fix your team...

[Ken Gargett]

most sporting fans follow more than one team (in different sports/codes - not from the same comp). 

now, unless you follow/ed the saints (league) back in the 50/60s or the pats (NFL) recently or Qld in the State of Origin or the lions (AFL) early this century and a few others, you are always going to think your team could do better.

how would you fix them?

personally, 

broncos (league - not the NFL). stop giving stupid contracts to people verging on their use-by dates (i'm looking at you darius boyd). go all out for bellamy as coach and dump bennett (something about use-by springs to mind). find a member of the halves who can organise a game. they are headless chooks at the moment. sort the salary cap so that we are not in the bottom half of the table and losing players like oates. that is incompetent. 

state of origin. Qld. okay, not unhappy with more than a decade of utter dominance but that is nearing its end. beware selecting old favourites who have done the job in the past but are now not what they were (darius boyd, a second appearance). 

reds. well, after a record thrashing yesterday, so much work to do but prepared to give thorn a chance. i suspect I had a far better afternoon drinking Grange than anyone watching the reds managed. Hopeless.  can't believe the thousands on sports forums screaming for his sacking. he has put together a very young squad with some wiser older players. they do need time. it might not work but what else is? the players i'd cut are the ones who really do not seem to care if they win or lose (f-sautia and a few others - talent is not enough).

but the game as a whole, well...

Saw the clip of the elbow in the NSW game. This is something that I have banged on about for years. until super rugby gets neutral refs, it will never be seen as a serious sport. What a farce. Granted I'm all in favour of anything that beats NSW but seriously? New Zealand ref, touch judges, tv ref. and that happens. I gather there was more. I know that New Zealand thinks of itself as holier than thou but they really are a grubby pack of cheating hypocrites. Hard not to remember that reds game in South Africa a couple of years ago when we got blown off the park and the yarpies (always used that term in the same sense as aussies/kiwis but someone recently said our south african friends don't see it that way and if so, apologies) could do no wrong – about 68 penalties to zero. more than a few sides around the super rugby felt that they had no chance if kaplan was the ref for a south african team as well, though i don't recall him being that bad. just arrogant beyond imagination, and for no reason. Even NSW v Qld – as soon as I see that grubby little angus gardner walk on a field, I feel like our chances go down the drain. It is possible that others view Aussie refs and even Qld refs in a similar manner. they should not have to. neutral refs or continue to be a joke. 

Why can they not use neutral refs? Beginning of the year, a couple of south african refs are housed over here for anything New Zealand v Australia and there are a couple of kiwi/Aussies housed in South Africa for those games. If these guys want to be refs, that is part of the deal. They get paid. Or just fly them back and forth. Otherwise, this crap will remain. spend those extra couple of dollars and save the game from being thought of as a joke and avoid pissing off endless fans. 

Not that the grasshopper could have saved the reds yesterday.

wallabies. well some things are beyond fixing. i see the iceman crumbled again and stuffed up crucial simple kicks. worst fly half ever. but no competition. izzy has turned into an international disgrace with his farcial religious nonsense and burning gays in hell. well done the kiwi netballer who made such a mess of the canterbury league team that she was rewarded with warren buffett-like money to come over and destroy rugby, not that it needed help. you cannot have your highest profile player sprouting utter nonsense about the gay community. instead, the netballer has come out and said that it is "difficult". no, it isn't. you are paid a bucketload to make these decisions. one of my great mates has a gay brother. both rugby fans. my mate especially. he has travelled thousands of miles to watch games with nsw and the wallabies. never misses in sydney. a real student of the game. has been for fifty years. so disgusted was he that he returned all supporters gear and future tickets. got a boiler plate response from kirsty or crystal or someone at RA who did not even bother with their full name to assure him that "we are listening". what a dismal stupid useless response. RA needs to grow up. another fanatical fan lost. he is off to enjoy the soccer. 

rugby is on life support in this country and it is very hard to see us ever recovering. the administration has been beyond incompetent. 

arsenal. to be honest, no idea. will wait to see what post-wenger brings. getting rid of stan k a huge step. spending serious money supporting the team with some top new talent another. and making sure wenger's replacement is the best possible.

redskins. well, nothing to fix here. we are superbowl bound, baby!

fat chance. lord knows where to even start. although...

gruden's last year if we do not at least make a run into the playoffs. won't be easy in our division. 

[btort910]

Chicago Bears- get rid of the McCaskey ownership!!

[luckme10]

Oakland A's - New Owners please.

49ers - New Owners please.

[ayepatz]

Scotland Rugby - steadily improving. More of the same, please. Just don’t forget to defend when you’re merrily flinging the ball around. Townsend has a brilliant tactical brain, and I am genuinely excited about the way we’re now playing. Apart from the handling errors. But that will improve under Townsend. Hopefully. Although when Finn Russell gets a rush of blood to the head anything can happen.

Rangers - a total disaster area over the last few years. Appointing Steven Gerrard as the new manager will only be a success if the board give him the funds he needs to make wholesale changes. Unfortunately, I don’t think those funds are in place. It will be interesting to see if he can inspire others to match the heights of his own playing career. A big ask for a novice manager. The most vital club employee over the next two seasons will be his assistant. Rangers fans will not countenance much more mismanagement and nonsense. Victories against Celtic are long overdue, and impatiently awaited. But, at the moment, there’s more chance of witnessing a herd of flying cattle over Ibrox. The gap is huge. Gerard’s task is vast.

Scotland football - where do I begin? Absolutely hopeless for the last two decades. We have reaped the cost of allowing Celtic (and Rangers, before they imploded) to dominate the league at the expense of the smaller teams. More money needs to find its way to the smaller clubs. Twilight foreigners do not make homegrown players better. And they cost a fortune. That money should be getting plunged into the grassroots game.

Plan B - send all our footballers to Brazil to start families. Their offspring can’t all play for Brazil...?