When is a win not a win?

During a recent visit to my sisters house in New Zealand I took her bike out to get to see the area better. Cycling along I come across two ten year old's on their BMXs' who challenged me to a race. Not one I turn down a challenge, I peddled away from the boys easily before turning around to let them know I was basically Stephen Roche in disguise. As hollow a victory as beating two ten years old may be, it probably ranks in my top ten sporting achievements. This classes me in what the Aussies call a "flat track bully" somebody who comfortably beats smaller, weaker opponents but put them up against a pack of shaven-legen men and watch them crumble. Which made me poise the question - is a win ever not a win?

The most overly used cliche in sport is when the coach says that the fans don't care how we win, once we win. Growing up supporting both Newcastle and Donegal I viewed myself as superior to fans of other teams as I supported teams who played "real football". Both sides played with reckless abandon, never prepared to sacrifice their style of play in pursuit of results. And both teams were beaten on a regular occurrence by teams who judged success wholly on the size of their trophy cabinet.

When Sam Allardyce arrived on Tyneside it was to much fanfare. Here was a manager capable of delivering success to the starving fans. Alas his tenure was up within six months as he had the audacity to play five across midfield. What Sam didn't appreciate was that Newcastle fans not only expected you to win but to win with style. Eventually the question is poised to all Newcastle fans; would you rather lose 4-3 or win 1-0? Hand on heart I have always said lose 4-3. But then Jim McGuinness came into my life and changed the way I viewed winning.

Having watched the u21s play last year it was evident that McGuinness was the ultimate pragmatist. His system restricts teams scoring opportunities and once the ball is turned over they use Michael Murphy to devastating effect. In short it's horrible to watch as a neutral. Initially I was horrified. I felt violated to hear us mentioned in the same sentence as "puke football". I brought my new girlfriend on a romantic date to Ballybofey to her first ever Ulster Championship match against Antrim and found myself apologizing to her the whole way through it and saying things like this is not usually how Donegal play, we're usually the gallant losers.

But much like Newcastle's brief stay in the Championship I found a strange thing happening. I began to enjoy winning. It didn't matter that it wasn't entertaining much like it didn't matter that it was Colchester and not Chelsea that we were beating. I went to games no longer in hope but in expectation. I have became all that I despise; a results man. I now don't know how it'd feel if Donegal threw complete caution to the wind and Sunday and played like they did they last time they were in an All-Ireland Semi Final. Would I applaud their daring or lambast them changing the game plan?  

This is the crux of the argument; is it better to win ugly or lose prettily? Arsenal fans beg for the days of 1-0 to the Arsenal but no doubt at the time they wanted to see their side play more expansive football. Ultimately we'd all like to win prettily but we can't all support Barcelona. So until Jim McGuinness decided he can pull off a woolen cardigan it looks like I'll be celebrating winning ugly.

 

Post by Seamus McDaid. Find Seamus on twitter @fbspecial

Too early to tell if apprentice will overtake the master

Disastrous start to the tipping for the new season – anyone who replicated this bloggers’ bets lost 2.5 points last weekend. Manchester United were the only positive result. All the other games ended in draws. To be honest this is the reason I dislike betting on football – it is a proper three horse race. Rugby on the other hand virtually removes the draw.

Alex Ferguson won the first battle in what will hopefully be a long war with Jose Mourinho’s protégé Andre Villa Boas. The premiership could do with a rivalry as intense as the Mourinho-Ferguson one.

Chelsea and United are in my opinion the only teams who will this year’s trophy – so effectively the Reds have a two point head start. This should not be underestimated: two points gained now is the same as two points won on the last day of the season, they are both added to a club’s final tally.

Before sitting down to write this edition of the blog, I watched the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup (Barca-Real). Unfortunately, I was at work so I could not give it my full attention, but it looked an exciting game. Barcelona lead 2-1 at half time, Real equalised, before Lionel Messi scored the winner, 2 minutes from time. Once again though ugly scenes marred the fixture – Marcelo received a red card for a horrible tackle on Cesc Fabregas, unfortunately for the Madrid man, the referee was not an Arsenal fan.

