tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83716553473920586052024-03-05T08:12:45.607-08:00The Below Average Sport CastIT DOES EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN !!!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-5061991929209269782015-06-17T02:16:00.002-07:002015-06-17T07:39:15.524-07:00Below Average SportsBlog #7<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Well May has come and gone near enough gone and I've not been updating my blogs of late too which is my fault for a few reasons. Podcasting and a trip to Chicago are the main reasons. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>We will look back at the last few months of sporting action and we’ll turn to football first and since the last blog I posted back in January it has saw the domestic side of things come to a conclusion. In the Premier League it saw Chelsea completing a double in Jose Mourinho's second season back in charge at Stamford Bridge as first off he won the League Cup beating Tottenham back in February and then won back the Premier League title for the first time in Six years. The Blues were very much deserving of the league title this season as the table doesn't lie and saw Chelsea notch up more points and stayed unbeaten against their title rivals in City,United and Arsenal.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Manchester had for the last few seasons dominated the title scene in English football with both City and United lifting the league crown and forced the other sides into playing catch up. Both had up and down seasons since the turn of the year with United at point getting some form back towards the back end of the season and saw them looking like their old selves as the made a late charge for the title something that they were famous for during their dominant seasons. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>City carried on their inconsistent form in which the only thing that was consistent about them in the season. City threw away so many 2-0 leads at an alarming rate over the year that it was the worse lead in football for the Blues as games against the likes of Sunderland, Aston Villa and Swansea saw go from 2 up to 2 all as they proceeded to hit the self destruction button and let their opponents back in the games. However the blues were normally able to find a vital late goal in these tight games to see them just get out of jail on more than one occasion..</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>A lot of questions will be asked in the off season about the goings on in the background with the Etihad Stadium club. After the ongoing saga over Yaya Toure and the way the whole drama was played out between player & agent which saw the ridiculous incident of ‘Cake-gate’. The phrase 'defense wins titles' so looking at the table you can see that wasn't the case for the Citizens, with them conceding more goals than any of their title rivals.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>City's Central Midfield was ropey and lacking in any drive going forward or direction as Toure who had been a lynchpin in the title winning season for the blues saw Manuel Pellegrini using him as a defensive midfielder and it hurt the side in my view. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Player of the year for me seemed cleared cut for me but when Toure was named as the shock winner it had me thinking how on earth James Milner didn't win was a mystery!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Milner who has been a complete model professional about the whole uncertainty of the Yorkshireman's future at the club had Pellegrini in some quarters of media not giving Milner the credit he has deserved, as he had for a majority of the season the standout performer in the team and always gave 100% to the cause.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Chelsea led the league from start to finish almost and although they aren't the most attractive team to watch, they do get the job done and that facts don't lie, in which the outcome was a league championship.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Turning to Cricket and it has seen signs of improvement within the England side ahead of the Ashes with Australia this upcoming summer. As the last couple of months has seen the ECB (England & Wales Cricket Board) suffering some turmoil, what with the sacking of Peter Moores as England coach (again!) and then saw the quick appointment of Andrew Strauss being given the top job in the English Cricket. Following the appointment there was then a Public outcry over Strauss's decision NOT to welcome back Kevin Pietersen to the England fold after there was alleged promises from within the senior members of the ECB big wigs to bringing him back in the squad.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>On the field and England faced New Zealand in a two-match series at Lords and Headingley. England started the series off in the worst possible way as on day one they found themselves in deep deep trouble at 43-4 after losing Debutant Adam Lyth, Gary Ballance, captain Alistair Cook and Ian Bell all fairly cheaply. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b> However a rescue effort by Joe Root 'YORKSHIREMAN' saw him scoring 98 and a good knock by Ben Stokes of 92, saw them both helping England recover along with Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali providing back up down the order.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>New Zealand in reply to England's 389 scored a massive 523 with Kane Williamson scoring a masterful 132 to help the Black Caps bypass the hosts and try to exert pressure of their own. Martin Guptil and Tom Latham gave the tourists a brilliant start to the innings, as the opening pair put on a 148 run stand for the opening wicket before two quick wickets with Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali dismissed them both.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Ross Taylor and Brendan McCullum kept the runs coming for New Zealand which gave them a first innings lead of 134.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>England in 2nd Innings scored 478 with the return to form of captain Alastair Cook and saw him top score with 162 with Joe Root giving him support with 84. Ben Stokes came to the crease and scored the fastest hundred at Lords in test match history making 101 from 92 balls to see England's innings roll on and giving them hope of getting a result.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>New Zealand found the run chase difficult after England set them the target of 345 for victory. Instead it saw their hopes of chasing it down vanish very quickly with the loss of three wickets, with both openers going without scoring and then when Taylor, Williamson and McCullum all departed too it really made for a tall order for the Black Caps to get back into the game at 61-4. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>BJ Watling and Corey Anderson then kept out the English bowlers to see New Zealand survive till mid afternoon, but eventually England broke up the partnership and saw them go through the rest of the tail to win by 124 runs in the 1st Test.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>The series then headed up North to Yorkshire and to Headingley in Leeds in particular, where England were hoping to seal their first series win since last summer against India. The hosts got the perfect start getting Tom Guptil and Kane Williamson out early and had the Black Caps scorecard reading 2-2. Tim Latham remained at the crease and had Ross Taylor to help him as their mini partnership got NZ moving long again and rebuilt. Brendan McCullum then scored a quick fire 41 to see the tourists onto 123-4 and England's attack was bowling very well on the Leeds pitch.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Tom Guptil and Luke Ronchi helped New Zealand move from 144-5 to 264 for 6, as Guptil's innings came to a close at 84 and without him the tourists really would have been in danger. Ronchi departed on 88 and with the tail wagging it had Matt Henry and Trent Boult both playing cameo innings as they finished on 350 all out.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>England in reply saw their new opening partnership blossoming well, with Alastair Cook and Adam Lyth on his home ground putting on 177 for the first wicket stand, after Cook was out LBW to Craig for 75. Lyth was next to follow after he was run out for 107 and got a standing ovation by the Headingley crowd as he headed back to pavilion.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Gary Ballance another Yorkshire player in the England side, saw him score his best score since the West Indies series a couple months back as he made 29,while the third member of the White Rose nation saw Joe Root out for 1. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>England collapsed from 238-3 to 267-8 with only Stuart Broad fighting back after he scored a quick 46 from 39 balls,before he was bowled out and saw England finish level with New Zealand scoring 350 themselves.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Second innings saw Tom Guptil making 70 runs with Ross Taylor adding 48 and then Captain Brendan McCullum scoring 55 as NZ by built a lead of up to 262. BJ Watling then put the Black Caps in complete control of the match with a well played 120, when Joe Root took the catch off James Anderson's bowling to dismiss him.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Once again failure to get the tail out saw vital runs come and had the three tailenders score a combined total of 110 to see them finish on 454-8 declared.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>England needed to bat out two days and with the rain helping their cause out on day 4, it saw Cook and Lyth at the crease come day 5. Sadly though as England tend to do historically at Headingley, saw the hosts collapse and handed victory to NZ with only 6 players making double figure scores with Lancashire's Jos Buttler top scoring with 73 and ended in New Zealand levelling the series at 1-1 ahead of the one day internations. </b></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-13563271702084682482015-03-02T11:51:00.000-08:002015-06-11T13:09:45.468-07:00The BELOW AVERAGE SPORTCAST# 26'. Another Wildcat joins the fold<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Below Average Sports Cast #26 - Another Cat Joins the Fold</h2>
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This episode Joe 'Scuttsy' Scutts, Mark 'The Angry Budgie' Woodcock and I are joined by special guest Ben Callaghan another Wildcats fan ( taking over the show now!!) We divulge sporting topics like:<br />
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The Six Nations Rugby Union, Football chat, Cricket World Cup round up and we marvel at how Fantastic England have played.NOT!! Besides that there is the Macclesfield Town update from Mark and look back at the EPL Ice Hockey and some rumors.<br />
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Predictions are back and where i hope to claw points back and avoid wearing a Swindon jersey at Playoffs. And the show is done ALL IN THE BEST POSSSSSSIBLE TASTE!<br />
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<b style="background-color: #686666; color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.6000003814697px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">INTRO music from <a href="http://www.bensound.com/" style="background-color: rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.498039); border: 0px; color: yellow; font-family: arial; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">www.bensound.com</a> <span style="background-color: rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.498039); color: #666655; font-family: arial;">)</span></span></b></h3>
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<b>LISTEN HERE</b><a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/26.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-2323356448454710152015-01-02T08:17:00.001-08:002015-01-02T08:17:40.236-08:00BELOW AVERAGE SPORTS BLOG #7 - A MAGNIFICENT SEVERNNNNNNN!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Well firstly, i will apologise
for not doing a couple of blogs over the last 2 months and i will try to keep
up to date with these entries from now on. With the last blog entry coming back
at the end of October time, we`ll try to make up for lost time and cast our
minds back to when Christmas wasn`t in the fore front of people`s minds at that
period and we look back to the early stages of November.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";"> Over the last two months in Rugby Union we`ve saw
the European Champions Cup reaching its conclusion to the group stages and saw
some interesting couple of rounds in the tournament too. On the International side of things, we saw
the traditional Autumn Internationals taking place, where the Northern
hemisphere sides face the best of the Southern hemisphere and where there was a
few eyebrows raised from those games.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Changing from the Oval
ball to the Round ball variety and on that front the Champions League threw up
a couple of entertaining game towards the end and in the Barclays Premiership
the League is starting to take some shape now as we embark on a New Year. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Cricket wise saw a sombre
month for all concerned in November time and also saw England travelling out to
Sri Lanka for a Seven ODI`s as both side warmed up for the Cricket World Cup
upcoming next year in 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Ice Hockey has seen it become virtually a foregone conclusion to the
English Premier League championship (EPL), but we`ll look back it and see how
the league has gone. <u><o:p></o:p></u></span></i></div>
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<i><u><span style="color: yellow; font-family: "SW Crawl Body"; font-size: 16.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Hmm Scrummy..<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></h1>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">The European Champions Cup
continues on and has seen its fair share of good games in the competition this
term. Round 3 saw the English Aviva Premiership sides all come out on top
against foreign opposition, with Bath and Wasps winning in France beating
Montpellier and Castres with both hitting the thirty points barrier in their
respective matches. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">The two stand out results
in the round came in the shape of Harlequins and Leicester Tigers, as ‘Quins’ defeated
the Pro 12 League champions in Leinster Rugby 24-19 at the Twickenham Stoop,
while up in the East Midlands Leicester welcomed the powerhouse of French Rugby
and the current European holders in Toulon to Welford Road. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Owen Williams roared in
the match up and in turn earned his stripes for the Tigers, with him kicking Six
Successful penalties and kept their hopes of qualification ongoing as they came
out 25-21 victors. Ulster kept their slim hopes alive of going through too, with
a 24-9 win at Kingspan Stadium over the Scarlets as they ran in 4 tries with
Darren Cave, Ruan Pienaar and Irish Internationals Tommy Bowe and Rory Best
going over as well.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">In the return games from
Round 4, it saw Bath once again triumph over Montpellier with England
international Matt Banahan scoring a Hat Trick of tries to see his side to a
32-12 win. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Glasgow failed to
capitalise on Toulouse conceding a fair few penalties in their reverse fixture,
as Finn Russell missed a trio of kicks while his opposite number Sebastian Bezy,
he made Four kicks to see the French side steal victory 12-9 in Glasgow.
