Of course, drafts are truly analysed a few seasons after they take place, but I believe there will be a few teams that will regret the choices they made in today’s NFL draft. Houston drafted a solid player in Mario Williams, but passing up Reggie Bush is going to turn out to be a big mistake. Bush is the most electric player in the draft and will have the biggest impact of any player going to any team. New Orleans must not have been able to hold in their excitement when Houston passed on Bush - it didn’t take them long to get their pick to Commissioner Tagliabue.

Other teams that made bad picks include Buffalo and every team who passed on Lendale White starting from pick 20. The guy is going to be an impact player in the league, and unfortunately for him, he had an injury at the wrong time and it affected his position in the draft. I think he is going to be extremely motivated to prove all the teams who passed on him wrong. I expect him to have a great year for Tennessee.

Baltimore got some help on the defensive line with Haloti Ngata. He has been criticised leading up to the draft because he has taken the occassional play off by not giving a 100% effort. There won’t be any problem of that happening in Baltimore because Ray Lewis will be on him as soon as he notices Ngata slacking off. Watching Ngata play college football with Oregon, I was impressed with his ability to make a difference in the game. Multiple times he blocked point after conversion attempts and punts, and shrugged off multiple offensive lineman to get to the quarterback. This was a great pick for Baltimore, and I think he will have an immediate impact on their team.

The team that really lucked out was the Arizona Cardinals. Matt Leinart is a great pickup for that team, and he will be starting for them as soon as Dennis Green gets sick of Kurt Warner. Because Leinart is the most NFL-ready of all the quarterbacks in the draft, I don’t think being thrown in at the deep end will be bad for him - especially with a supporting cast of running back Edgerrin James and wide receivers Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald. Hopefully the Cardinals will be able to get some offensive line help so Leinart won’t be under pressure every down. Although Oakland drafted a solid defensive player in Michael Huff, they have the unreliable Aaron Brooks as their quarterback, and Leinart would have been a definite improvement in that area.

So while I was perusing the sports sites this morning I came across this article talking about Wimbledon. Before I go any further, I want to point out that I am as much a fan of women’s sports as I am of men’s sports, and I believe that they should be paid equally if they are performing at the same level. Which brings me to my argument…

Wimbledon has decided that they will not offer equal prize money for the men’s and women’s champions this year. The men’s champion will recieve 655,000 pounds and the women’s champion will receive 625,000 pounds (both totals are over $1 million). I wouldn’t mind if they did offer equal prize money like the 3 other Grand Slams do, but I also don’t think the organisers of Wimbledon should be criticised for their decision. Let’s face the facts of the matter - men play best of 5 sets and women play best of 3 sets. If women want to play best of 5 sets, then equal prize money would be a must, but they don’t and that’s why Wimbledon decided to set up the prize money this way.

Like I stated before, I am all for equality in sport - I just don’t think Wimbledon can be criticised for their decision when it makes sense.

The latest FIFA World Rankings have the U.S. ranked as the fourth best in the world.

Although the U.S. may be ranked in the top 20 nations in the world, there is no way that they can be anywhere near the top 4. I don’t think anyone can honestly say that the U.S. would beat France, Portugal, Argentina, England, Italy, or Germany in a match.

The fact remains that I would be very surprised if the U.S. even made it out of their group. They have the Czech Republic, Italy, and Ghana in their group, and I think they will be doing well if they finish with one win and one draw. Now while I think that a World Cup failure is in store for the U.S. team, I don’t look forward to the inevitable backlash from the U.S. media, if and when the failure of the U.S. team occurs. The only extensive coverage that soccer has received in the 4 years that I have been living in the U.S. was when they made their unlikely run to the quarterfinals in the previous World Cup - and the coverage was hardly impartial. The problem with sports coverage in the U.S. is this: if the U.S. is performing excepetionally well, then it will be in the news, but if they aren’t performing well, soccer will suffer because the World Cup will be pushed into the shadows of the mainstream media.

So I’m stuck between hoping that the U.S. is put in its place in regards to their world ranking, but also hoping that the media will cover the sport in the manner that it deserves. Soccer is the only true world sport, but that doesn’t matter in the U.S. where the media coverage for Football, Basketball, and Baseball runs supreme - these are the only sports that matter over here, and two out of three of these sports are uniquely American.

Stuart Appleby won his second PGA event this year, this time winning by 6 shots at the Shell Houston Open. It’s the first time he has won multiple events on tour in the same calendar year.