The game then experienced a nasty “brawl” with 22 on-field players, the management and substitutes getting involved just off the pitch. Soccer is perhaps the only sport, where brawl could be written in inverted comas, no one was hurt, not one punch was thrown, however there was some heated pushing and shoving, Mehmut Ozil got sent off for his part in the charade.

La Liga still has nothing to offer in comparison to the premiership: the big two are so far ahead of their rivals that the two “el clasico” games are the only ones worth watching. However both of these sides will play a big part in the Champions League, hence it is satisfying to see that Real look like a serious force this season and Barcelona are as good as ever.

Full steam ahead to RWC 2011

Ireland lost their second rugby international in a row, 19 – 12 against France in Bordeaux, last Saturday evening. This was the last game of the world cup build-up where performance outweighs the result. The reverse fixture against the French, this Saturday, is all about winning.

The team played well in the second half and could have easily taken a massive scalp – Ireland should overcome France at home and minus 3points at 10 to 11 is my pick of the week. Unlike last weekend the side picked, is close to a first-choice fifteen, there is still the Sexton – O’Gara debate, however rotation means that Sexton is in the hot-seat this weekend. Likewise O’Leary’s selection could be argued, but he is definitely the manager’s first choice.

Ireland won the second half, last Saturday, and should take that momentum into the home game. If Ireland win and then beat England seven days later, they will get on the plane with serious plans about topping their group and reaching the semi-finals.

Declan Kidney announces his world cup 30, on Monday. Peter Stringer has not made the squad for either the France game nor for the test against Connaught. His international career is probably over. This is absolutely absurd given that in my opinion, he should be a serious contender for the nine shirt against Australia. Stringer’s experience alone should have assured him of a place in the squad.

It is sad to see that young Conor Murray does not make the squad for the international and is instead the replacement nine for the game against Connacht. He played well for twenty minutes against France, but it looks like he is the fourth choice scrum half – only three will be selected in the touring party.

The first choice front row, for the world cup, will be Mike Ross, Best or Flannery and Cian Healy. Ross, Best, Healy have been chosen against France. The scrum is one of the few areas where Ireland believe they can trouble Australia. These three should spend every second prior to that game practicing their technique, to the point where they are uninvolved in other aspects of training.

England ripped the Wallabies apart, in this facet of the game, at the last world cup. If Ireland could win numerous penalties at the scrum, it would demoralise the opposition and turn this into an ugly, but winnable contest. Even when Australia trashed France 59-16, last November, they conceded a penalty try at the scrum.

There is no point running the Wallabies close in an open game, which happened in 2003.

That is all for this edition, kind of a two in one, remember tip of the week is Ireland minus 3 points to beat France (10 to 11). This tip is also being promoted because France have made 13 changes to the side that played Ireland last week. I think the bookies are focusing too much on the fact that Ireland have a dismal record against the French. The side put out by Kidney should be stronger than that of the French and Ireland need the win more.

M.C.

The Numbers Game

Sports fans come in many categories. There are the anoraks, those who can tell you the exact results of the 1988 FA Cup fifth round or the winning scores of the 1976 European Tour. There are the casual fans, those who will watch something if it's on, but who won't actually know the minutiae. And then there are those in between, those who will hold forth on subjects and know just enough about their subject to get by. I would hopefully count myself in that category, though others may beg to differ.

The classic wannabe question in a sport is "who is the best ever?". It sets off a debate, makes them seem more intelligent than they are, and conveys the impression that they have considerable knowledge about their field. In recent years, however, the growth of TV has moved sports in this direction. Forty years ago, almost no sport published rankings. Today, almost all of them do. The idea of "best ever" is here to stay.

The problem with this is that it is completely disingenuous, as "best ever" is almost unquantifiable. Sure, there are names that will forever be considered to be the top in their field. Think of Pele in football, Babe Ruth in baseball, or most obviously Muhammed Ali in boxing. Every talent since then gets compared to these.

