Monday, April 16, 2012

Battle of the West

For the last 3 years I have been looking forward to the day I could watch Top flight AFL in the West of Sydney. Having moved to Sydney nearly 6 years ago (can believe it!!), apart from Family and Friends, I have missed AFL the most. I am a sports nut. I will sit on a Saturday night or Sunday afternoon watching sport, and credit to my wife, generally I am allowed too. I follow Melbourne Storm in the NRL, Adelaide in the AFL, Melbourne Victory in the A-League and always followed the NBL, but since the South East Melbourne Magic nor Southern Dragons aren't around any longer, I have changed to the Sydney Kings for the last few years. 

I was a member for a short while with Adelaide, and now Sydney Kings, but could not bring myself to be a member of the Sydney Swans. I find their football boring, but to get to the SCG is a chore! ENTER THE GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY GIANTS!!! I wont lie, I think Tasmania should have got a team into the AFL before either Gold Coast OR GWS but the decision is made, and it looks to be the right one.

Now this team is based in Blacktown or more so the WEST of Sydney. Although that is the case, they are focused heavily on the Western Part of Sydney, and have even spotted them across the road in Panania having a coaching clinic which is great!! (Especially as it is on an Rugby League Rectangle!). There has been much made of the war of the west between NRL and AFL, but in fact there is not really a war, just NRL finally have a rocket to get their game into gear. Support local, junior teams and development, put money into facilities, and re-focus on their engagement with the local community groups.

So after 3 years of waiting, the GWS Giants have gone from an entity, to the NEAFL (NSW/QLD/NT Version of the VFL) landed in the AFL and have hit 8366 Members (as 16/4/2012), and shortly will play at their new AFL home ground, Skoda Stadium which will be the 42nd venue to host an AFL main season match!

The fact that no one gives them a chance this year is great. Same as everyone (including me) thought about Gold Coast last year and they walked away with a couple of wins! I joined as a member for a few reasons.
a) I didnt want to give Swans my $ and would be hard to get to SCG with a family
b) Adelaide would only play 1 game per year in Sydney - although they havent been here in 3 years.
c) Coached by the greatest coach in the AFL, if not on par with the best in Australia across ANY code/sport/discipline.
d) Watch kids develop into a Chris Judd 10years down the track (Hopefully one club players)
e) I get to watch AFL with my St George Dragons loving wife, and our little 5month old boy. I want to be able to teach him about all different sports and this was key for me.

At Blacktown on Sunday I saw the West Coast Eagles win (as expected) against the Giants. I wont call them  the Young Giants as some people have been, as we have some experience in there, but a developing team that are playing against seasoned bodies.

I cant wait to continue to watch them grow and learn how to use the ball in certain situations and be able to sit up on the wing of the grandstand at Skoda Stadium looking out over the players as they lift the premiership cup........ a nice pipe dream, but it will happen. 

Squawk done.







Tuesday, April 10, 2012

A-nother league going?

With the A-League there has been quite a few team come and go. The old NSL collapsed and rested to form the A-league. New clubs, new structire, new hope with expansion going into the the Asain champion league. Alas, has that hope and optimism fading? Are the big men of Australia flexing their wallet to restrict the league?

I guess we have all read about Tinky boys antics over the last few days, if you haven't...... Where you been?

Nathan Tinkler has wods of cash. He owns a huge horse stud, Newcastle Knights in the NRL, who signed one of the best coaches in Australian sport on the back of Tinkys take over, and until Tuesday, Newcastle Jets. He does ok for himself in mining also.

The fact he seems to be in the same league as Gold Coast uniteds peer Clove Palmer leads to a volatile situation. If they don't get their way, they will pick up their ball and go home.

It's great that successful Australians want to put their cash into Aussie sport, but is it too much of a double edged sword? I think so. If the A-Leagues Frank Lowy and Ben Buckley allow this fold to happen and allow a foundation club to end then they must go.... Right? Surely this $100m Tinkler would have to pay until 2020 is set in stone to prevent these situations.

It's great to get involvement in a sport, its another to effectively kill a league because 2 fat cats pull involvement.

Does it leave the sporting franchise model on Australia in limbo? We could end up having an NBA situation where teams just change cities.... Not a bad thing for leagues, but a certain way to kill fans involvement and loyalty in a team. Should clubs look at stronger bonds/partnerships with successful owners of clubs overseas? Perhaps the time is right to look at expanding the ownership model.

As a sports follower, I hope this gets sorted asap and the league has 10teams next yr......... Big month ahead for the A-League.

Arc over

Monday, July 11, 2011

Product Review–HTC Sensation

htc-sensation-1

Now, when I started this, I was sure to have a few blog on product reviews. Items I am currently using, or I get a sneak peak too. A few I have coming up are for the Acer Tablet, and hopefully another tablet that I am not going to mention…. yet!