English champions the Northampton Saints welcomed Italians Treviso to Franklins
Gardens and saw them absolutely destroyed by the Saints, with the home side
romping to an 11 Try victory in which Ken Pisi and Samu Manoa both picked up
Hat Tricks in the demolition of the Italian team, as the hosts shut out Treviso
67-0.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Leinster got revenge back
in Dublin on Harlequins, as they won 14-13 as a penalty by Ian Madigan proved
crucial in the final ten minute to see the Irish side claim victory. Toulon returned
the favour to Leicester as they beat the Tigers 23-8, with Leigh Halfpenny
slotting over three penalties, along with his side scoring two tries in the
win. Sale Sharks was unable to keep it
closer in their return game with Saracens, with the home side prevailing 28-15
after penalty trouble was their downfall in the meeting at Allianz Park.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<i><u><span style="color: yellow; font-family: "SW Crawl Body"; font-size: 16.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">NORTH V SOUTH<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">November also saw the
traditional Autumn International series taking place over the month, in which it
pits the European Nations against the force of the Southern hemisphere sides
and as i mentioned saw some eyebrow raising games. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">England faced without
doubt their toughest task of all the games in the month with the daunting visit
of the World Champions in the All Blacks to Twickenham. However it started well
for the home team, with Johnny May scoring an early try. Dan Cruden replied
back for New Zealand and had Owen Farrell kicking a couple of penalties to make
sure England just stayed in front of their foes at the break going in 14-11.
New Zealand dominated the second half of proceedings, with All Blacks captain
Richie McCaw on his 100<sup>th</sup> appearance for his side and saw him leading
from the front, as he crashed over for a try in the opening minute and also saw
Charlie Faumuina go over to see the visitors lead 24-14. England got a Penalty
try and conversion, but it was too late for a comeback and lost their opening
game of the autumn 24-21.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Wales and Australia played
out a thriller at the Millennium Stadium with the lead swapping four times in
the game, as neither side gave an inch to one another ahead of their World Cup
meeting this upcoming year in Cardiff. Rhys
Webb put the Welsh in front early on, that was before two tries by Christian
Folau put the Aussies in front at 14-7. Alex Cuthbert then went over and with
Halfpenny adding the extras for the home side, it was all square again. Kuridrani then scored for the Wallabies to
move back out to 7 point lead, but back came Wales and Alun Wynn-Jones who gave
the Aussies back line in the British Lions series of 2013 a tough time, and was
doing so again as he went over to see the sides level at 21 a piece at the
break. Folau then kicked over two penalties and a deciding Drop Goal Seven
minutes from time, which just gave the Australians just enough of a lead to take
victory 30-28.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Scotland and Argentina
played out a 41-31 score line, in which saw the Scots victors after tries by
Richie and Jonny Gray, Sean Maitland, Stuart Hogg and Tommy Seymour helped the
hosts hold out to a win. Despite a valiant fightback by the Pumas, it wasn`t
enough to deny the home side after Argentina battled back from 31-10, to get it
down to a Ten point loss. Tries by Javier Desio Ortega, Tomas Cubelli and a
Penalty try saw Argentina making it a game of it in the end and earned them a
lot of plaudits.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">The Six Nations champions
in Ireland pulled off a great win at the Aviva Stadium, as they defeated South
Africa 29-15 after tries by Tommy Bowe and Rhys Ruddock gave the Irish the lead.
The Springboks replied through Marcell Coetzee and JP Pietersen at the end of
the game, However the difference was the kicking in the match with Ireland`s
Jonny Sexton slotting over 13 points with the boot and a saw a sole Ian Madigan
kick proving the vital aspect in the game.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">The Following week saw Wales
labour to victory over Fiji with a 17-13 win, as George North and Alex Cuthbert
scored tries for the Welsh along with a Penalty try for the hosts, while Nemani
Nadolo scored a try for the tourists and kicked two penalties in the loss.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Scotland loss to New
Zealand up at Murrayfield, as a heartbreaking late try by Jeremy Thrush overcame
a battling Scottish side. Victor Vito gave the All Blacks the lead in the
contest, till Tommy Seymour responded for the Scots. It became a kicking duel
between Greig Laidlaw of Scotland and Dan Carter for the All Black, in which saw
them match each other kick for kick, till the late try by Thrush to nick the
win.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">France scored a big win
over Australia at the Stade de France, where as they defeated the Wallabies
29-26 with Camille Lopez being ‘Les Bleus’ hero with Four successful penalties
from the boot, while Christian Folau struck four penalties and two conversions
for the Aussies. Quade Cooper and Australian Captain Adam Ashley-Cooper went
over for the Gold shirts, but Sebastien
Tillous-Borde and Teddy Thomas scored for the hosts in the thriller and edged
the out of form Australians to victory.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">England`s autumn of
discontent continued on, as the visit of South Africa to Twickenham saw the
Springboks exposing frailties in the hosts line up and that was shown clearly,
when a poor pass by Danny Care was intercepted by Jan Serfontein and he ran it
back the full length for a try. Cobus
Reinach then scored another for South Africa and put the hosts in deep trouble.
Victor Matfield then committed a blatant
foul during a maul in which saw his actions earn him a yellow card and saw
David Wilson and Ben Morgan score tries to see England close the gap with the
man extra, but the two tries papered over the cracks in truth. Schalk Burger
scored a third try for the Springboks and England had the last word with Brad
Barritt going over a minute from time to see the hosts lose two successive
games in a row on home soil in a 31-28 loss.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">England`s next game saw
them face Samoa and it was seen as gimme by some but it was far from that. The
sporting media was saying nothing less than hitting the 50 points barrier would
be good, England though never remotely looked close to getting that at all. Johnny May scored a brace with his first
coming midway through the first and in then grabbed his second sandwiched in
between a Mike Brown effort. Stuart Lancaster gave a start to Bath`s George
Ford, after Owen Farrell was moved elsewhere in the line up to accommodate
Ford. Ford in the rain did himself no disgrace at all, with three kicks and two
conversions in the 28-9 win. After the
game England and Samoa players came together to unite in the middle of the
pitch with the Samoans, as the Samoans have had a lot of serious problems from
within their own Rugby federation over a number of disputes still ongoing now.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Wales faced the All Blacks
and saw them torn apart by the World Champions in the final ten minutes of the
game, to lose 16-34 as the New Zealand side ran in three late tries with
Beauden Barritt scoring twice and Kieran Read as well in what was disappointing
ending to the game for the Welsh, as they looked on course to overcome their
hoodoo of the Championship sides.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Ireland rounded off their
year with another massive scalp of Australia as they edged it 26-23 at the
Aviva Stadium. It started off fantastic for the Irish in the opening quarter of
the game, with tries for Tommy Bowe and Simon Zebo seeing them lead 17-0 and
that was when the Aussies came back with a vengeance. It saw Three straight tries
for the Aussies, with Nick Phipps going over the white wash twice and a Bernard
Foley effort to saw the Wallabies level at 17 all. Foley then gave the Aussies a 20-17 lead with
a penalty he converted on, but three penalties by Jonny Sexton in the second
half, saw Ireland overcome their opponents and defend their lead for a major
boost ahead of next year`s World Cup.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Scotland defeated Tonga
37-12 with the Scots grabbing five tries in the victory, as efforts by Stuart
Hogg, Tommy Seymour, Alex Dunbar, Geoff Cross and Blair Cowan saw them all going
over the white wash, while Greig Laidlaw kicked 12 points in the win.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">The final Internationals
of 2014 saw Wales FINALLY defeat a serious Southern Hemisphere side after 22 previous
unsuccessful efforts and also 15 years since their last win over the Springboks,
to win 12-6 in a tough contest that came down to a kicking duel between Pat
Lambie and Leigh Halfpenny. It saw the Welshman come out on top with four kicks
to three over his opposite number in the gritty Eighty-minutes of the contest.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">England had one last
chance to pick up a confidence boosting victory heading into an important 2015
for the side. England faced their old enemy in Australia and saw Bernard Foley
kick the Aussies in front, till two penalties by George Ford put the hosts in
front and had Ben Morgan grab a try for England to see them lead at the break.