It's human nature to compare things. Oasis spent most of their career being compared with The Beatles. Every dark fantasy novel is referred to as "the new Twilight". The problem is that in sport, while it seems easy enough to make a valid comparison, given that the rules of the game don't change, in practice no comparison ever is valid.

Tiger Woods has fourteen Majors to his name. Jack Nicklaus has eighteen. Ergo, Nicklaus is the best ever. However, this is flat wrong. If Woods, playing at his peak in the early part of this century, was to play against Nicklaus at his peak, there would be no contest. The Tiger would wipe the floor with the Golden Bear. The reason that Woods has yet to equal Nicklaus's record (he has plenty of time to do so) is because great though he is, he isn't as good relative to the rest of the field as Nicklaus was. Since Nicklaus's time, courses have been made longer and harder, and top golfers have moved from being semi-professional types to being full-time players who train from childhood.

The same applies to boxing. Much as people might like to dispute it, Lennox Lewis would probably have beaten Muhammad Ali if both fought at their peaks. Heavyweight boxing had simply moved to a different level. Of course, the most obvious field that this is shown in is athletics, as records continue to fall with every World Championship or Olympics. It is just over fifty years since Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. Now hundreds of people have done it.

However, there is a flip side to all of this. In Pele's time, football boots were poorly made lumps of metal with nails in them. Nowadays, the things are designed on computers. Similarly, when Jack Nicklaus went out with his three woods, the things were actually made of wood, unlike the titanium affairs of modern times. The switch from wooden racquets to metal ones in tennis coincided with a change in the gameplay to focus on serving rather than rallying, as metal racquets gave players increased hitting power. The fact is that the differences in ethos, training and equipment make comparisons over extended time periods worthless.

A second question arises when we move from looking at the best ever to the best of the moment. World rankings in sports are a comparatively recent invention. Golf's ranking system only started in 1986. The reason they became useful in certain sports was twofold. Firstly, the sheer profusion of events in fields like golf or tennis make it difficult to judge who the best is. Particularly in golf, very few players will win multiple tournaments in succession. When the only tournaments worth talking about were the Majors, it wasn't as important, as there were only four competitions, so anyone could follow it. Now, with the profusion of golf competitions out there, there isn't as clear a proxy, so we rely on the sporting federations to do our thinking for us. The second reason is the rise of television.

One of the things about American sports that so baffles outsiders is their obsession with statistics. American football pundits are the worst offenders. One cannot watch a ball being thrown in an American football game without a talking head informing you that it was the third longest throw this month, or something similar. I suspect that one of the reasons America still hasn't really taken to Association Football is that the sport doesn't lend itself easily to statistical analysis.

However, it's worth noticing that with the spread of television, statistics are now part of every sport. The fact that they use subjective measures means that to the anorak, they are useful only in demonstrating their obsession. After all, the world golf rankings award huge points for winning a Major, despite the fact that the courses are no more challenging than anywhere else on the tours. They are the prestige tournaments because we have decided they are. The same applies to tennis. People complain that Caroline Wozniacki is World No. 1 on the Women's tour without ever having won a Grand Slam, yet this misses the point. While she may not have won a Grand Slam, she's consistently performed at everything else, and after all, Wimbledon is no more technically challenging than any other grass court in the world.

Television has led to the mass-marketing of sport, and thus the growth of the casual fan. Previously, the only way to experience sport was to actually be physically at it. This meant a) sports fans tended to have a much deeper interest, and b) it would be in a much narrower field. A football fan could really only be able to attend one team's home games, which obviously gave him a much deeper understanding of this team, but a more introverted field of view for the league as a whole.

Nowadays, television has made it possible to watch much more sport than before. However, the amount of sport to follow has also shot up. In the 1970s there were twenty events on the European Tour. Now there are forty-seven. It has become increasingly difficult for a fan to follow all of this. Numbers simplify things nicely. Rather than having to keep track of every player's ongoing performances, the casual fan can simply check on a golfer's rankings to bluff his way through a conversation.