Although it wasn’t the strongest field, a victory is still a victory and Appleby blew the field away, leading after every round and pocketing close to $1 million. He is also fourth on the money list now after Phil Mickleson, Tiger Woods, and Geoff Ogilvy (another Aussie). It would be nice for Appleby to take some momentum into the US Open which is held June 15-18, but his game is better suited to the British Open, so I expect him to do well there this year.

In Formula One, Fernando Alonso’s impatience cost him a victory. After being stuck behind Michael Schumacher for a few laps, he decided that he would change his pit stop strategy and pit earlier than expected in the hope of having a quick stop and being in front after Michael Schmuacher made his stop. Alas, this didn’t happen and Schumacher pitted the very next lap, getting out in front of Alonso and holding him off for the victory - Ferrari’s first since the debacle last year at Indianapolis. Because of the speed of Alonso’s Renault (which was surprisingly faster than the Ferrari), he would most definitely have returned to the race ahead of Schumacher if Alonso had kept his original pit strategy and stayed out for a few laps after Schumacher made his stop. The impatient decision to pit earlier really backfired and cost Alonso another victory. What I found disappointing was the poor performance of the McLarens. After last season, when McLaren was really unlucky not to have won both the World Championship and Constructer’s Championship, they look like they are no longer on the top teir of cars. I hope they can get the cars back up to the competitiveness of last year because Kimi Raikkonen is great to watch. He reminds me of Ayrton Senna in the way he attacks a race track - definitely great to watch.

Oh what a feeling!

The NBA playoffs have begun and I have to admit that I really don’t have a great idea of who I think will win. I didn’t follow the NBA that closely this season as a result of the poor play and attitude of the Trail Blazers. Despite that, I have opinions on who will win the individual playoff matchups to move on to further rounds. Here they are: In the Western Conference there are two matchups that will be blowouts and two that will be very close. The two blowouts will be the San Antonio Spurs over the Sacramento Kings and the Dallas Mavericks over the Memphis Grizzlies. The two close series will be Phoenix against the Lakers and the Clippers up against the Nuggets; in these two series, I like Phoenix and the Clippers. The fact that the Clippers finally made the playoffs after years and years of futility is good to see, but it’s almost hard for me to believe that I would pick them to win a series.

In the Eastern Conference, I like the Pistons over the Bucks (and Aussie, Andrew Bogut), Lebron James (and the Cavs) over the Wizards, the Nets over the Pacers, and the Heat over the Bulls. After seeing some clips from the Heat vs Bulls game tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bulls give the Heat a real run in this series. They have a young energetic team and Ben Gordon is just an unbelievable player - can someone please tell me why he isn’t starting for that team?

In other sports news, the Imola Grand Prix gets underway in a few hours, with Michael Schumacher starting from Pole Position. Fernando Alonso is starting from 5th on the grid, and Kimi Raikkonen is starting from 8th. For the Aussies, Webber is starting from 10th. Schumacher looks in good form, and if his Ferrari stays reliable throughout the race, no-one should come near him.

In golf, Stuart Appleby is ahead by two shots going in to the final round of the Shell Houston Open. If he holds on for the win, it will be his second win on tour this year and will get him closer to cracking in to the top 20 in the world golf rankings.

Today I was reading an article by Jason Quick from the Oregonian in which he discusses the fact that Zach Randolph and Darius Miles want out of Portland. Now given previous opinions I have expressed on the bbq, you would expect me to be rather annoyed by this, but I’m not. I’m happy that they came out and expressed a desire to get out of town because now the Blazers’ management will be more likely to take action to ship them out of Portland.

Randolph said that he doesn’t like playing on what is now the worst team in the NBA, and he also doesn’t like the discipline that coach Nate McMillan imposes on the team. I wonder if he realises that the Blazers are the worst team because players like him and Darius Miles ignore the coach and the discipline that he tries to impose. I’m sure that doesn’t compute inside that overpaid head of his though.