Last night I was invited to an event for the HTC Sensation. Like around 40% of phones in the Australian Market, the Sensation runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) version of software. It has a 4.3” screen (HUGE, but easy to handle) quite light weight (148gms) and is SUPER fast.

The Sensation is the first HTC to run a 1.2gHz Dual Core processer, which enables a really (REALLY) fast interface. The phone joins the Motorola Atrix and Samsung S2 as Dual core phones, even leaving behind iPhone4, which is a 1gHz processer, and on their launch, was only catching up to a number of Android phones that were using a 1gHz process.

I found a few things to my liking last night.

1) The Price – $0 on a Telstra $79 Freedom cap or around $792rrp (check with your retailer though)

2) The Features – Dual Core, qHD screen 4.3” screen (with gorilla glass to make it very scratch resistant, HTC Sense (with 3D looking weather), 8MP camera, 1080p HD Video recording (not new, but great viewing on the qHD screen) and HD voice call ability,

3) Android – I am a self proclaimed Android fan boy. I like the openness of the platform for developers, the fact that around 70% of apps are free, and I can personalise the phone to how I want it…. not how Jobsy wants us to use it. I think there are benefits to Apple (for their fan boys), but Android certainly have a number of low end handsets from HTC, Sony Ericsson and Huawei to allow beginners the ability to have it in their hands.

If you currently use iTunes (i don't) but you can easily transfer all of our Music from that system either using HTC Sync, or a 3rd party app available on the market place i.e. double twist. This will allow all of the Apple Phone 3 customers to transfer over seamlessly.

When you are in the market for a new phone, all the Telstra Stores, in fact most phone stores now have active units to try. So read your blogs, do the re-search, but play with a phone and don't just buy it ‘cause everyone else has one’, or because it looks pretty…. chances are it will cost you the amount of the phone when you drop it if that's the case (probably made from glass)

That’s it for now, so go out there and try it if you are in the market for a new phone! Ill be getting mine tomorrow!!

HANDY LINKS:

Android Market Place (on computer) - https://market.android.com/

HTC home page – http://www.htc.com/au/

Squawk done

Monday, July 4, 2011

Car issues

There has been lots happening, and to be honest I want to use this but I don't think I would usually be allowed as some of the stuff I want to say will implicate me for various 'in progress' ........ disagreements I am having with a few places.

My car has been a pain in the ass since we bought it in march. Who would have thought such an easy experience could be soured by bad customernservice, incompatancy from the dealer and all 7 staff I have talked to about my issue. The 'dealership'  (I won't name them.......yet) handballed me on saturday after my door would not open again. This is the 2nd time this has raised its head since my cosmetic issue on the window was fixed. Turns out there was a faulty door lock rod. SPEWING.

Now that is fixed, I have officially gone to the maker of the car (after the sales manager handballed me) and the maker, while listening and doing all they can, they agreed I was handballed which if you know me, gets my back up. I even went as far to trade the car in on saturday, but lets see what the maker of the car can do for me first. I hope the dealer principle steps to the plate........ not holding my breath!!

I don't know how many China men I have hit this year, black cats I have kicked or walked under x amount of ladders this year to have this much luck but hopefully it turns itself around shortly.

Maybe I should ask the air-conditioning company that installed our system a month ago to join this blog so they can see what a pain I am if your product shits itself. So you know, the compressor in our month old reverse cycle system doesn't work, and is the reason it has been blowing cold air and not hot air when its on 25d.

Ill keep you posted on the car situation.

For those interested and you don't know, the Southern Power div5 team is now 12-0 for the year with about 8 rounds to go..... get down to the TAB and put 20 on us :-)

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

One for the time capsule

So, my first blog. With the amount of times I hit Facebook as an outlet for frustration, I'm surprised its taken this long to jump on a blog.
For those with access to my rants already, I'm hoping this can turn out to be more informative than a 160 character update.
As I move deeper into the state of shock with retail staff and business not caring once the dollar hits their deep pockets, I also want to mix it up with a ray of insight from others, including any great interviews I find or do, updates on my local www.southernpower.com.au AFL club and my div5 (so far, touch wood) undefeated team, tech updates with the hits and misses out there and any reviews that contradict the movie 'experts'.
I also, after mums suggestion, will share my experiences in preparation of fatherhood (due end of October). The early thought I have on this is..... YES! Can't wait to hold MaLa and see this special person that's has made my wife ill with 'morning' sickness.
Well, that's me for now, my time standing on the train with my headphones onso I can't hear ppl talk so loud or listen to their volume pumped headphones is over (nearly ranted in the first edition)
Squawk done
(Thanks Kyle for the sign off)
(Thanks LaLa for the blog name. Love u!)