As sports continue to globalise, we can expect more of this. Sporting fans are more likely than ever to be unable to see events live. The amount of tournaments, matches and games to keep track of is going to grow, as developing countries see having a golf or tennis competition as a badge of prestige. The anorak fan, who knows the minutiae of Stoke City for the past fifty years, is dead. In his place is the fan who watches dozens of sports from across the world on satellite TV, and needs numbers to make sense of the whole thing.

Pundits, numbers, and statistics are now part of sport. We, the fans, have created the beast. Now we can but hope it won't destroy us.

Greg Bowler doesn't own an anorak, but is good with numbers.

The Secret's In The Caddy

All the talk at the start of the week was of one man, Tiger Woods. The most famous golfer on the planet was returning from a lengthy lay off having not played since the Masters in April, where he finished a creditable tied fourth. Despite having not played in four months and his somewhat patchy form at the start of the year, Augusta apart, Tiger went into the WGC Bridgestone Invitational as one of the favourites due to his phenomenal record at the course. The world number 28 had competed at the Firestone golf course eleven times and had ended the week victorious on no fewer than seven occasions, with last year being the only one in which he failed to finish in the top five. You could understand people wanting to side with the 14 time major winner when he obviously loves the course and knows how to get the job done here.

However, Woods wasn't the only seven-time winner at Firestone looking to make it number eight. Steve Williams, Tiger's ex-caddy, is now the bag man for Adam Scott and he too was hoping to claim another title at the Akron, Ohio venue. Williams was a major part of the former world number one's success, working with Woods for 13 of his 14 major victories and all seven of his Firestone triumphs. After his acrimonious split with Woods earlier this year, Williams was asked to caddy for the 31 year old Scott and he jumped at the chance. 

It was a decision that would prove to finally bear fruit come last night. At the fourth time of asking with Williams as his caddy, the Australian came good. After carding an impressive bogey free eight under par 62 in his opening round, which turned out to be the low round of the week, Scott followed that up with a level par 70. On the Saturday, he was level par for the day through 11 holes and had relinquished his lead at the top of the leaderboard before producing a late flurry, which included four birdies in five holes between the 12th and 16th holes to take the lead into Sunday with Jason Day and Ryo Ishikawa a shot behind on -11.

With Williams by his side, Scott played smart conservative golf in the early part of his final round. Having Woods' ex-caddy helping him around the golf course was crucial to the Australian's assault on the tournament as his course knowledge and confidence were evident and could be seen brushing off on the man from Adelaide. You generally don't win tournaments on the front nine of the final day and this could be seen in Scott's play. He waited patiently for his openings as others around him started to throw their chances away, most notably Keegan Bradley who finished the last seven holes +6 after playing solidly all week.

He chose the back nine to make his move and he executed a stunning final nine holes to claim victory. After achieving his first birdie of the day on the 10th, he chipped in from the first cut at the edge of the green on 12 to really put the pressure on his rivals. Another birdie followed at the 14th before Scott saved par with a 10-foot putt at the next. The word clutch came to mind. Two pars followed at 16 and 17 and he approached the final hole with a three shot lead knowing that only a huge collapse could halt his charge towards his eighth victory on the PGA Tour. Taking his caddy's advice he hit one of the best shots of the day, a 6 iron with his second shot aimed straight at the 18th pin, which allowed him to birdie and give him the victory with a final score of -17, four shots clear of world number one Luke Donald and young pretender Rickie Fowler. It's now onto the final major of the season, the USPGA Championship, where Scott looks to build on a poor record of only five top 10's out of 42 major appearances. With the Firestone victory under his belt and Williams by his side, you wouldn't rule out former world number 3 from ending his poor major's record in Atlanta this week. Look out for Rickie Fowler to build on his close showings at the Open and the Bridgestone Invitational and I also expect Dustin Johnson to make a strong showing.