Foley then scored for the Australians before Morgan claimed his second try of
the game, till Will Skelton replied three minutes later to see the home side
lead lead cut to 20-17. Ford then kicked over a penalty to move 23-17 ahead and
saw Brad Barritt go for repairs as his White shirt was stained with claret as
he gave Blood, sweat and tears of joy for his team in the game. The last word came to the hosts, as with Australia
pushing for last gasp win score they instead conceded a penalty and Ford
drilled it over for a 26-17 win and maybe a psychological boost ahead of the
sides meeting later in the year in the Group phrase of the World Cup in 2015. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<h2>
<span style="color: yellow; font-family: "SW Crawl Body"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">ONE HORSE RACE, MAYBE??<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At
the time of typing this, Chelsea lead the way in the Premiership after 19 games
gone in the league as the West London
side have kind of gone about their business quietly, but Jose Mourinho has
always been on hand to remind people that Chelsea are still about. The Blues
have dealt rather easily with their games this year though, despite a couple of
slip ups along the way that has kept the league mildly interesting, a 2-1 loss
to Newcastle up on Tyneside and a goalless draw in Sunderland saw them not
enjoying their travels up the North East much this year. But with a trio of 2-0
wins, that run was halted the other day by Southampton as the Saints held them
a 1-1 draw at St. Mary`s with Southampton playing out the end of the match with
just 10 men. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
Manchester City, it`s been a weird season for them as they have relied on
certain players and they have then gone to pick up injures soon after. Vincent
Kompany and David Silva have had lay-offs this season with Ankle and Leg
injuries, they have also had Sergio Aguero being their saviour so far as he has
scored a majority of the goals for the Champions. Fellow strikers Edin Dzeko and Stefan Jovetic
have struggled to find the back of the net all season so far and keeping fit
too, so with City trying to keep pace with Chelsea, it saw a disastrous
incident in their match against Everton in the which the early embers of the
game saw Aguero injured his ligaments stretching for a ball and has been
sidelined ever since. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This
has seen City playing James Milner in a ‘False 9’ position and been asked to go
up front for the Blues as they have played with no recognised striker in their
line up due to injuries to them all. City though have come together and battled
through it all like champions and with wins at Leicester and West Brom. They
recorded home victories against Everton and Crystal Palace, before their last
game against Burnley saw them a great chance to cut the gap to one point. City
being City then managed to implode after going 2-0 up and came mighty close to
losing the game altogether, as Burnley took a point in 2-2 draw and were unlucky
not to take all 3 as well.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meanwhile
across the City, United have seen them gain some form of late, as they have
remained unbeaten since losing the derby to City back in November. Despite a
dull 0-0 draw with Tottenham on the road last game, Injuries have hampered
their season too, with Falcao not playing much with a troublesome knee problem.
Robin Van Persie hasn`t really played anything like he has done over the past
few seasons and has seen Wayne Rooney seemingly dragging his team mates through
the bumpy parts of the season. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They`ve
took some points off their rivals this season too, with wins over Southampton
and Arsenal and also took a late draw against Chelsea in the middle of October.
There biggest highlight has been the thrashing of long-time bitter rivals
Liverpool at Old Trafford, in a 3-0 win that will have delighted their fans for
sure.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Liverpool
have had a torrid season so far and looked a big shadow of their former selves,
as the loss of Luis Suarez has been a hole not filled at all. Liverpool brought
in some good players to try and make up for the loss, but no one has fired at
all for the club all season and that includes Steve Gerrard too.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Looking
towards the bottom end of the table and in some ways is far more interesting
than the summit normally, it`s a case of 12<sup>th</sup> place to 20<sup>th</sup>
being separated by just a meagre 8 points. Leicester City occupy bottom of the
table currently and haven`t won a game since beating Man Utd 5-3 a few months
back, Burnley are gaining some form of late and sees them level on 16 points
with Crystal Palace and Hull City. West
Brom and QPR are always going to be hovering above the trap door, Sunderland
are 7 points from the relegation places and you can bet they`ll be doing their
damndest to try and chase down their local rivals in Newcastle who sit in 10<sup>th</sup>
spot just 6 points from them. It`s fair to say also that the league will become
a more exciting one, once we hit March Madness time and when the business end
then arrives and sees sides scraping for their Premier league survival.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<i><u><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></u></i></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<i><u><span style="font-family: 'SW Crawl Body'; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: yellow;">Tragedy
and England ODI woes <o:p></o:p></span></span></u></i></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">The back end of the 2014
was not a happy one for all concerned in the Cricketing family, as Australian test
batsman Philip Hughes tragically died at the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) when
playing for South Australia, when the Test batsman took a blow to the back of
the neck when trying to avoid a bouncer from Sean Abbott of New South Wales. The
blow caused him to collapse at the crease and had all players rushing to get
treatment quickly and saw that particular game abandoned due to the incident.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";"> The Bad news broke 2 days later, that Hughes
had lost his life just three days before he was due to celebrate his 26<sup>th</sup>
Birthday and saw Australia as a country grieve over the shocking news and the
hardest person to deal with the shock death, was not that in his family, but
that of Abbott. The fast bowler will
have the unfortunate claim, that it was his delivery that killed a friend and
is one bowling claim that no one should have against them.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";"> Hughes`s family told the media down under, that
no blame should be attached to him at all over the incident and that it was
fluke incident that took place. At the funeral it`s self, Abbott was given a warm hug by the family of
Hughes as it was a distressing time for both him and the Hughes family over the
event.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Australia retired the
number 64 in memory of Hughes and also adjusted his final innings to read ‘Not
Out’ instead of ‘Retired Hurt’. It saw Australia put their 1<sup>st</sup> Test
versus India back a bit and so when they played the opening Test at the Gabba
in Brisbane, he was listed as 13<sup>th</sup> Man in the squad as special
reminder and also had players on both sets of teams wearing P.H on black
armbands and his Test number of 408 being painted on the field too.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Back onto the on field
action, and England was hammered unsurprisingly when they travelled out to Sri
Lanka to face them in a 7 game series and saw the Sri Lankan`s take the series
5 games to 2. Prior to the series taking
part, questions were asked about Alastair Cook and his captaincy in the One Day
format as if his poor performances back home in the summer against India wasn`t
enough to say he was the wrong man to lead England to the World Cup, then this
proved without a shadow of a doubt he was clearly not up to the job of doing it,
with him lacking any ideas or field placing It didn`t help matter either when
the Captain was unable to field and contribute to the Batting, after the series
Cook was sacked by the ECB and replaced with Eoin Morgan as Captain.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<i><u><span style="color: yellow; font-family: "SW Crawl Body"; font-size: 16.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">TIGERS
ROARING AWAY & CUP UP FOR GRABS</span></u></i><i><u><span style="color: yellow; font-family: "SW Crawl Body"; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></i></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">The English Premier League
title seems pretty much done and dusted for this season now, as the Big
spending Telford Tigers are sweeping all before them and i won`t get in
business of how they have gone about their business this season, as that would
go one for a long time. Telford
currently leads the league by 13 points ahead of nearest ‘challenger’ the
Peterborough Phantoms in second spot and have won 22 out of 27 games, with 3
losses in regulation and 2 in overtime or a shootout.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">If you take the Tigers out
of the running, then the rest of the league is pretty darn exciting to watch.
As from 2<sup>nd</sup> place to 8<sup>th</sup> it is all separated by just 9
points in the table and can see Milton Keynes Lightning in the final playoff
spot easily go on a winning streak and could soon find themselves into second
place, that is how tight the league is this year, with the exception of
Telford.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Swindon Wildcats and
Peterborough have been the shocks of the EPL this year, with them finally
breaking the top normal 4 sides and giving everyone a run for their money too. The Wildcats are currently on a 9 game winning
streak and have surprised all in the league and have even blanked the Tigers
twice this season, once on the road and once at home and if you can do it
twice, it isn`t a fluke and that is a mark of a good side. Joe I’m sure will
wax lyrical about his ‘Cats’ when he posts his new blog entry, but for me Swindon
have gone the right way about things, without really needing to throw money and
pay over the odds for players on big wages.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif";">Manchester have been a big
disappointment for me this season, as being a Phoenix fan myself the team have
frustrated and flattered to deceived at time. They have took ages to gel or
even get some cohesion within the side going. Imports Michal Psurny, Frankie
Bakrlik and Robin Kovar have shown flashes of their form last year, but have
all been pretty average so far. New
Import signing Johan Burlin has been the most disappointing Import in the
league by far, as his positioning has been awful and gets caught out far too
easily and would be interesting to see his +/- on the season, as i feel it will
be deep in the minus part.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thank you reading this far
down and hope to make it not so long Next time!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Rockwell, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Rockwell, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Peter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Rockwell","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://twitter.com/peterbrads">@Peterbrads</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "SW Crawl Body"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/BASportCast">@BASportCast</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-10348678266154786692014-12-13T12:24:00.001-08:002015-06-11T13:09:18.120-07:00The Below Average Sport Cast Epi 25: Rugby, Football, Speedway and Hockey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Rockwell, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;"><b>Football, Ice Hockey with Joe loving speaking of Swindon`s win over Manchester ( Chuffing Booo!!) </b></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(INTRO music from <a href="http://www.bensound.com/" style="background-color: rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.498039); border: 0px; font-family: arial; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">www.bensound.com</a> <span style="background-color: rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.498039); color: #666655; font-family: arial;">)</span></span></b><br />
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Listen Here for the Show<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/25.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a><br />
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Prediction Table.. so far</u></h2>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-82347679281397115172014-11-14T10:46:00.000-08:002015-06-11T13:08:50.832-07:00The Below Average Sport Cast Epi 24: Rugger, Footy, Hockey & Predictions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><b>The Below Average Sport Cast Epi 24:</b></span></span></div>
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Welcome to the new episode where we or should that be 'ME' looks back at the start of the new European Rugby Cup, as we review the opening 2 rounds from all 5 pools.</div>
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<br />There is Football news looking at the Premier League and Macc Town.</div>
