Charlie_Mullan
Contributor

Offline, last online: Dec 18 2008, 14:33 PM

At 10.58 on Saturday morning, one of sport biggest shocks took place. Nobody thought it would happen, I certainly didn't. Two weeks ago few would have believed it would happen. But in front of 50,000 fans at the Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane - we saw it. Against all odds, the World Cup trophy was found in time to be presented after a thrilling final between favourites Australia and New Zealand.
After going AWOL when sent on unaccompanied from Melbourne to Brisbane for a promotion event, the trophy took centre stage minutes after New Zealand shocked the watching world with a 34-20 win over the supposedly invincible Aussies. And it's a good job too. If the trophy had stayed in Oz any longer it would soon be speaking with an Aussie accent and asking for a vegemite sandwiches.

New Zealand were helped to their wonderful victory with some uncharacteristic errors from Australia and in particular Billy Slater, who had a brain explosion that led to Benji Marshall's try 20 minutes from the end. I think the next time he is in that situation he will gladly step out of bounds with ball tucked under his arm.
That moment didn't affect the outcome as much as Steve Ganson's decision to award a penalty try to put the Kiwis 28-20 in front with nine minutes left.
Having heard both commentators, it was strange to hear Hemmings and Stevenson lamblast video referee Ganson for awarding the score when Lance Hohaia was clearly obstructed. Peter Stering and co at Channel Nine claimed immediately it should be a penalty try. If only we could have listened to the men with mikes in Aus, rather than the Mike in Aus with no clue.

I refer to 'Stevo' who got into the spirit of Panto with some of his comments. My favourite followed Darren Lockyer's dive for the line in the 19th minute. In his trademark opinionated Dewsbury twang, he claimed: "There is nothing wrong with the grounding of the ball whatsoever, this will be a T-R, oh he's dropped it, he's dropped it. This will be 'N-O T-R-Y. Thanks for spelling that out for us S-T-E-V-O.

So what that England didn't reach the World Cup final. As Tweedle Steve and Tweedle Dum said, and I think England fans will take consolation from this after three defeats from four games - England have the best referees! These are the same referees they criticise week in, week out. Makes you feel sorry for the Aussie whistle blowers. They must be really bad!


What a weekend of sport!
The Formula One season boiling down to the final corner, a seven-goal thriller at Old Trafford and England's embarrassments in Twenty/20 and rugby league.

Anyone who thought England had a realistic chance of bringing the Rugby League World Cup back to these shores will be realising there will only be one winner this year.

We all knew there was a gulf in class between the NRL and Super League but the way England capitulated in Melbourne was simply pathetic.

There's no other way to sum it up and I'm sure Shaun Briscoe and Peter Fox are relieved not to be associated with a very poor performance.

On the subject of the World Cup, the world media have just dismissed PNG, who shouldn't have been dumped in with the big 3, have seemingly nothing to play for in their final group game. Or do they?

England play New Zealand next week while PNG have to beat Australia in their final game to stand any chance of progressing.

If, and I know it's a massive if, if PNG beat Australia, PNG would have the same number of points as the loser of England v New Zealand.
The conspiracy theorists reading this might suggest Australia let PNG beat them by the required points to eliminate their dear friends - the Pommies. Of course, Australia are too professional for that and will no doubt record a routine win over PNG and keep England in the competition. And why wouldn't they want England, who have been outscored 52-0 in the second halves of their last 2 games.

England claim they are closing the gap between themselves and the NRL. That is not the case even though they have dominated recent World Club Challenges. The standard of Super League may be getting better, but so is the NRL standard and therefore, the Australian game will always be better than here in England. England missed 45 tackles, and you can't afford that many against Australia.

People accuse rugby league as a Mickey Mouse sport and they have a point when you consider the referee was Australian and the video referee was an Australian born ref based in England. Did anyone else notice the touch judge smile when Greg Inglis scored to make it 16-4 to Australia?

Congratulations to Hull City for running mighty Man United close at Old Trafford on Saturday. At 4-1 down, nobody gave the Tigers a prayer and instead of taking a leaf out of England's rugby league team's book, City dug deep to score two late goals.

The late action wasn't confined to Old Trafford as Lewis Hamilton secured a dramatic World Championship. When Felipe Massa took the chequered flag, with Hamilton sixth, he thought correctly he had won the title. But as Glock's car ran to a halt, Hamilton moved to the fifth place he needed to take the title.

As for the Stanford All Stars match, what a damp squid that turned out to be. So the Stanford All Stars are $20m richer. If they can find another million dollars, they could buy Saddam Hussein's yacht, which is on sale for £17m.
It's fitted with everything from a helicopter pad, 2 swimming pools a mini submarine and what every luxury yacht should have - a surface to air missile launcher.