California Dreaming

It was a great weekend for Australia on two wheels, with Michael Rogers winning the Tour of California and Cadel Evans moving up to fifth overall in the Giro d'Italia. Rogers' outstanding effort showed that the dark days of 2007-09 - a broken collarbone in a crash descending the Cormet de Roselend on the eighth stage of the 2007 Tour de France, followed by a bout of glandular fever - are behind him. Evans also had a good weekend, moving up from tenth place in the Italian classic, with the serious mountain stages to come. But local favourite Ivan Basso rode very strongly to take the high mountain stage, and the discrepancy on the latest bookies' prices between him and second-favourite and Evans to take out the Giro - $1.67 to $4.50 - shows where the smart money has headed after Basso's dominant climbing display. Evans really needs to blow Basso apart in one of the mountain stages coming up. A special mention should also go to the "Tasmanian Devil," Richie Porte, who lost his lead on Saturday. The young rider has had an excellent Giro so far, but the first serious mountain stage was a tough one for him. He was gallant, but the older, more seasoned legs left him behind on the Monte Grappa.

Once bitten

Serious tipsters will be looking askance at Sydney and West Coast, both of which had visiting opponents exactly where they wanted them at the weekend - Sydney in terms of conditions, West Coast on the scoreboard - and could not go on with it. The cyprine ones would have fancied themselves when they saw the Sydney radar on Saturday morning, with Fremantle usually regarded as a fast-deck speed machine. But they were out-muscled and out-endeavoured by Mark Harvey's uncompromising Dockers, in what would not make for a pleasant video replay session at the SCG today. West Coast was poised to deliver the coup de grace to a wounded Saints outfit, but proceeded simply to spectate as Lenny Hayes inspired the Saints up off the canvas to turn the game completely around.

Time OOB rule was KO'd

On the big stage, Friday night, with 4:33 left in the first quarter, Heath Shaw showed us just how maddeningly ludicrous is the deliberate-out-of-bounds rule. As he turned from a marking contest he had participated in, he saw the ball bouncing back toward him, but his Geelong opponent was right on his hammer, and taking possession wasn't a wise move. So he simply swatted it out of bounds like a grizzly bear pawing at a leaping salmon, in full view of three of the AFL's finest. The one nearest the play blithely signaled a throw-in, which will be of cold comfort to the next person who kicks the ball 50 metres in the direction his team is going, only to see a corkscrew bounce that defies the law of physics take it over the line - whereupon one of the afore-mentioned geniuses will discern calculated and devious intent, and ping him for deliberate.

The "Special One" indeed

José Mourinho's healthy self-esteem was too much for the English press, but hey, the guy can coach - so what if he knows it very, very well? Taking Internazionale to its first European Cup/UEFA Champions League final in 38 years, and completing the treble - the Serie A scudetto, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Champions League title (the first Italian side to achieve this feat) means that even Italy is now too small a stage for the Portuguese coach. As he declared on the weekend, "if you don't coach Real Madrid then you will always have a gap in your career." Clearly Mourinho wants to be the first coach to win the Champions League with three different clubs (he also did it with Porto in 2004). It is not yet known what Real Madrid's supposed incumbent coach, Manuel Pellegrini, feels about this, but evidently he should be thinking about retrieving his personal effects from his office. Like today.

Czech-mate, Russkys

A decent effort from the Czech ice hockey team, which knocked off the favourites, Russia, in the final of the world championships at the weekend, ending the Ivans' 27-game winning streak at the world champs. Russia had not lost at the world titles since 2007. But the Czechs' sixth title since the "velvet divorce" from Slovakia in 1993 was not the real story of the 2009 world championships: it was the scheduling, in that the world titles was held during the Stanley Cup finals - meaning that most nations could not send their top teams - and that there was a tournament at all, just three months after a wonderful Winter Olympics gold medal match supposedly decided the best team in the world. (Of the teams that played in that memorable match in Vancouver, the USA barely avoided relegation at the world championships, while the victorious Canadians lost to Russia in the quarter-finals.) NHL managers, who did not want their players to participate, argue that there should not be a world championship tournament in an Olympic year, but the International Ice Hockey Federation has a television contract to play the tournament, so on it went. The people who got the most out of it were the Czech league players who had the biggest game of their lives.

'Tahs brave but battered

Yes, the Waratahs were gallant in the cauldron at Newlands on Saturday night, but the fact remains that they were comprehensively outplayed twice at home by the Stormers, with the 25-6 semi-final scoreline barely altered from the 27-6 defeat they suffered there in February. The ‘Tahs gave away too many penalties, botched a re-start after a field goal and when they did get into try-scoring positions, simply didn't have the support players in the right places. If NSW had have taken their chances, they could have won; and the Crusaders would be saying exactly the same thing after their loss to the Bulls in Soweto. So the Super 14 ends up as a South African domestic showdown. Still, it really must be admitted that it would have been a miracle if NSW (or Canterbury, for that matter) could have been at their sharpest after the long flight to Cape Town. It's the last time I'll say it, but bear in mind that AFL clubs regard flying from Melbourne to Adelaide as "hard."