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Hockey also gets an airing with English Premier League and National Hockey League getting the podcast treatment.</div>
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As well as that, we have the return of the Predictions league. as we guess aimlessly at Rugby, football, tennis, F1 and NFL </div>
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<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/24.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a></div>
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Contact the Show:</div>
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TWITTER : @BASportCast </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-11643570182072810252014-10-28T09:58:00.000-07:002014-10-28T09:58:18.017-07:00The Below Average SportBLOG #6 - The Un-American American Sport ReportSince the podcast is a predominantly English sporting podcast lets mix it up and see how things are going in the sporting world across the pond, three of the major leagues are up and running at the moment, Baseball is currently coming to its conclusion with the World Series, the NFL is half way into the regular season and the front runners for the Super Bowl in February are coming to the fore, the NHL has started with some interesting teams leading the way in both conferences while the NBA is waiting in the wings starting tonight.<br />
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<u>Major League Baseball</u><br />
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A season that started all the way back in April is coming to its thrilling conclusion as the San Francisco Giants take on the unfancied Kansas City Royals in the 2014 World Series, after 6 gruelling months, 162 regular season games it has come down to just 7 games to decide who is the league champions. Kansas City came through the American League claiming a wildcard spot to qualify for the playoffs after finishing just behind division rivals Detroit Tigers while the Giants were in a similar situation in the National League qualifying for a wildcard behind the much fancied Los Angeles Dodgers. The Royals reached the World Series first beating the Oakland Athletics in the one game Wild Card round a game they came back from 5-0 down to win 9-8 in extra innings thanks to a walk off (Game Winning hit) single from catcher Salvador Perez. After just squeaking through the wild card they went to LA to take on the Los Angeles Angels who were the preseason favourites to win the entire playoffs, in the end the Royals swept them 3-0 winning the third and final game in Kansas City 8-3 to keep their postseason alive. The sweeps kept coming for the Royals after they beat the Baltimore Orioles 4-0 in the American League Championship Series winning both games 3 and 4 2-1 in low scoring defensive battles to send them to their first World Series since 1985. Meanwhile in the National League the San Francisco Giants went through an eerily similar process, in the Wild Card round the Giants went into Pittsburgh and destroyed the Pirates winning 8-0 thanks to a grand slam by Brandon Crawford and a shut out by pitcher Madison Bumgarner. In the next round they faced off against the much fancied Washington Nationals and won the series 3-1, the highlight of the series being an 18 inning, 6 hour marathon in game two that the Giants won 2-1. As the National League Championship Series rolled round and with the Giants rolling they went through the St Louis Cardinals winning 4-1 with victory coming in the best possible fashion as Travis Ishikawa blasted a three run home run in the last inning to send the Giants to the World Series.<br />
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Game 1 of the World Series kicked off in Kansas's Kaufmann Stadium and the Giants turned up to put an end to the Royals 8 win streak in the playoffs after winning 7-1 primarily thanks to three runs in the first inning for the Giants, Madison Bumgarner had another fantastic pitching display before giving up his first run in the playoffs to a Salvador Perez home run after keeping a shut out going for 32 innings. In Game 2 the Royals came back the next night with a 7-2 victory thanks to a big 6th inning which saw them score 5 runs to level the series before heading off to San Francisco. Game 3 and the series was flipped on its head as the Royals took the series lead following a 3-2 victory, the Royals tried and tested formula of good pitching and fantastic defence that saw them into the postseason handed them a 2-1 series lead. Game 4 saw the Giants fight back this time winning 11-4 thanks to some big hitting from Pablo Sandoval to kickstart the Giants defence. This passed Sunday Game 5 saw Madison Bumgarner pitch the first complete game shutout in the World Series for 11 years as the Giants beat the Royals to take a 3-2 series lead back to Kansas City for Game 6 where the destination of the title could be decided tonight if the Royals win tonight the series will go the distance with Game 7 being this Wednesday night.<br />
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<u>National Football League</u><br />
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8 weeks into the NFL season and if you believe Sky Sports or anyone in America the Denver Broncos have already won the Super Bowl thanks to their 6-1 start to the season, Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning broke yet another record this time for most touchdowns in NFL history beating the previous best by Brett Favre with his 509th career touchdown pass against the San Francisco 49ers. Elsewhere in the AFC the New England patriots have bounced back from a poor game against the Kansas City Chiefs to win 4 straight games to sit atop the East division, the North division is the closest with all 4 teams separated by just one win with the Cincinnati Bengals currently leading. In the South the future London franchise the Jacksonville Jaguars are holding up the rest of the division with a 1-7 record but are not the worst team in football this year as that honour belongs to the Oakland Raiders who are yet to win a game and do not look like breaking that duck any time soon. In the NFC the surprise of the season has been that last season's champions the Seattle Seahawks appear to be struggling with a 4-3 record in the West behind surprise division leaders the Arizona Cardinals, in yet more surprises the hotly tipped New Orleans Saints have been poor but to be fair so has the rest of the South division with no one having a winning record. The Eastern division is being led by "America's Team" the Dallas Cowboys thanks to some record breaking running from DeMarco Murray but the Philadelphia Eagles are hot on their heels, the North is quickly becoming a two horse race between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers with the teams still to play each other in a potentially division deciding game in the last week of the regular season.<br />
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This passed Sunday saw the second of the London games this year as the Detroit Lions just edged out the Atlanta Falcons in dramatic fashion. The Falcons started the game in the best possible way as they drived 80 yards down the field for the touchdown as Matt Ryan hit Devonta Freeman for the 7 yard touchdown pass, Atlanta then doubled their lead when Matt Ryan found tight end Bear Pascoe in the back of the end zone to give them a 14-0 lead, as the Lions carried on having a bad start the Falcons kept scoring as Steven Jackson pounded the ball in for yet another touchdown and the Falcons a 21-0 lead at half time. Then the Lions finally got their act together as an early field goal from Matt Prater started the fight back, following a Falcons punt the Lions continued their march and saw the play of the day as quarterback Matt Stafford dropped a 59 yard bomb into receiver Golden Tate's hands. The wheels really fell off the Falcons wagon when a Matt Ryan interception was capitalised on by the Lions for another field goal to cut the lead to just 8 points, while the Falcons offense continued to stall the Lions kept going and with a 7 minute 13 play drive marched the ball down the field yet again and Matt Stafford hit Theo Riddick for another touchdown and breaking the Detroit passing record for most touchdowns by a Lions quarterback but a failed two point conversion by the Lions made the score 21-19 to the Falcons. Atlanta tried and failed to run the clock down and gave the ball back to the Lions which lead to a controversial finish, starting at their own 7 yard line the Lions moved their way into the Atlanta half and left themselves with 4 seconds to kick the winning field goal Matt Prater stepped up but as the play clock expired the whistles went just as he kicked it for him to shank it wide right and give the Falcons the win.... or so they thought, the referees met and as the whistles had gone before the ball was kicked a redo was ordered from 5 yards further out, so Prater readjusted himself went again and struck the retry straight down the middle to give the Lions the 22-21 victory to the dismay of the Falcons and a lot of the NFL pundits.<br />
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The NHL season is just getting into its stride and the surprise package in the Eastern conference has to be the New York Islanders and their top goal scorer Brock Nelson which has jumped them to top spot in the Metropolitan division ahead of yet another surprise team in the New Jersey Devils. In the Atlantic division the Montreal Canadiens have jumped out to an early lead thanks to the fantastic goaltending of Carey Price and their typical brand of hard defence. The Western conference has its own surprise package in the Calgary Flames as Jonas Hiller appears to have settled right in and made the Flames a contender in the stacked Pacific division. The reigning champion Los Angeles Kings bounced back from an opening night defeat to the San Jose Sharks and have racked up 6 straight wins to lie second in the division. Tyler Seguin of the Dallas Stars currently leads the league in points just two seasons after he was let go by the Boston Bruins for not scoring enough points, while the league lead for goals is currently shared between Corey Perry of the Anaheim Ducks and the often heavily criticised on the show Rick Nash of the New York Rangers.<br />
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<u>National Basketball Association</u><br />
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The new NBA season kicks off tonight when reigning champion San Antonio Spurs face off against the Dallas Mavericks in the battle of Texas, all eyes will however will be on Cleveland on Thursday night as they kick their season off against the New York Knicks with their heavily stacked roster and the return of the king as Lebron James returns home to win an NBA title for his home town Cavaliers. Much was made in the off season when James decided to leave the Miami Heat and the Cavaliers have rewarded him by giving him the best possible starting 5 to play with, even better than the one he left the Cavaliers for in Miami some 5 years ago, Kyrie Irving is a future hall of fame point guard and with Kevin Love they also have the best rebounding power forward in the league. Although in theory this season could quite possibly turn out to be similar to Lebron's first in Miami where the side qualified for the playoffs but didn't progress any further even though the Eastern conference is rather weak. Meanwhile in the West it is a three horse race between the perennial under achievers in the Los Angeles Clippers, the seemingly always the bridesmaid Oklahoma City Thunder and the ageing San Antonio Spurs with names like the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics look set to miss out on the playoffs for a second straight season.<br />
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So there ends another batch of waffle hopefully you will hear another show soon before another whip round by the three of us on the interwebs<br />
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Joe Scutts<br />
Southern Correspondant<br />
Scuttsy's Sporting Universehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12622056925191572681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-35662358489580277762014-10-26T09:19:00.002-07:002014-10-27T13:27:54.522-07:00Below Average SPORTBLOG #5 - Silkmen and Coyotes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The good thing with writing a column for Peter's B.A.S.C ( Below Average Sport Cast) is it allows me to concentrate on something other than the Manchester Phoenix. I do love the Phoenix, hell...I’ve been a season ticket holder throughout the Phoenix existence! The BASC allows me to indulge a little in my other two sports teams, Macclesfield Town in the amazingly named, Vanorama Conference and my beloved Arizona Coyotes. </div>
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This column is written about a month after my first attempt so we are well into the Conference season and the NHL has finally swung into action. </div>
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<b><u>The Silkmen March on! </u></b></div>
