The Saturday Preview

Right, this is going to become a feature of the blog I am thinking. Every Saturday morning I will write a preview or offer some predictions on the chances of my teams this coming weekend.

A bit of background first, as I like to spread the love I support a lot of teams. Here is a pretty comprehensive list; The Chiefs, The Canes, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, Wellington Phoenix, The Warriors, Arsenal and Oldham Athletic. At some stages during the year I can have something like seven of my teams playing on any given weekend, when they all lose (which regularly happens) shit gets depressing. Add to that list NZ teams and my weekends can be overtaken by sport, however I am yet to have anyone convince me that that is not what weekends were invented for.

So this weekend we have the Nix taking on CCM at home tonight. The Kiwis v The Roos at Brisbane, The ABs v Scotland and Arsenal and Oldham carrying on their seasons.

First of all then the Nix. In terms of home performances it can't get much worse than the capitulation v Brisbane 10 days ago. We were woeful but up against a team who is playing the kind of football the A-League just doesn't see. A gutsy win v Perth hopefully got things back on track and we need to continue tonight. Mariners games are never particularly exciting so hopefully our boys can do something tonight, would be great to see Iffy continue his gradual return to form. I still get the feeling he is trying to do to much and perhaps he just needs to pull the trigger a little earlier before the two defenders that inevitably end up on him have time to settle. Would love to see another big performance from Jade North tonight, im yet to see how he is the Socceroos starting CB at the moment. Maybe that just goes to prove the Socceroos aren't as good as they think they are.
In the end my prediction is for a 2-1 win to the Nix with Iffy and Boom Boom getting 1 each.

The Kiwis were woeful last week, just really bad. It was disappointing as I had gone up to Auckland for the game and loved the new Eden Park. We were just never in it and Australia did what you expect of them, they were clinical and took opportunities that we were only to happy to keep throwing at them. The bottles that the crowd threw at them they weren't so happy to receive. (Complete media beat up this week on the bottle thing by the way. Ive been involved in way better bottle throws at Eden Park than that) Kiwis need to be enthusiastic and tough, belt the Aussies around a bit and get the momentum. League is all about momentum and we have the kind of team to take advantage of it if we can get it.
I think the Kangaroos will probably be to strong, and they wont want to lose at Suncorp again (on that note, why whenever we play Australia do we not just have the world cup trophy sitting on the bench?) so I think the Roos by 6.

The ABs should be to strong for Scotland. The major interest in this game for me lies in a couple of players; Liam Messam, SBW (as part of a combination with Conrad) and Hosea Gear. Mess is a talent, there is absolutely no doubting that but I am not sure his style suits this All Black pattern. Kaino is a success at 6 because he is physical and muscles up, that isn't Liams game. SBW was good I thought last week, him not doing enough was preferable to what I was expecting where he was going to try to much. I dont think he is a centre, certainly not outside Ma'a anyway and 2nd 5 inside Conrad is where he can be at his best. Hosea was outstanding for me last weekend, showed the kind of game he has been showing domestically for a while. Unfortunately the play didn't go his way enough after the first 20 as the game lost its shape. In saying that he should have gone looking for more work.
ABs by 15 I think. But its the performance that matters, the pattern we play when we are at our best is nigh on unstoppable but unfortunately we haven't put that on the field for more than 30-50 minutes since we put the Jaapies away at the start of the tri-nations. If we do it tomorrow it could be an aboslute bath.

Arsenal just need to win, end of. They can't keep dropping points and expecting to stay in the race. Last season we were still in it towards the business end because we got lucky and United and Chelsea kept dropping points. We need to put together performances that win football games. End of story.

Re the Black Caps tonight, yesterday was good but another 50 or 60 runs would have been preferable. We need another 200 at least today and a lot of that will come down to Jesse Ryder I think. If we got through the first session this morning and scored 60 or 70 for the loss of only one more wicket I would love to see Jesse come out after lunch and attack. Its great to wear a team down as Timmy did so successfully yesterday but to win test matches you have to land punches. A good session from Jesse and Dan could be that punch to get us to 450-500 and put us in a position to really attack.

Thats about all for now, im trying to think of ways to be funnier and/or more concise but at the moment I start typing and I just keep going.

Lata!