Friday, October 20, 2006

Round Nine Tipping

Righto, at a bare minimum I'll keep up my tipping, which as well as being indulgent fun will provide a thread for people to comment on the games upon if they wish.

Firstly I shall congratulate myself for roaring into the lead, now two points ahead of my son Jacob. We both picked three results, but I picked the score of the Queensland vs Perth game. Newcomer to the competition Drsimmo didn't make the scoreboard. Hope you have another go mate. The system is 1 point for a correct result and 3 points for a correct score. So so far it's me on 12, Jacob on 10 and Drsimmo on 7.

My tips for this week:
Central Coast vs Perth Glory
Draw 1:1

Sydney FC vs Melbourne Victory
Melbourne 0:3

Queensland Roar vs Newcastle Jets
Queensland 3:1

Adelaide United vs New Zealand
Adelaide 4:1

Jacob's tips:
Central Coast vs Perth Glory
Perth 0:2

Sydney FC vs Melbourne Victory
Melbourne 0:2

Queensland Roar vs Newcastle Jets
Queensland 2:0

Adelaide United vs New Zealand
Adelaide 2:0

I must say it's a bit disapointing that we won't be seeing Zhang run on at Suncorp on Sunday. As well as being a classy striker, he's hugely entertaining to watch.

The greater concern to the Roar's momentum is the loss of Murdocca to injury. The engine room of Roar's success has been him and Matty in the midfield, and Miron is going to be sweating when he makes the necessary changes. Still I trust Miron - I think he's a clever bugger, and he certainly has no shortage of troops to choose and mix. The engine room metaphor is sort of Miron's by the way: "I believe that the midfield is the most important part of the team as there is no point having flashy tyres and upholstery if the engine is no good."

Anyway, I will be writing some sort of existential report of the game at Suncorp, where I'll be with Jacob and a few of his mates.

For all the games, a prayer to Johnny, the patron saint of Australian football: may all the players play their best, fairest football, and none be injured.

By the way, as a post-script, thanks to the commentors who wished me well in my new job. Jacob is very pleased that I won't be joining the army or something (I was considering that a while ago), but also insists that I at least have to blog about the games we attend. To Wes, I think we are all still very spoiled, especially by the ongoing bloggery of Tony and Mike. Without these blogs the available analysis of football from an Aussie perspective would be rather weak in my opinion. James, also an excellent source, has been quiet for a while. Hey mate, we need ya... have you got a girl friend or something?

Postscript 2: I'm half way through Pele's autobiography, my train and lunch hour reading. I'll review it more elaborately if I get time, but it's a really beautiful read, about a special bloke and about football yeah, but also about life and goodness.

Cheers.

Labels: ,

6 Comments:

Blogger drsimmo said...

Okay, I have to better this week, I do need the joy of winning :-)

CCM v Perth: draw 1-1

Sydney v Melbourne: Sydney 2-1

Queensland v Newcastle: Qld 2-1

Adelaide v NZ: Adelaide 3-1

Extra predictions (do I get any extra points?)
Damien Mori will not score this week.
Sydney to overcome all the off-pitch drama - it is a grudge match after all.
Newcastle to score first, but Qld to dominate.
NZ to actually score a goal. Watch out for their new Ghanian! But Adelaide just too good.

October 20, 2006 10:33 am  
Blogger Hamish Alcorn said...

Righto Drsimmo, if you get all that right I'll give ya an extra two points. If you get most of it right I'll give you a point. But no arguing with the ref. ;-)

Thanks for playing.

October 20, 2006 6:13 pm  
Blogger john said...

Hey Hamish
I conjoled the rugby league fans at work to form a tipping comp at the start of the season. It gets them at least a bit interested in our team.

Coincidently, I tipped almost identically to you this week. Although 1 goal margins pay off best on average.

Also I bought two football books this week:
How to score by Ken Bray (about the science of strikers and probability of scoring from certain distances, set pieces etc) - be able to bore everyone with this info.
Plus Pierluigi Collina's The rules of the game. An autobiography by a world cup ref - ie how he feels when the crowd boos him etc

October 20, 2006 10:18 pm  
Blogger Hamish Alcorn said...

Thanks John. Feel free to spice up the Football Down Under Tipping Competition by submitting your tips here by comment or email (if by email I'll just include them in the main post).

Bray's book does sound a bit dry for me just now, but please let me know what you think of Collina's book when you've read it. Prima facie it sounds like an interesting and worthwhile perspective.

So far I'm looking out for three books. A Season in Verona by Tim Parks, recommended by Guido, Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, recommended by Djecker, and the fictional Target Man by columnist Brian Glanville, recently reviewed by Mike Salter. Now working in a seriously enormous second hand bookshop gives me a good chance to find these over time.

In reference to the game this evening, I'm pleased for Central Coast (quite aside from the tipping I love to see an underdog win) but quite shocked by the injuries of Jason Petkovic, who has broken his leg, and Simon Colosimo. I don't think the cliche, "adds insult to injury" is appropriate in this case either, as clearly it was injury that was added to insult. Journalists are not really very clever, as a rule.

Cheers, and good night.

October 20, 2006 10:42 pm  
Blogger Mike Salter said...

Hi Hamish,

I can heartily recommend both A Season with Verona and Fever Pitch. Tim Parks's book gets a bit bogged down in irrelevant detail now and then, but it's certainly revealing - and I'm fascinated with Italy and Italian football, so I enjoyed it enormously...

Fever Pitch is in a class of its own, though. Brilliantly written and wonderfully observant.

October 20, 2006 11:40 pm  
Blogger The Round Ball Analyst said...

Hamish,

Totally concur with your sentiments re the missing Mass. I thought Recchia wasn't too bad last year, particularly as a right back, just needed some work on his fitness. Also played a couple of games in midfield, so Miron might see some adaptability in him.

Enjoy the Roar-Jets, am off to Syd-Melb

October 21, 2006 3:57 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home