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So a month down the line and the Silkmen have continued their good start to the conference season, since my last posting, as they have played another 8 games and still only recorded 3 losses. That is quite an incredible bit of form for Macc, given the fans (and my own) pre-season predictions of a year of struggle. The Silkmen have registered 28pts from their 17 games so far and currently sit in 7th place just below Bristol Rovers, amazingly just 2 pts outside of a playoff place, which is currently held by Forest Green Rovers and I really don't think you would have found any Macc Town fan that would have predicted that at the start of the season. A huge part of the season so far for the Silkmen, has been their form at the Moss Rose and currently they are yet to lose a home game and remain one of three teams yet to lose on home turf. Stand-out players so far have been Luke Waterfall who is on loan from Scunthorpe United in defence, and who has been rock solid at the back playing all but one game so far. Wade Fairhurst is the other player catching the eye so far, as since returning to the Silkmen he has scored four goals so far. </div>
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With Phoenix being my first love, I do not have much spare sporting ££'s free, so I pick and choose my Macc Town games and last Saturday was the first Silkmen game of the season that I managed to get to. In truth, it was quite a spur of the moment thing, but I went to the Moss Rose, to take in Macclesfield Town v Dover from the Brewtique stand (editorial note: Fancy name). The two clubs had only played each other about a month ago, before the usual return fixture where your games versus one opponent are done and dusted, but it rare to face opposition home and way, so early in the season. That game down by the White Cliffs finished 1-0 to the Silkmen, thanks to a 77th minute goal from Chris Holroyd.<br />
So going into the game the Silkmen were fancied for the win and would want to keep their fine home form going. Macc managed to control most of the game, creating quite a few near chances but not too many guilt edged chances. Rhys Taylor did not have a huge amount to do in the half really. Into the second half where Macc would attack their own fans in the Brewtique stand and had them up their game in search of a goal. That goal then came, after some great play to release Holroyd down the right flank, as speeded towards the box before he put in a great cross which evaded most players on both sides, but Paul Lewis was in space on the six yard line and calmly slotted the ball into the near corner. As Dover searched for an equaliser in the game, it became quite open but the Silkmen held on for another 1-0 victory and their second against Dover this season and saw Macc continuing their unbeaten run at the Moss Rose. </div>
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The standout player for me and someone who rightly got the MOM was Adriano Moke, a tricky little winger with great speed and good ball control. Moke was the source of much creativity and attacking for Macc Town and is a player who could be key for the Silkmen this season if he is able to stay fit. </div>
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Next up for the Silkmen, is a home FA Cup tie at the Moss Rose against Wrexham. This should be a good `un, as the FA Cup has been kind to the Silkmen in recent years. Great cup runs have helped fill the Moss Rose and injected much needed ££'s into club coffers too. I'll be there this Friday (24th Oct) in the Brewtique stand. It'll be a tough game and a game that could threaten the home record, as both clubs know how important cup runs are at this level, so fingers crossed it will be a Good Friday night under the lights at the Moss! </div>
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<b><u>Mixed fortunes for the Coyotes </u></b></div>
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The NHL season is off and running, with fans across the UK getting used to late nights once more in order to catch their teams in action. As of writing this, the Coyotes have opened the season with a 4 game home stand at the Gila Arena, against the Jets/Kings/Oilers and Blues. It`s been a frustratingly inconsistent start for the Coyotes, made all the more frustrating by being in the Pacific division which is a super competitive division in the Western Conference. I said on the last B.A.S.C podcast that, although a season is not made or broken in October, a poor start can leave you behind the 8-ball for most of the season and on reflection, a 2 and 2 start when you face both the current Stanley Cup champions and the St Louis Blues, could be considered an OK start. Though i`d have wanted to make more of the home stand though and get a few good wins under the belt to start with. </div>
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The season got underway against the Winnipeg Jets and after a summer of build up to opening night, it was quite the let down. Poor team D (seems a regular thing for my teams who play on ice!) and poor goaltending, led the Jet's hammering the Coyotes 6-2. When your goalie admits to being 'not comfortable' on the ice, you know your team is struggling. Opening night was a downer too, with the following Saturday night facing the Stanley Cup winners the LA King's and would have to be better. With Dubnyk starting in goal for the first time, the Coyotes got up for the visit of the Kings and secured a 3-2 OT win over the Champions. It was a great win against an excellent team and one who could retain the cup this year. Midweek the Oilers rolled into Glendale, still searching for their first win and after Saturday`s win against the Kings, the Coyotes mostly clicked against Edmonton and got a big 7-4 victory on a night, where the offence clicked and the defence was there or thereabouts! So, off the back of two wins, the Coyotes faced the Blues last weekend and........were hammered 6-1. Smith struggled all night, but the loss can't be hung totally on him as according to Dave Tippett (Coyotes Coach) too many players were below their best and If that happens in the NHL, let alone the western conference, you will lose 99 games in 100 playing like that! So a 50% win rate off the opening home stand and a case of should have been better, but could have been much worse. The Coyotes now head off on the road to face Nashville and Minnesota, before returning home to take on the struggling Florida Panthers. </div>
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So that's it for now, we will speak again in a month and where hopefully the Silkmen will have started another FA Cup run and the Coyotes will be putting together a good run of form. Fingers crossed!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-45143313781417788042014-10-26T08:52:00.002-07:002014-10-27T13:24:11.446-07:00Below Average SportBLOG #4 - SHARKS, Bloods and Hockey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Well been nearly two months since my last column, so i suppose i should give an
update on my sporting views and what has happened since my last blog entry.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></div>
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some of you know I've really been losing my passion for football over the last
5 years or so and this season has basically made go 'meh' to the season so far
as I've really not been interested much in it, barring non-league football. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">However
though, the only side in football that i have been following more is my local
side in Droylsden football club who have slipped down to the 7th league in the
footballing pyramid now, after a record breaking season last term, but not in a
good sense.</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Droylsden now
play out of the Evo Stick Division 1 league, where they hope to bounce back to
the premier division, 'The Bloods' have a 50% record in the league this season,
as they have an identical record at home as they do away from home too, with 4
wins and 2 losses in their opening 12 games to their season.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Looking
at the International side of things and the European championship qualifiers
have been and gone, which saw England remain unbeaten in their group after a
comfortable 5-0 win over San Marino at Wembley, in front of a bored looking
crowd and then saw England as entertaining as thrush and then struggled to a
1-0 victory in Estonia a few days later. <u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">North of
the border, and the Scots are going about their business well after their
unlucky loss to Germany in their opener with the world champions, they picked
up a 1-0 win over a difficult Georgian team at Ibrox and followed it up with a
2-2 draw against Poland in the Polish capital, with Shaun Maloney and Steve
Naismith netting for Scotland in the match.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In the
same group, Germany shown some cracks as they lost 2-0 in Poland and then saw
them drop two points in Gelsenkirchen three days later, as the Germans had led
thanks to a Toni Kroos goal and then in the 94th minute of the match,
John </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14.5pt;">O'Shea</span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> on his 100th appearance for the Republic of Ireland, saw him
equalise with a rare strike to cap off a good night for the Irishman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">In
Northern Ireland, the men from Windsor Park have become the unlikely side to
top the group with an unbeaten record so far with two more wins to boot, as
they beat the minnows of the group in the Faroe Islands 2-0 before then
continuing their good record with a another 2-0 victory, this time in Greece as
they beat the 2004 European champions with goals from Kyle Lafferty and Jamie
Ward helping the Irishmen to three points.</span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">To be
honest the International side of things have been much better than that of
domestic side for my liking, though i don`t include England in that bracket, as
i have a dislike for the English football side for many reasons.</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I`m
turning into a Rugger Bugger!</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Over the
past few months I've really developed a huge interest in Rugby Union and has
overtook football in enjoyment me, as I`ve really gone off football and don`t
enjoy it half as much as i did. I`ve really gotten into the Union game
and have been following the adventures of the AJ Bell Stadium based Sale Sharks.</span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> A
few weeks ago I made my second trip to Eccles to watch the Sharks, as they
battled the crisis club London Wasps where news had come out in recent weeks
that the club is moving 100 miles North to the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, and
will see the Wasps move into their new surrounding, come December time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The
match Itself saw a very entertaining game, that sadly saw a low turnout with
the AJ Bell Stadium just under half full, whether it was due to the fact the
game was being screened on BT SPORTS or just because
fans aren't coming to games as they only want to see a side that
is successful and the Sharks </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14.5pt;">haven't</span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> had
a successful season since the 05/06 season when they became the Aviva
Premiership League champions, no one truly know.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">However,
the Sharks have made a trend this year to their games, in which they have
started quickly out of the blocks and this game was to be no different at all,
with top Try scorer in the league, in Left-Winger Tom Arscott picking up an
early try that gave the hosts an early lead. Nathan Hughes then went over from
close range to see the Wasps move two points ahead, with Andy Goode converting
on the extra points for a 7-5 score to the opposition.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Right
before half time, a charged down kick by Sale saw the ball bounce into the in
goal area and saw Christian Wade unable to deal with it, and Scottish
Scrum-Half Chris Cusiter grounded the ball for a Try and saw the Sharks bite
back. </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Danny
Cipriani in the second half then kicked over a drop goal and penalty, which saw
the Fly-half get over after a nightmare first half with the boot, where he
successfully kicked only one out of four and saw him needing new kicking boots
in the second half. Cipriani then managed to find his range again and
confidence boosted, as he converted a penalty and conversion, after Tom Brady
went over for a try that gave the Sharks a cushion to win 25-14. Sale then got
annihilated by the current champions in Northampton Saints on their travels,
getting thrashed 43-10 with their worst performance of the season.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">This
past weekend I spent watching the new European Champions Cup competition, which
is the Champions league of Rugby Union in a sense and the opening match saw
Gloucester thrash a poor Brive side 55-0 at Kingsholm, against a side that
lacked anything in attack and their defense was equal to a chocolate fireguard.
Charlie Sharples will never have an easier game to score tries in again, with
the Winger picking up a hat trick and becoming the first player to do in the
tournament on opening night. <u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Harlequins
beat a stubborn Castres side 25-9, with Danny Care scoring the only try for
'Quins', while Nick Evans kicked 20 points with 6 penalties and a conversion
from the boot.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Finalists
in the old format last year in the form of Saracens saw them face the team they
massacred in the Semi finals of the old Heineken cup, in Clermont-Auvergne.
