaninho? Media besieged The Special One (aka Designer Stubble Man), who offered this explanation for the defeat:
"Tottenham scored two goals, and we only scored one."
That's why they pay him the big bucks, folks.


Melbourne Cup Report
Brought to you by Pedigree Pal and Clag Glue

Owners and connections of pre-race favourite Efficient apparently paid $153,000 to get their horsey a late start in yesterday's Big One. Not that Efficient at all, really. Particularly when the conveyance pulled up lamer than the Ronnie Johns Half Hour on race morning and had to be scratched. Short priced favourite on the NSW tote at race start was Metropolitan/Caulfield Cup double-winner and well-known typographical error Tawqeet, who responded to the favouritism by rarking up in the gates, then 'running' like he'd been fed on a diet of Rohypnol, cement, and Phillip Ruddock's speeches. The result at the end of 3200 metres was a musical 1-2 for Japan, with Nippon nag Delta Blues edging out stablemate Pop Rock. Some found the musical overtones of the two Japanese horses somewhat ironic given that Japanese music is utterly, utterly shit. However, more controversially, it appears that the result of this year's Cup has actually been foreshadowed in every album released by John Spencer's Blues Explosion in the past ten years. In an exclusive post-race interview, Spencer declared "The BLUES is STILL NUMBER ONE!" and staggered off to find some Colombian go-fast. If not some Horse. Ahem.














John Spencer (not to be confused with Don Spencer who sang 'Bob the Kelpie')

How to play the Blues Explosion Drinking Game*:
1. Go to one of their gigs.
2. Every time John Spencer randomly bellows "BLOOOOOZE EXPLOSION!!!", drink.
3. Fall over.


* Courtesy Jimmy and Deon from The D4


ICC Champions Trophy Results
Brought to you by Indian Sour Grapes

In a weekend where every and any green-and-gold outfit with an interest in oval-shaped balls made complete arses of themselves, it was blessed relief when Australia managed to win something... anything... even a tournament previously won by the New Zealand Black Caps... when they Windexed the Windies to claim the Champions Trophy, proving once again that the Poon-Tang Clan ain't nuthin' to fuck with. Australia had never before won the ICC's second tier trophy (pretty sloppy seconds at that), a fact which went completely unreported by all media outlets. Their cause was helped by the Windies batting lineup doing what they do best: going apeshit in the first 10 overs then disintegrating like Dubya's grasp on reality as the game progressed. Windies coach Bennett King, a man with two surnames and no first name, attributed their new-found flamboyance (as well as their traditional total lack of substance) to their new batting coach Col Apps. Apps joined the Windies coaching staff after many years refining the work of the Black Caps top order, and his work is still in evidence today.

Meanwhile, Indian media have launched into the canary yellow juggernaut for failing to show due deference to Indian cricket board president Fatcat Noseintrough on the winners' podium. The Australians, understandably and discreetly, shoved the spotlight-hogging glory-felcher off the dias in their haste to get their hands on the silverware, jump up and down for the cameras, then fuck off back to the dressing sheds for a coldie or twelve. This hasn't gone down well at all in India, with media and former greats taking every opportunity to pile into them. India's chief cricket selector Dilip Vengsarkar declared "You expect such behaviour from uneducated people. If they wanted to pose for photographs, they could have politely requested him. This is appalling." Sachin Tendulkar added: "I was not watching the proceedings but from what I heard, it was unpleasant and uncalled for." Which would make him highly qualified to comment, of course.















Fuck off out of the way you fat curry-munching bastard, this is OUR trophy

Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar, who was actually there at the time, waded into the verbals saying he was 'hurt' by the incident and was 'not amused' when an Australian player greeted the Indian board president with 'Hiya buddy'. (Anyone guess who that might have been, readers? Email your answers to the Symmo's A Fuckin Legend Competition care of the webshite you are now watching.) Gavaskar went on, and on: "Just receive it quietly. You are not in your country. In India, we respect our elders. Certain decorum has to be maintained, you have to show respect. Would they have done such a thing to their prime minister?"

You don't know Symmo that well, do you Sunny?

In completely and utterly unrelated news, tournament hosts India were an abject failure in their efforts to win the thing, getting pantsed by both Australia and the West Indies and only managing to avoid last in their group due to a marginally better run rate than the worst ODI side going around, England.


Willie Mason Judiciary Update
Brought to you by Ritalin, or the lack thereof

ADHD appears to be genetically related to the ability to talk total bollocks, judging by the efforts of Bulldogs enforcer W. Mason over the past few weeks. Having managed to piss off the entire nation of Aotearoa with his comments over Nathan Fien, Brent Webb and white guys doing the haka (to the point where one South Island columnist came out with the ultimate insult: "Willie, say what you like, but you're still an Aucklander"), he then came up with the judiciary defence to end them all when he was called up in front of the beak this week: self-defence. Having thrown the only punch in the fight. And having levelled his opponent with it. Oddly enough, while the excuse of pre-emptive self defence seems to work if you're the woefully incompetent Leader of the Free World (TM Fox News and Affiliates Inc), it doesn't if you're a rabid thug in a Kangaroos jumper - Willie won't play again before the final. One wonders if the best resolution would have been for Fielden to get the first punch in after all; the Pom might have got a lucky one in and busted his jaw, so we'd get at least a couple of weeks without having to listen to Willie's Wide World of Bollocks.


Pissed Bogan Alert
Brought to you by Cheap Wine and a Three-Day Goat
(what the hell were those bastards on about?)

The Weak's favourite story of the week is actually not made up at all. It concerns ChampCar series (the ones which do laps around the beer garden at the Gold Coast Indy) driver Paul Tracy, whose work The Weak has appreciated over many years. Many years of driving like a complete lunatic, barrelling sideways into turns, pulling off ludicrous passing moves, trashing cars into concrete walls, swearing in interviews, getting into punchups with other drivers, and generally throwing himself into top-flight open-wheeler racing like the ice hockey player he probably should have been.

















Tracy tried to 'fit in' on his recent NASCAR debut by busting out a bit of circle work

The chunky Canuck has always brought a dash of NHL (and not a little WWF) to the Champ Car World Series; this Weak he's brought a little bit of Symmo as well. Tracy will miss the season-ending race in Mexico City after breaking his shoulder in training at home in Las Vegas. By 'in training', of course, we mean 'trying to jump a golf cart off a sand dune'. While being drunk as 40 bastards at the time.

Paul Tracy, the Weak salutes you.


The Doctor is OUT.