I’m pretty sure that if Paul Allen does decide to sell the Blazers, neither of these two players will be here under new management, even if they had not have come out publicy with their desires to be shipped out of town. In the last couple of games, neither Randolph or Miles have had significant (if any) playing time. The group of youngsters that the team has been playing has been showing a lot of energy and the basketball that they have been playing has been extremely exciting to watch, even if there are a lot of errors mixed into their play. I believe the team can build around Sebastian Telfair, Jarrett Jack, and Martell Webster who has been the Blazers best player in the closing parts of the season. If the Blazers win the draft lottery and get the number 1 pick in the draft (please do NOT draft Adam Morrison), we can hopefully draft a solid player who can have an immediate impact. Add to that some veteran players who will be willing to guide the younger players, and the Blazers should be (I hope) in good shape next year and definitely the year after that.

The Blazers don’t need the cancer that is Darius Miles, and they definitely don’t need Zach Randolph’s shoot first, me me me attitude. If the Blazers can find these players a different home over the summer, there will be a lot of excited people in the Portland area.

I was only joking yesterday when I mentioned that Jason Gillespie had a chance of scoring a double-hundred. I went to bed last night right after Hussey got out, but I really wanted to stay up and see if Dizzy would score reach the milestone that great Australian players like Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn never reached. He even passed Steve Waugh’s highest score of 200.

The selectors are going to have a really tough time now because you can’t really drop him from the side after he goes out and scores a double-hundred and bags some wickets. Personally, I don’t think he should have been dropped in the first place, and you know that when the Ashes start later this year he’s going to be fired up for revenge. I never thought I would see the day when a designated bowler would score 100, let alone 200. Even though this was accomplished against the lowly Bangladesh side, it’s still Test Match Cricket and will go down in history as one of the most memorable and unlikey innings ever played.

You’d want a little bludge too after batting for nearly 10 hours and facing 425 balls.

So every morning I get up and do the rounds of the Australian news sites so I can keep in touch with what is going on in the homeland. When I checked the cricket this morning, I was expecting maybe Ricky Ponting to have scored another hundred, but I was shocked (and really bloody impressed) when I saw that Jason ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie had done the unthinkable and scored his first test match hundred - or his first hundred ever, as he claims he never even scored one in backyard cricket!

What else I find impressive is that Dizzy has managed to spend 5 hours at the crease. People may complain that he took too long to score his runs, and to those naysayers I have two words: Mark Taylor. I don’t think he ever scored a hundred in less than 5 hours so Dizzy’s knock was a little beauty if you ask me! Who knows? He may go on to score a double-century!

I bet Shane Warne must be a little annoyed at the moment. Twice he has been out in the 90s trying to reach three figures, and now he has to show some respect to the batting prowess of Dizzy!

Now some of you Americans might be wondering what the big deal is. I would have to say that the equivalent of this would be if a pitcher hit 4 home runs in a game - it just doesn’t happen. Jason Gillespie is a bowler, and while he can stay at the crease and defend till the cows come home, no-one ever expected him to get a test match hundred.

Good on ya, mate!

In a previous entry, I gave ESPN a serve for showing bowling on their sports channel. I’m here to apologise to the game of bowling. I should have left you out of my discussion because unfortunately, I wrote my article a week before I discovered ESPN showing the WJF. What is the WJF, you ask? The WJF stands for the World Juggling Federation. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I switched the channel to ESPN to see some fool juggling 5 different pins (bowling and juggling all in one!) in a variety of different ways. In all I watched no more than 30 seconds of the WJF, but it was more than enough to last the rest of my life.

There are so many other great sports out there that ESPN could be covering instead of the rubbish they show, but they resort to showing this and countless other ’sports’ when they could be showing REAL sports that get little or no exposure in the U.S. even though there is a following for them, such as Rugby. How does ESPN get away with showing this crap on television? Are they getting paid by the WJF or the Professional Bowling Association to televise the events? Next thing you know they’ll be showing the World Championships of Marbles.

Aaron Baddeley became the fourth Australian to win on the PGA tour this year, following in the footsteps of Stuart Appleby, Geoff Ogilvy, and Rod Pampling. Baddeley played some pretty gutsy shots on the back 9 to hold off Jim Furyk, one of the best players on tour, by one shot.

After a promising amateur and professional career in Australia (he won the Australian Open as an amateur and then repeated next year as a professional), he had a disappointing start to his PGA career, only just managing to hold on to his tour card in one year. Today he fulfilled his potential by winning his first career PGA title and close to $1 million in prize money.

Let’s hope this is the breakthrough that Baddeley needed to help him realise his potential. The guy has a lot of talent and up until now has struggled dealing with the expectations that were placed on him. It would be great if his win today is the start of many more wins, as well as a major title or two.