Sarries had Chris Ashton and David Strettle both going over twice, as the
runners-up held out over the French club 30-23, with Zak Guildford scoring a
pair of tries himself for the visitors.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Leicester
Tigers put their poor league form to one side, as they beat tough opposition in
Ulster<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> as they won 25-18 at
Welford Road, with Owen Williams, Graham Kitchener and Freddie Burns all going
over the Ulsterman's try line in the first half with the Belfast outfit
struggling to get going.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the
second half, Irish international Tommy Bowe tried to kick start an Ulster
comeback, before Burns added a penalty to the Tigers score and then Franco van
der Merwe replied for Ulster, but it was all too late to get back in the match.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The
other two big clubs in Ireland saw them both go behind in their respective
games and both take incredible victories in the process.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">For
Leinster the three winners of the old format, saw Wasps welcomed to Dublin and
saw Alapati Leiua and Christian Wade both scoring tries as the Aviva
Premiership side as they led 20-8.That then saw Ian Madigan kick a penalty on
the stroke of half time, to see them trail by 9 at the break.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Second
half saw 'the Boys in Blue' mount their own comeback with Darragh Fanning
scoring a try and then Madigan kicking the points on the board, while Dominic
Ryan scored the winning try with 20 minutes of play left to win 25-20.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I
started with Sale and will finish with them too as the Sharks opened their
'Group of Death', with a meeting against one of the famous Irish rugby sides in
Munster and saw the AJ Bell Stadium mostly full, with a near 10,000 crowd to
watch the game. </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">It saw
the encounter play up to the phrase 'Game of two halves', with the Sharks
completely bossing their rivals, despite Munster taking the lead on 5 minutes.
The home side went into the break 23-7 up, with the best team performance I've
witnessed this season involving the Sharks. As tries for Sale by Magnus Lund
and Johnny Leota for the hosts, added by Danny Cipriani kicking with a 100
percentage success rate in the game, with the English star converting five from
five. </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the
second half it was all Munster, as they hardly let Sale move into their 22
metre area at all, with the 'Red Army' grabbing a lifeline with Andrew Conway
and then when Conor Murray went over it was game on. The game reached was
reaching it`s climax and it saw with time up 26-24 in favour of the home side,
before Ian Keatley kicked over a drop goal to condemn the Sharks to defeat and
give the Travelling Irish fans a win to get their group off and running, with a
26-27 win in a enthralling game of rugby and heartbreak for Sale.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Hockey
time</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Hockey
wise has seen the Manchester Phoenix face two sides from lower league in the
hockey pyramid, with playing the Billingham Stars and then the Blackburn Hawks.
All three games saw the Phoenix coming out comfortable winners in the end with
a 6-2 victory at home with a brace for Adam Walker and Shaun Thompson in the
game and they then followed it up the next night, travelling up north and
winning 6-1 at the Billingham forum, where Michal Psurny scored twice in the
game and take a 4 point weekend from it.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Blackburn
Hawks came into Altrincham where they revitalised some old memories for many
supporters, with the old clashes between the Trafford Metros and the Hawks in
the old barn, where there was saw some of the most exciting games seen in the
old Oakfield Road rink. </span><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The
derby atmosphere was there for all to hear and saw the Hawks take an unlikely
and shocking lead after 10 seconds in, before the sides traded goals with each
other in a crazy first half of the period. Czech forward Frankie Bakrlik netted
a hat trick in the opening period, before youngster Jared Dickinson scored his
own hat trick for the Phoenix in the second period, where they won 11-5
in yet another comprehensive win over their local rivals.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><u><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14.5pt;">ACES
STADIUM</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ending
this blog, I’ll mention the great news for the Belle Vue Aces speedway side, as
work has FINALLY begun on their new stadium which is called the National
Speedway Stadium and where work is set to be completed hopefully in time for
the 2016 season, where the stadium is adjacent to the stadium they are in now.<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Thanks
for reading my waffle and until next time Bye for now!<u1:p></u1:p></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Utsaah, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Peter<u1:p></u1:p></span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-28630219888849467942014-10-15T06:19:00.000-07:002015-06-11T13:08:25.142-07:00 The Below Average Sport Cast Epi 23: Band is Back Together<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "Utsaah","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">EPISODE 23 – The Band is Back Together<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Utsaah","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This edition sees Mark Woodcock
make his long awaited return to the show,
as the Budgie man joins Scuttsy and i in our take on Sporting events of
late.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Utsaah","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This episode we touch on
the Aviva Premiership rugby season, Euro 2016 Qualifiers, Speedway and Hockey!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/23.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Utsaah","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">(NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
INTENDED during the making of the show too)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Interstate, 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Garuda, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.6000003814697px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
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<br /></div>
</div>
<br />
Twitter: @BASportCast<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-25800579261800297792014-09-24T06:33:00.002-07:002014-09-24T07:41:23.399-07:00The Below Average SportBLOG #3 - Mark HOWLS his sporting views!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsmC3RkJgdUSTw4JjC-8mnvSCz0yN1vETX1pQ4XWMAlie3bgCIYOYuFoSu-JbIRD0uGXbmgbkMgB0Z8nt67SjKeVLCKQrNpgas5usxmDFCefbTMmW1gZdb6rsJ5NVMIWamPKWLPagImM8i/s1600/Domo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsmC3RkJgdUSTw4JjC-8mnvSCz0yN1vETX1pQ4XWMAlie3bgCIYOYuFoSu-JbIRD0uGXbmgbkMgB0Z8nt67SjKeVLCKQrNpgas5usxmDFCefbTMmW1gZdb6rsJ5NVMIWamPKWLPagImM8i/s1600/Domo+2.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">Following on from Joe's column on this very blog, I thought and with some encouragement from helmsman Peter, I would contribute my own ramblings. This will be different to my own blog's musings, but will try to encompass a wider look at sports other than hockey......wait there are sports other than HOCKEY......I hear you cry! There are, as it turns out! The Angry Budgie will continue to cover the Manchester Phoenix in depth, while this page offers the chance to freestyle a little! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><u><b>Phoenix Thoughts....... </b></u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">'But first let me take a....'oh wait wrong thing, let`s kick off this new wide ranging sporting view with a look at the Phoenix! I know, I know, but you have to kick off with something you know well! At the time of writing we have had the first weekend of regular season hockey in the EPL and the early EPL table does not mean a great deal with only two games in the books. So, I wanted to talk a little about the Phoenix so far, including the War of the Roses series against the Steeldogs too. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">If you visit the Phoenix forums you will have seen a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the series loss to the Steeldogs. Some fans seeing the Phoenix lack of desire/effort and the club treating the weekend as a pre-season warm up, as an affront to them spending money to watch the games. I fully support a fans right to an opinion and the right to voice it, you pay your money after all. All I would question, is that those fans expectations going into the series. These were two games, yes against a rival, which were PRE-SEASON!!! The fans should know, the way the Phoenix structure their season, is to have the team come together the week before and so the War of the Roses games are their first time together and have only had some players arrive in the country a few days before. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">This is in stark contrast to Sheffield who, by the time the puck dropped in Sheffield Friday night, had already played 4 games! My fellow fans need to realise that and unless the Phoenix change their budgets or Pre-season plans, we will always come into the WOTR undercooked when compared to Sheffield. The weekend for me, has always been about enjoying hockey again after a long summer and Yes, of course I'd rather we won the bowl but, it's not the end of the world. It's nice seeing Sheffield celebrate something! ;) In the end though, the fans always have a choice, you are not forced to fork out your hard earned money to attend, if they don't like how the Phoenix approach the weekend? Don't attend! It really is as simple as that! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">The defence of the EPL title began with a trip to the Bracknell Bees and the visit of the Swindon Wildcats. The away trip to Bracknell was a good one for the Phoenix, as they came back up North with a win. The home game versus Swindon was very entertaining it has to be said. The performance was hugely improved to that against Sheffield and it certainly showed what a difference a good week of training can do! Phoenix dominated the 1st and 2nd periods,while Swindon controlled the third and OT. I do hate losing on penalty shots, but Swindon were just better! They worked Fone well in the shootout and deservedly won the extra point! My take away`s from the game were, that the Phoenix looked good and will improve more too, with their fitness improving and will be able to take the game for the full 60 mins. Swindon will, again, have to rely on their 1st line and Stevie Lyle in goal this season. As with that combination, it will give them a chance, but should a team shutdown their top line, then they will struggle! </span></div>
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<b style="font-family: sans-serif;"><u>Are you Local? </u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">I live in Cheshire.....for some people that means i`m nailed on as a United or City supporter! For me, while I have red leanings for the UK's industrial birthplace teams, the team I really care about is the one where I live. Macclesfield Town or `The Silkmen`. They are long time members of League 2 and I moved to Macc while the club enjoyed their last full season in the football league. Now members of the Vanoraman Conference (catchy) the Silkmen have found their level, Much like the Phoenix, they exist at a level that is appropriate for their level of support. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">Last season the club struggled at times, both on and off the pitch. The riches of the premier league being a world away from local clubs in the lower divisions. There was a few points where the club came close to extinction, but all those behind the scenes, deserve a lot of credit for keeping the club going. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">This year, with a much smaller budget, many a Macc fan was predicting relegation. But the club and players are proving many people wrong so far, as with 9 games gone into the season, it sees Macc Town, having only lost one game so far and that was away to Chester,but remain unbeaten against teams in the top half of the table. It has been a fantastic start for Macc, who has seen many of the players this season having stood up and been counted. Luke Waterfall on loan from Scunthrope, has been a rock at the back, while regulars like Chris Holroyd and Waide Fairhurst, have scored crucial goals when needed for the Silkmen and with Manager John Askey installing a good team ethic into the side, it has made Macclesfield a better team all round! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">So plenty of reasons to be cheerful at the Moss Rose so far! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><b><u>Phoenix? No not that Phoenix! </u></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">I`m betting 99% of people reading this blog and listening to the podcast, are Hockey fans. 99% of those 99%, will have an NHL team in addition to their hockey team in the UK. I am not different and what may make me different is, i`m a fan of a less 'trendy' team. Definitely when compared to my BASC (Below Average Sport Cast) fellows in the Rangers, who Peter and Joe support ! I am a Coyotes fan, latterly of the Phoenix variety, now of the Arizona variety! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">The 2013/14 season was, in the end, a bit of a disappointment on the Ice for the Coyotes. After having won their conference a few seasons ago and then not qualifying for the post season playoff, it was a big let down. Even allowing for the super competitive division, in which the Yotes find themselves, they still had a roster capable of extending their campaign into June, But it wasn't to be. Pleasingly though, the Coyotes enjoyed a great year off the Ice,with attendances going up, sponsorship moving up and the club enjoyed numerous sold out nights including selling out in the premium boxes etc...which led to a few record revenue games for the Yotes. The new ownership group saw them reaping the rewards of their hard work, after years of rudderless NHL ownership, the Coyotes now finally have a focus and direction on which to move ahead from. Off ice is improving too, with fans enjoying the new ownership and the on ice product will come of leaps and bounds, it will be also new kind of start too in the 2014/15 season, with the name change of the Arizona Coyotes being used from now and leads to exciting times for the men from the desert. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">Roster wise, there has been some turnover, with Popular Czech player Radim Vrbata heading towards 'The Great White North' as he joins the Vancouver Canucks and Mike Ribero, who never really clicked for the Coyotes, he has gone to the Predators in Nashville. Coming the opposite way is goaltender Devan Dubnyk ,as he`ll act as back up to Mike Smith. Joe Vitale joins from the Pittsburgh Penguins, Sam Gagner arrives after a deal was struck with the Tampa Bay Lightning and also saw a move for BJ Crombeen heading to the desert too. Max Domi son of former NHL star Tie, should see him stake a claim for a full roster spot on the team, in addition to a first round pick in British born Left Winger Brendan Perlini. Overall the Coyotes roster is looking good and is led of course, by the evergreen Shane Doan, who will icing in his 18th NHL season of his career.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><b>M</b>ark Woodcock is the founder of the Angry budgie Blog: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>http://theangrybudgie.blogspot.co.uk/</b></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-1771916517445378942014-09-13T03:35:00.000-07:002014-10-15T06:49:02.000-07:00The Below Average SportBLOG #2 -Peter Returns..kind of!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Greetings and Hello there and welcome to a new feature that we're going to coincide with the Podcast. Both me and Scuttsy will be doing columns to improve things (or at least try too), these will be just breakaway things and hopefully you'll enjoy reading our columns and our own unique takes on sporting events in the upcoming months.<br />
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Well my first column is coming from the beautiful country of Cyprus as I'm currently on a family holiday enjoying the sights, food and ....oh yeah weather here too!<br />
Prior to heading off on my holi-bobs I took in a couple of sporting events, the first of which was taking an interesting trip over the Pennines to the darkside for a Lancashire lad like me to Sheffield, YORKSHIRE! I went over to watch two matches in one place, as I went initially to go early to do some work for the Official Manchester Phoenix Podcast as the Sledge hockey team I've been covering over the summer played against the newly formed Sheffield Steelkings sledge side.<br />
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The Steelkings are as I said are a newly formed side that has had a friend of mine called Kim McGreal who has helped get the side off the ground along with others to see their plans become reality. Kim and I first met through the recent Sledge Hockey season, where she was made the communications/Social Media manager for the British Sledge Hockey league.<br />
To start with I was just kind of thrown in at the deep end without having much knowledge at all on the sport, apart from watching a bit of it on tv when the Socchi winter games were on back in February in the paralympics. I was asked late on by Ben Knight who hosts the Phoenix podcast, if I was able to travel down to Altrincham to do a podcast on the game. I was given some help around the sport by Graham Wilson who plays on the Phoenix sledge side and begged me to do it and help out at short notice.<br />
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So me being someone who is a good friend and mate ( or gullible! ) I agreed to do it and was told i would get help off two people in the know helping me out on the show. This of course never happened and I had to make it up on the fly with one of the people who was due to help me being drafted late on to go in goals for the visitors due to players unavailble for the game.<br />
The game however saw me make a couple of new friends through the Podcast with me meeting Kim who was organising things out and doing tweets for the game as well. After the game I interviewed Karl Nicholson from the Phoenix and Matthew Coleman from the Peterborough Phantoms side and became friends with them, both Karl and Kim have become my go to guys on things sledge hockey.<br />
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Well before I waffled on, I mentioned I saw the Sledge hockey match at Ice Sheffield which took place prior to the traditional War of the Roses clash between the Manchester Phoenix and the Sheffield Steeldogs, but more on that later. The opening game of the night saw a good run out for both sides to which was a exhibition game and also saw the first ever game for the Steelkings, but Manchester used their experience to see them come out on top as worthy 3-0 winners with Steve Bradley netting his first goals for Phoenix and Karl Nicholson scoring the opener in the contest. To be fair to Sheffield, they had a bit of help with two players guesting from the Kingston Kestrels to boost the numbers and help them with confidence starting out. I wish Kim and the Steelkings luck for the future and progress well.<br />
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Moving to the main event of the evening, we saw the roses battle on ice between the white rose of Yorkshire against the Red rose of Lancashire as the Sheffield Steelpups... I MEAN Steeldogs took on the EPL Champions from last year the Manchester Phoenix, in the first leg of the War of the Roses cup. Considering Sheffield had played about 6 games more than Manchester with friendlies in France and two against the mega rich Telford Tigers, who you'd never have know who had the more games under their belt as both sides were equal and saw the Phoenix looking the better side in periods.<br />
The first leg ended 3-3 with the visitors leading through a James Archer strike and then two quick goals in the third saw Steeldogs lead 2-1 as Lubomir Korhon and Jeff Legue netted in the space of 50 seconds in the opening minute, before Archer levelled at 2-2 and saw Phoenix retake the lead for 3-2. Phoenix looked like they would take a one goal lead back home, but an unfortunate error by Declan Ryan late the game saw the dogs tie it up thanks to Steve Duncombe and so sees the second leg all to play for in Altrincham with Manchester looking favourites you'd have to say.<br />
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Journeys there and back from Sheffield was eventful, with the drive home with Ben Knight and Alex very interesting indeed, as all exits for leaving Yorkshire were closed off and so when we had to drive back through Huddersfield to take the longer route, we ask the i-pod for anything interesting about Huddersfield and the response from the phone was a crushing blow to the town's tourism as it replied "I don't have the capabilites to perform such a task!" in the word of Ben.. 'BOOM'.<br />
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The following day saw me and two friends travel to Eccles to watch the opening game of the new Aviva Premiership Rugby Union season, where the hometown Sale Sharks took on big spending Bath Rugby club and saw me lose my rugby union virginity, as I finally saw my first game ever live in person.<br />
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I really enjoyed the whole matchday experience as the friends that came had been to a game previously, but that was a Six Nations games between Scotland and Ireland up at Murrayfield. One of my friends Rachel is a huge Ulster fan and despite her being to more games than me, it was me explaining the incidents to her and what was being called. The match it's self seemed to me and a two neutrals, that Sale got the very rough end of the stick in decisions by the match official, as I made a comment that he had driven up with Bath on the journey.<br />
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Despite the Sharks losing 29-20 at home at the AJ BELL STADIUM, the overall day was one of excitement and interest, as I'll certainly have to go back and watch another match there too. Star man for me was the Bath fly-half and kicker George Ford in particular as kicked 7 out of 7, which was very impressive indeed. I'll be honest to and say I'm not the most clued- up on union as I should be as I'm a casual fan, though I love the Internationals matches and Lions tours. <br />
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Last weekend also saw International football take over and the opening qualifers for Euro 2016, to which will take place in France in two years time. The games saw a mixture of results for our home nations sides, as England beat Switzerland 2-0 in Basel and the match was viewed as the toughest game in the entire group prior to kick off. Northern Ireland picked up an extremely rare away victory away, when they beat Bulgaria 2-1 to record their first away victory in four years for the men from Windsor Park. South of the border and the Republic of Ireland came from behind to beat a stubborn Georgia outfit 2-1 with Wales copying their style, as two goals from Gareth Bale, which included a stunning free kick to claim victory saw them overcome Andorra 2-1 themselves.<br />
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Scotland had the daunting task of facing the World champions of Germany in Dortmund on Sunday evening and saw the Scots take it to the Germans, falling agonisingly short of a famous draw with them, losing 2-1 with Thomas Müller scoring a brace in the game to claim victory. In a shock story Cyprus won 2-1 in Bosnia to see the Cypriots leading the group Wales are in, yet hardly anything has been mentioned or celebrated over here in Cyprus on tv or media.<br />
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There was some equally more shocking news coming out of England, as yes.. The English cricket side FINALLY beat India in a limited overs match by three runs, thanks mainly to Eoin Morgan and when I heard that news I nearly collapsed from shock!<br />
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That is your lot for my first blogging column, hopefully you enjoyed both our attempts and will encourage you to give us some feedback as we'd really appreciate it! Also I've got some new ideas in the pipeline for the Below average sportcast, so stay tuned<br />
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PETER<br />
Resident Failed Comedian<br />
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Twitter :<br />
@peterbrads<br />
@BASportCast<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-68756052272984300812014-09-12T08:52:00.001-07:002014-09-12T09:27:49.519-07:00Below Average SportsBLOG #1 and a half - While The Peter's Away<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So with Peter away for 3 weeks he's let me write a podcast instead of recording this week, I'll try and keep it to the usual fashion as the show but this time I have creative control much to Peter's regret. <br />
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Now if all has gone to plan Peter's half of this should have gone up before this and all will be in order, if not then your going to know the end of something before the start but anyway I digress. Peter can count himself lucky he went on holiday as he missed the shock of the weekend as the Sheffield Steeldogs won the second leg of the War Of The Roses in Altrincham 6-1 on Sunday night, the tone was set in the first period as 2 goals from Jeff Legue and one from Lubomir Korhon gave the white rose side a lead they never surrendered. The Phoenix got a quick goal in the second period from the ever reliable Michal Psurny but the Sheffield added to their lead before the periods end from Korhon again and Craig Elliott to effectively send the Rose Bowl back to Sheffield for the third straight year with a period to play. Korhon completed his hat trick in the third period to wrap the game up and see the Steeldogs going back through the mountains the happier of the sides.<br />
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In other EPL challenge matches, Basingstoke and Guildford split their home and home series with the away side winning both times. On the Saturday night Guildford won in Basingstoke 3-2 on the back of 2 goals from new signing Owen Fussey and one from Tom Duggan, the Bison's goals came from Joe Rand and the evergreen Nicky Chinn. Bison returned the favour the following night 6-2 at the Spectrum on the back of a 5 point night from defenceman Kurt Reynolds. The Bracknell Bees swept the Swindon Wildcats in their series winning 3-2 both times, on Saturday at the Link Centre Ryan Watt came back to haunt his old side with 2 goals, Tom Annetts had an impressive evening stopping 44 of 46 shots faced. On the Sunday at the John Nike Complex the Bees struck again this time with goals from Matt Towalski, Scott Spearing and Pavel Strycek giving the Berkshire side the win in what was a more even game. Peterborough Phantoms lifted the Ashes again as they beat Milton Keynes Lightning over two legs both held at Peterborough ice rink, on Saturday night the Phantoms cruised to a 5-2 win on the back of a brace from Luke Ferrara and some solid net minding from Latvian import Janis Auzins.The next night the Phantoms won again this time in a closer affair 3-1, the nail being put in the coffin thanks to a empty net goal in the final minute.<br />
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Now the bit I wanted to talk about and its one I will probably carry on till the end, its the 6 things we learnt this week in the NFL, this time after its first week<br />
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1. THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS HAVE A CHANCE TO REPEAT<br />
- Repeating a Super Bowl victory is difficult and hasn't been done in years, the Seahawks have a real chance of doing that this year with the return of Percy Harvin at Wide Receiver the Seahawks are more than just a run the ball team and with their star studded defence including the Legion Of Boom the Seahawks look set for a deep playoff run.<br />
