Normally, this time of year represents the ’shoulder’ period in the sporting calendar; between the footy and cricket seasons where the Australian sporting landscape is so barren we have no choice but to become temporarily obsessed with horse-riding.

But this year is different, with the Rugby League 4-Nations in full swing England - where the Kangaroos only need to beat France (hah) to play in the Final against the Kiwis - and in India, where the endless cycle of limited-over Cricket continues with Australia-A tied 2-2 in their best of 7 series.  Even the Wallabies are playing, allegedly.

Despite all this, turvey.com has found time to preview the 2009 Melbourne Cup.  Who will win?

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by Tone Snarl

I was trolling around Youtube the other day - as one does when there’s not alot on the plate - and came across Michael Johnson’s reaction to Usain Bolt winning the 100m in Beijing last year.  This candid, spontaneus response confirmed my own belief about the man.

He is a modern day phenomenon.

Period.

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The 2009 Rugby League Grand Final is a contest between the best team over the past 2 months vs the best team over the past 4 years.

Parramatta made the Top 8 by winning 7 games in a row to transform what had been a disappointing season into a stereotypical sporting fairy-tale.

Melbourne have made their 4th consecutive Grand Final, this season reducing emphasis on the Minor Premiership and focusing on the ultimate prize.

Eels vs Storm. The 2009 NRL Grand Final.

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There were 74,549 fans at the Olympic Stadium last Friday night, and I was the 74,549th.  Despite buying tickets on the Wednesday – the day after they went on sale to the general public – I ended up at the very top in the very last row in the back NE corner.  Still, the atmosphere was extraordinary; despite the intense rivalry between the Eels and the Dogs it was a more unified crowd than any of the big games I have been to at the Olympic Stadium before; Grand Finals, Origins, Swans vs Collingwood.

Individually, people were supporting their team, but collectively, everybody was supporting Rugby League.

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It’s about this time of year that the NRL’s beligerent and masochistic refusal to discard, or at the very least review, the ridiculous MacIntyre System rears its inevitable head.

Under the AFL’s Top 8 format, if the Minor Premier St George Dragons had indeed lost in the first week, they would be playing, at home, this weekend.  Instead, they travel to Brisbane, as the 6th-seeded Broncos get rewarded with a home semi-final.

And it’s the same with the Gold Coast Titans - they should also be playing at home, rather than in the heart of Sydney against the 8th-seeded Eels.  If the previous 26 weeks matter so little in terms of the hierarchy of the Finals, then why bother playing them?

Yet how good the Finals have been this season, in spite of the MacIntyre System?

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Yesterday afternoon in front of 18,000 fans at Kogarah Jubilee Oval the Parramatta Eels recorded the biggest upset of the 2009 season.  And Jarryd Hayne scored one of the greatest tries in finals football.  Ever.

Taking the ball in center field 30 metres out from the Dragons’ goal-line, Hayne stepped and beat 2 defenders, stepped and beat another, stepped again and beat 2 more, then dashed, jinked, surged and ultimately strode over the line to score and then put his finger to his lips to quiet the crowd who had jeered him the week before.  In total, Hayne beat 7 members of the NRL’s best defense.  This wasn’t a twinkle-toed trip down the sideline past his opposite number, nor was it a daring chip-over-the-top with only the fullback to beat; this was one man taking on the core of the St George Illawarra defense and beating them with 2 hands, 2 feet and an extraordinary gift of evasiveness.

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Finally.

After a long 26 week season that has seen a higher than usual quota of sex scandals and will be long remembered for a forgettable State of Origin series for both teams, the 2009 Rugby League Finals are uh, finally here.

Thanks to the Bulldogs’ collapse in the final round against Wests last Friday night, St George’s victory over Parramatta won the Dragons the Minor Premiership. And although the Bulldogs hierarchy has been characterized by bitter, selfish and downright illegal acts over recent years, the fact that there wasn’t a whisper of complaint from the club claiming that they had been robbed of the $100,000 first prize due to their loss of 2-competition-points earlier in the season is a credit to the organisation. That’s good karma, and don’t be surprised if fortune is on the Bulldogs’ side during this Finals campaign.

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It probably shouldn’t be, but one of the attractions in taking a pacific island holiday to a former British colony like Fiji instead of a former French imperial outpost like Tahiti is the quality of television.

The Australia Channel is brilliant.  Each Saturday night the Rugby Union Test Matches were broadcast live, and even its sporadic replays of Rugby League and AFL matches throughout each weekend is enjoyable, as you never knew when you were going to be pleasantly surprised by a game of footy.  And Monday-to-Friday, the professional and classy ABC News Breakfast from ABC2 was simulcast live.

The result was that despite being out of the country for 10 days, it was still possible to remain semi-up-to-date as you wanted with events back home, especially the sport.

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Traditionally, the month of August is usually unmemorable.

The soccer season is warming up, the Footy finals haven’t started, and the Bledisloe hasn’t finished.  Even in an Ashes year, the urn always seems to get decided either in July, or in September.  Unless you’re into baseball, or worse, NASCAR, there’s precious little to watch on Foxtel or OneHD.

But this August, we have seen so many epic sporting contests that we may finally know the answer to the impossible, undefinable, question – Who Is The World’s Greatest Sportsperson?

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The best thing about a slow news week in your chosen sport is when your favourite player or favourite team does something moderately successful and it gets blown out of all proportion due to the over-supply of media resources.

All that happened in the NBA this week was that Linus Kleiza went to Europe, Washington signed Fabricio Oberto as a free agent and Pau Gasol had finger surgery.

And Kurt Rambis was named head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

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