| Kolb, Bradley are uncertain with concussions By 2010-09-13T16:41:15ZPHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Quarterback Kevin Kolb and linebacker Stewart Bradley have not been ruled out for Philadelphia's game at Detroit next Sunday despite sustaining concussions in the season opener.... hosted.ap.org |
Diamondbacks sweep fading Rockies with 10-9 win By JOHN MARSHALL 2010-09-24T07:49:50ZPHOENIX (AP) -- Stephen Drew homered and had four RBIs, Kelly Johnson hit a two-run shot and the Arizona Diamondbacks held off Colorado 10-9 Thursday night to complete a three-game sweep of the fading Rockies.... hosted.ap.org |
Ryder Cup 2010: Will rain drive competition from UK to the continent? | Paul Hayward The FedEx Cup ensures the Ryder Cup is more likely to be played in bad weather when played in BritainWhile golfers on both sides were stuffing their pockets at the toweringly lucrative FedEx Cup last week, a Ryder Cup in Wales was waiting deep in the autumn schedule, hoping the Atlantic would not pick up its watery depths and dump them on Celtic Manor. This prayer went unanswered as the fronts swept in and October dawned with the architects of this proud week for Wales hunched against the gales.Society's need to find someone to blame cannot lead us to the Welsh, who can hardly be admonished for their westerly climate, so how about asking why this supposedly pivotal and emotionally unsurpassable tournament was shunted back another week to accommodate a pork-barrel dive, from which the USA's Jim Furyk motored home with a $10m bonus?The Ryder Cup's dirty secret is that the more acquisitive modern player sees it as time torched for not much monetary gain. Relentless hype and the militarisation of the event by the USA team provide the edge missing from the largely Corinthian make-up of the contest.The Ryder Cup finds non‑financial reasons to demand attention and finds them rather well. But the dollar is still winning by nailing the competition on the end of the serious stuff. The subtext is: let's get the rankings and the cash shared out before we reach for the blazers and speeches. Plonked down from 1-3 October, Samuel Ryder's brainchild is an afterthought.Late-season greed may seem an easy target, especially as Europe's players are equally acquisitive in the Arcadian autumn of the American Tour. But the Ryder Cup cannot work both sides of the street and expect its public not to notice.On one pavement it shouts about the glories and seduces us with mood music and battle cries. Across the road, it makes Celtic Manor wait until winter is creeping near and subjects tens of thousands of spectators with expensive tickets to weather‑induced interruptions and a miserable trudge through mud.Of course rain might have drenched this first day in July or August or September. August, especially, was a parody of summer: a grim lowering of the British spirit towards winter. This country could no more guarantee the Ryder Cup three bright days than it could a British winner at Wimbledon.The point is that the risk of abject weather and bad light was increased by the choice of dates and will be even greater in 2014 if, as the word on the street suggests, the PGA Tour of America have offered the third week in October to the host venue, Gleneagles. A forerunner of the underwater Ryder Cup was staged at that Scottish Eden in 1921. Ten American golfers took on a Great Britain team in the International Challenge and the Scotsman reported: "The sun lit up the golden glory of the gorse." Honeyed prose is unlikely to be unfurled four years from now if the Ryder Cup tees off in Scotland a week short of November.The political virus is the antipathy of the PGA Tour, who set up the Presidents Cup partly as a rival to the event now drying itself in Wales. The Ryder Cup is profitable for its two owners, the PGA of America and the European Tour, but the body that lays out the American calendar has no incentive to clear space or say no to sponsors for someone else's ceremonial shindig. The PGA Tour point a finger at NBC and their college football TV commitments.This was the latest Ryder Cup start since 1967. Valderrama, in 1997, was also beset by rain, in Spain, so Wales is understandably aggrieved to be cast as a uniquely sodden outpost to which the Ryder Cup was unwise to venture. This will cause deep ill feeling among the hosts.A collateral cost of these disruptions, though, is that people will question how the staging rights came to be awarded to a course many experts see as a simulation of America, after heavy lobbying by Sir Terry Matthews, its owner, in pursuit of a personal obsession.A starker risk is that the Ryder Cup will be driven out of Britain by this country's inability to provide appropriate conditions so late in the year. From 2018, golf has embraced that tedious saga known as the bid process, and France, Germany, Holland, Portugal and Spain have already had the pleasure of a visit from the Cup's new evaluation panel."It's a great shame but the schedule was dictated by the FedEx Cup. The FedEx wasn't invented when this tournament was launched but it is now and that's just the way it is," says Paul Azinger, the USA captain in 2008. "Because of the FedEx the Ryder Cup just keeps getting forced back and back and back." To where it stood on day one here, in a puddle.Ryder CupGolfPaul Haywardguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