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2. TONY ROMO STILL SUCKS<br />
- The Dallas Cowboys quarterback was lucky to still have a job at the end of last season and will be even luckier after his first week performance, he threw 3 interceptions in the first half which led to 21 San Francisco points in their 28-17 defeat to the Niners.<br />
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3. THE NFC EAST IS THE WORST DIVISION IN FOOTBALL<br />
- Apart from how terrible the Cowboys played the other teams in the division didn't fair much better. The Washington professional football team lost to a bad Houston team 17-6, the Philadelphia Eagles scraped a win in the end over the terrible Jacksonville Jaguars and the New York Giants looked horrendous in a heavy defeat to the Detroit Lions. The sad fact is the winner of the NFC East could in fact have a losing record come the end of December.<br />
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4. ANTONIO BROWN WATCHES THE KARATE KID TOO MUCH<br />
- If you haven't seen this yet I implore you to watch it, as Pittsburgh Steelers kick returner Antonio Brown tried to hurdle Cleveland Browns punter Spencer Lanning but only ended up kicking him in the head in what is probably already the best play of the season.<br />
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5. SOME TEAMS AT THE BOTTOM OF THEIR DIVISION NOW WON'T BE THERE AT THE END<br />
- Sometimes the schedule isn't nice first week and teams struggle, don't draw too much into this after one week, New England, Green Bay, Chicago, San Diego, Indianapolis and New Orleans are all at the bottom at the time of writing they will however not be there come the end of the season if anything 4 of them are likely to be division winners and all 6 are serious contenders to reach the playoffs.<br />
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6. RAY RICE IS A DISGRACE THAT WILL NEVER BE SEEN OF AGAIN<br />
- NFL players don't have a great reputation at the best of times but this was not helped by Ray Rice knocking his then fiancée now wife unconscious in a lift in Atlantic City back in February, this is something that was dealt with badly with Rice originally only being suspended for 2 weeks but now with the actual video being released as been suspended indefinitely and released by the Baltimore Ravens. Rice will more than likely never play football again and will soon fade into insignificance.<br />
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So ends my first attempt at this, I'm sure it will get better in the coming weeks as it gets more and more planned and please if your reading this do listen to the show.... please we could do with the feedback<br />
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Joe Scutts<br />
Alleged Swindon Correspondant<br />
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Scuttsy's Sporting Universehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12622056925191572681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-82968238969354229772014-09-03T09:52:00.002-07:002015-06-11T13:08:01.143-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Epi 22: Cricket troubles, PL round up and EPL previews <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A QUACKING podcast number 22! With Peter Brads and Scuttsy discussing the state of England getting slaughtered by India, as well as Peter fuming over the Lancs t20 final.<br />
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Round up of the opening few weeks of the Premier League Football season, with some Transfer news featured.<br />
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Elite League pre-season and EPL season preview with both of us giving our pre season season standings.<br />
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Ball Hockey review of the SHEFFIELD CUP featuring the Shaw Millionaires, Could the Millionaires retain their Cup....find out??<br />
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<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/22.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a><br />
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p.s Apologises for the audio during the cricket cutting out now and then.<br />
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<b>TWITTER: </b>@BASportCast<br />
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<b>Scuttsy blog:</b> <a href="http://ramblingsofasportsnut.wordpress.com/">http://ramblingsofasportsnut.wordpress.com/</a><br />
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<b>Peter Brads Blog:</b> <a href="http://peterbradssports.blogspot.co.uk/">http://peterbradssports.blogspot.co.uk/</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-44984471197282207352014-08-31T14:50:00.002-07:002015-06-11T13:07:34.216-07:00Below Average Sport cast Epi 21 : 'Sledging' in more than one sense!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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grudge match of Lancashire v Hampshire taking place soon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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competition, talk Belle Vue ACES and Swindon Robins.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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the end too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 19px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><u><a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/22.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a></u></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span></div>
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<a href="http://belowaverage.openshadow.com/episodes/21.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3"><b>Listen here</b></a></div>
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<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/21.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-55374778321261981262014-08-31T14:50:00.001-07:002015-06-11T13:07:08.935-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Episode 20: WORLD CUP, ENG/ Lancs cricket, Speedway<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><u><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast Episode XX<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black;">Joe "Scuttsy" Scutts and i discuss the
World cup, England cricket and Lancashire and Speedway with some waffle in
between.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/20.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-82258555155316022952014-08-31T14:50:00.000-07:002015-06-11T13:05:45.937-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Epi 19: The Band are back together!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast XIX </span></u></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> </span></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 16.8pt;">A podcast with <b>BITE</b> (Pun intended) this week..Peter, Mark and Joe go through the WORLD CUP so
far,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: medium; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: medium; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">There`s Cricket news ( stand by for 2 men going mad) with some
Speedway to throw in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: medium; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: medium; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Also we chat about the STANLEY CUP finals won by LA Kings
(CHUFFING Boooo!!)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: medium; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: medium; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As well as that there is Rugby news and some sledge hockey as </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: large;">well with Interviews from Karl Nicholson & Matthew Coleman from the recent
Phoenix v Phantoms game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: large;">Enjoy Y`all<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/19.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3"><b>LISTEN HERE</b></a></span>
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Special thanks to Ben from the Official Manchester Phoenix podcast for
letting me use the sledge hockey interviews on the show too</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://belowaverage.openshadow.com/episodes/19.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3"><span style="font-size: large;">Listen Here</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-55456160724475722142014-08-31T14:49:00.004-07:002015-06-11T13:05:18.829-07:00Below Average Sport cast Epi 18: NHL Playoffs, Speedway and Eng Cricket<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast XVIII</span></u></b><br />
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Me and Scuttsy discuss Cricket ENG v SRI L, NHL STANLEY playoffs so far and Speedway</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span><br />
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<a href="http://belowaverage.openshadow.com/episodes/18.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3"><span style="font-size: large;">Listen Here</span></a><br />
<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/18.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-55971577948170575072014-08-31T14:49:00.003-07:002015-06-11T13:04:35.204-07:00Below Average Sport Cast episode 17: Stanley cup Playoffs review, Cricket, PL review and Speedway<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast Epi XVII</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Scuttsy and I discuss the final week of the Premier League season. Cricket news, NHL STANLEY PLAYOFFS, Speedway Discussion, US sports news too. While i lose my temper watching Lancashire on tv while recording!!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Listen here</span><a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/17.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-66189321548312294532014-08-31T14:49:00.002-07:002015-06-11T13:05:00.027-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Epi 16: <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast Episode: XVII</span></u></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With Guest host 'Scuttsy' Joe Scutts, he joins us as does Mark Woodcock later on in the show as we discuss County Cricket, Football, Start of the NHL STANLEY CUP playoffs.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">As well as that there is Speedway news...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">with some childishness towards the end.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Listen here</span><a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/16.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-378751479708580552014-08-31T14:49:00.000-07:002015-06-11T13:03:56.698-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Epi15: FOOTBALL SPECIAL & NEW MIC!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast Epi XV</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><br /></u></b>Football Special with round up of all the game in the past couple of weeks with Better quality sound!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/15.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">Listen here</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-65132640249937019602014-08-31T14:48:00.006-07:002015-06-11T13:03:31.644-07:00Below Average Sport Cast epi 14: Cricket, hockey footy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast Episode XIV</span></u></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This edition: Football UK Ice Hockey , SA v AUS / Eng v WI Cricket, DEL ice hockey.</span><br />
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<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/14.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-55253189593708774212014-08-31T14:48:00.005-07:002015-06-11T13:03:00.288-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Epi 13: Football, Hockey overload, Ashes news and Rugby Intnl`s<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: large; line-height: 15.333333015441895px;"><b><u>Below Average Sport Cast episode XIII</u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Edition: Football Premier & International. DEL ,NHL UK Ice hockey, Cricket Ashes series and Rugby Autumn internationals</span><br />
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<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/13.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3"><b>LISTEN HERE</b></a><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-78799001438102018072014-08-31T14:48:00.004-07:002015-06-11T13:01:19.208-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Episode 12: 6 nations, NFL & FOOTY!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Below
Average Sport Cast epi XII</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">This week: Capital one cup Semi
finals, Premier league, FA Cup, EPL hockey and SIX Nations rugby and NFL
superbowl!</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/12.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a></b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-23686835105651241012014-08-31T14:48:00.003-07:002015-06-11T13:00:46.227-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Epi 11: <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast: Episode XI</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">FA Cup Action and Premier League football. Also EPL HOCKEY .. round up </span></div>
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<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/11.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3">LISTEN HERE</a><div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8371655347392058605.post-19494549489441403392014-08-31T14:48:00.002-07:002015-06-11T13:00:06.599-07:00Below Average Sport Cast Epi 10: Xmas footy, NHL WC, UK IH<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Below Average Sport Cast: Episode X</span></u></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Football festive games. NHL Winter Classic, domestic UK hockey</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<a href="http://pbradbury.openshadow.com/episodes/belowaveragesportcast/10.thebelowaveragesportcast.mp3"><b>LISTEN HERE</b></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Twitter: @BASportCast</span> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0