- 07:29 AM
- 11/05/24
| Name: | Huw Morris |
|---|---|
| Location: | Oxford, UK |
| Member since: | February 04, 2002 |
| Last visit: | September 17, 2015 |
salmacis has posted 35 links and 617 comments to SportsFilter and 5 links and 129 comments to the Locker Room.
It's Salford City Reds and Celtic Crusaders!: The Rugby Football League has announced which 14 teams will be awarded a licence to compete in Superleague 2009-2011. The existing 12 clubs have all been selected, plus Salford City Reds and Celtic Crusaders (from Bridgend, South Wales). Missing out are Widnes, Leigh, Halifax, Featherstone, and Toulouse. Wakefield and Castleford must be relieved, but the inclusion of Celtic over Widnes is a huge risk, as the RFL try to expand the game into new areas - in this case, a tradionally rugby union area. PS - Can we have a "rugby" category? Pretty please?
posted by salmacis to other at 10:17 AM on July 22, 2008 - 6 comments
Rob Green: 21 days that changed my life.: This summer West Ham's goalkeeper did without the traditional footballer's holiday and went instead to Africa to work with a charity that helps the truly disadvantaged – and uses football to get its message across. Here Rob Green describes an experience that was both shattering and ultimately uplifting.
posted by salmacis to soccer at 10:29 AM on July 17, 2008 - 6 comments
Drunk referee shown the red card.: (video link)
posted by salmacis to soccer at 03:41 PM on July 14, 2008 - 8 comments
The $6 billion heist: "All in all he [Bernie Ecclestone] took US$3.25 billion out of Formula One thanks to his deals with Mosley. And this on top of the US$1.7 billion he had earned from the APM deals and the US$1 billion he had received as commission for his companies. By the time 2007 closed, since Mosley had become FIA president in 1991, Ecclestone had extracted nearly US$6 billion in profits from Formula One. One astute observer said: 'It is the biggest heist in history.' The same observer reckoned Ecclestone was legitimately entitled to only US$1 billion. He said: 'Ecclestone could have been a billionaire without Mosley’s help, but that wasn’t enough.' ”
posted by salmacis to auto racing at 04:39 AM on April 04, 2008 - 3 comments
New badge for Tottenham Hotspur.: Just like local rivals Chelsea and Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur have unveiled a new badge. The logo "Audere est Facere", which translates as "to dare is to do", has been left off the new badge in favour of a retro design. What do you think? An improvement? Too retro?
posted by salmacis to soccer at 12:39 PM on January 20, 2006 - 10 comments
Well it depends- Italian players may well be paid a salary *after* tax. So contractually, if the Government imposes tax rises, it may well be up to the clubs to pay. Unfair, maybe, but it's the clubs' fault for offering such contracts in the firtst place. Italian footballers wouldn't be the first employees to resist a pay cut.
posted by salmacis at 03:24 AM on August 20, 2011
Is there a reason why Europe generally seems to win the fourballs/foursomes and USA wins the singles?
posted by salmacis at 05:41 AM on October 05, 2010
No need to get sarky, lil_brown_bat. I don't read every other topic here.
posted by salmacis at 12:15 PM on September 20, 2010
Why exactly are women allowed in changing rooms after a match? Is a male reporter allowed into the changing room of a women's team?
(For that matter, the idea of allowing *any* reporters into changing rooms seems bizarre from this side of the pond.)
posted by salmacis at 05:43 AM on September 20, 2010
There were rumours that England rugby star Dan Ciprian was going to switch to football. He even played a pre-season game for QPR while trying to gain fitness.
posted by salmacis at 07:00 AM on September 08, 2010
I rarely hang around these parts nowadays, but I'm in.
posted by salmacis at 10:11 AM on July 20, 2010
Regarding which is bigger, the Superbowl or the Champions League final:
I'd read some time ago that both get around 100m viewers. This was for a Wednesday night Champions League final. I don't know what the figures were for this year, but I would imagine that being on a Saturday night would have helped greatly. The Superbowl is a bigger event relative to the rest of the American football season than the Champions League final is to the rest of the soccer season, but globally, soccer is so much more popular that it all balances out.
The match went pretty much as expected. Bayern had the lions' share of possession but didn't create too many chances. Inter defended well, broke quickly and scored a couple of sucker punches. Say what you like about Mourinho, he knows how to organise a defence (see also the 10-man stand v. Barcelona.) Inter are not the most attractive team in the world, but they beat Chelsea (double winers in England), Barcelona (Spanish champions) and Bayern (double winners in Germany) en route, so they have to be respected.
posted by salmacis at 10:29 AM on May 24, 2010
etagloh, two points. Firstly, rugby referees don't stop the clock every time the ball goes out of play. They only stop it for excessive stoppages, such as injuries. Secondly, the players can't really do anything to end a match with my suggestion either. The match runs it's natural course, then time is extended until the ball goes out on top of that. It's a subtle distinction, but it works in rugby and I don't see why it wouldn't work in football.
Now that I think of it, there's another rule football could borrow from rugby. In rugby, there is no need to wait for a player to leave the field before the substitute enters the field. Why do we need to wait in football? A simple rule, whereby the substitute is deemed to have not entered the field of play and the substituted player is deemed to have not left the field of play until play is restarted would solve all objections.
posted by salmacis at 08:56 AM on September 24, 2009
I don't see any problem with using the system they have in rugby, with the referee telling the timekeeper when to stop the clock. There is one other important facet of the rugby system though, which would be appropriate to football as well. When time is up, play does not end immediately - it ends when the ball next goes out of play. That should stop Sweden v Brazil type moments.
posted by salmacis at 08:33 AM on September 23, 2009
Published attendance figures in all American sports leagues are a complete joke. Allowing teams to distribute free tickets and count them in the attendance figure - whether those tickets were even used or not - means teams can effectively announce whatever figure they like.
posted by salmacis at 08:27 AM on September 23, 2009
The fact is that American football has always placed intolerable demands on the human body. The hit that knocked out Willis McGahee in the AFC Conference Final was, in my opinion, no less than GBH. Somehow, the body armour has to be scaled back, and the rules changed to force more tackling with the arms (as in rugby). American football will always be a tough, tough game to play, but that doesn't mean that improvements cannot be made. I wonder whether the NFL's response is down to a fear of liability.
posted by salmacis at 09:18 AM on January 29, 2009
"Go ahead, you try going to a rugby game and writing about it. Soccer? Ninety minutes of whatever and then maybe one goal scored by accident. Tough to create a coherent narrative out of that."
Any sports writer who can say that and actually believe it is clearly far too stupid for me to bother reading.
posted by salmacis at 05:59 AM on October 02, 2008
The bloke in the background of the World in Motion video (holding up the sign which reads EN-GER-LAND. 3:19 in the video) looks like the guy playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in the new Robin Hood series on BBC America.
I've not watched the video, but the article states the lyrics were by Keith Allen.. who played the Sheriff of Nottingham.
posted by salmacis at 10:09 AM on September 24, 2008
Could Rugby Take Off in the US?
billinnagoya: You're wrong about the differences between league and union - the games are more dissimilar than Canadian and American Football.
However, that's all moot as league has very little international presence, and if rugby is going to take off in the States, it will be union.