NKorea appeals underage ban from gymnastics worlds By 2010-10-13T14:34:55ZLAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- North Korea's gymnastics federation has appealed the ban on its team because one member falsified her age.... hosted.ap.org |
Shaun Edwards: Are long-kicks now too easy? The balance of the game is in jeopardy from the Premiership ball which allows kickers regularly to land 60-yard penaltiesDial up Don Clarke on YouTube and you get some grainy black-and-white footage of a big man kicking the living daylights out of the 1959 Lions. Admittedly he scored a try in the second Test at Wellington but the abiding image is of a man with No1 on his back – that is how full-backs were numbered – placing a ball on a mound of earth and then toe‑punting it amazing distances.He was also remarkably accurate considering he was kicking in huge leather boots laced up and over his ankles and with a solid, domed toe cap. On one occasion he is said to have landed a kick – and the balls were leather and laced in those days – from 65 yards. Thank God he is not playing today.I mention Don Clarke because he was unusual. In parts of New Zealand men of a certain age still talk about The Boot – the man who beat the British and Irish Lions by himself. The headline after the first Dunedin Test was "Clarke 18, Lions 17", after he had kicked a world-record six penalty goals to cancel out the Lions' four tries.It is a fascinating piece of rugby history and even the balls Clarke kicked sell for a decent price at auction but I would not have like to be around when a penalty was worth the same as a try.Thankfully we have moved on, which is why I want to talk about balls – not just any balls but the ones we are using in the Premiership. They seem to go miles. Kickers are regularly landing 60-yard penalties and I think there is a danger of the balance of the game being skewed. The lawmakers have not always been my favourite people but hats off to them this time because we now seem to be playing a game where the emphasis is on running rather than kicking, where risk gets its reward and where the supporters get value for their hard-earned entrance fee.From the footage I have seen there will not be many who grumbled at the past two weeks of Heineken Cup but we are back to the league this weekend and back to the Gilbert ball that worries me because I feel it is giving too much reward. Twice, late in the game against Gloucester last month, Nicky Robinson banged over kicks from 60 yards, though I am not complaining because a week earlier we had beaten Leicester with Dave Walder doing a similar job on them.Put simply, I think the ball goes too far and that technology has to be reined in. I am not blaming Gilbert. It is their job to make improvements but things can go too far. For example, golf has had to reconfigure tournament courses as players hit the ball farther and farther and tennis is a very different game since rackets doubled in size.Today's players are extraordinarily skilful but I would still like to see them hitting a running top-spin backhand in the manner of Rod Laver while using a wooden-framed racket that weighs double the ones they use now and has a sweet spot a quarter the size.Technology has changed their game and I do not want it to do the same to mine. I think it is fair enough to go for goal from 40 metres, 45 yards or so, but beyond that I would expect a kicker to have to go for the corners and build the pressure. It is, or should be the way of the game, but last year in Hamilton the Springbok Francois Steyn kicked penalties from 60, 58 and 56 metres at sea level. Now we all know that Steyn is a big kicker – remember the attempted drop from inside his own half to announce his arrival at Twickenham – but what would he do with the Aviva ball?Kickers tend to have specialist coaches to help them out and over the years exercises have been developed to increase the core strengths needed to boot a ball with increasing force. That you will never change but, if technology can be used to advance, then it can also be used to hold things in check.I do not want to see tactical kicks where a punt goes the length of the field – that is too much reward for the kicker and too big a penalty for the attacking side, whose forwards have probably worked themselves close to exhaustion to get up the field. And I want place kicks from Don Clarke's kind of distances to retain that wow factor and not be commonplace.PremiershipRugby unionShaun Edwardsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |