Jeez, that pitch should give you an indication that it really was a dull week.

Hall vs Gallen ending in a draw

Talk about a throwback to the late 2000s- YouTube Highlights filmed by a potato.

Some say the League fans are still asking for 6 more… rounds.

I thought that bout between KSI and Logan Paul was going to be the funniest boxing match that I didn’t watch this year, but thanks to the judges, I was wrong.

I don’t claim to understand anything about boxing scores outside of when the South Koreans rig Olympic Gold Medal matches against Roy Jones Jr, but if Paul Gallen is scored ahead by a lone judge, and the rest score it a draw, then surely Paul is the moral winner and should receive some kind of trophy?

It’d be a welcome change for Paul, considering he and the Sharks won their only premiership illegally.

But of course, since this was Barry Hall playing in a draw, honour compels me to sound THE DRAW SONG!

“When the siren ends the game, and the scores are both the same, only football’s the winner, today!”

NBL: Round 7

Perth Wildcats 99 defeated Adelaide 36ers 95 @ Adelaide Arena

So after this loss, the 36ers had led in their last 4 games, and lost them all.

They can attribute this defeat to defensive performance of Damian Martin, who will probably be remembered NBL’s greatest defensive player, and yet he’s only the second-best WA sportsman whose name sounds like Damien Martyn, just behind Damien Martyn, who once played a push for 4 runs.

Even Johnnie Cochran defending OJ and P.Diddy wasn’t as good as Marto.

Martin scored just 1 bucket, yet he had three steals, several deflections and a big rejection of Sixers star Jerome Randle in the last minute when the scores were at 95-91.

Saturday

Melbourne United 96 defeated SEM Phoenix 95 @ Melbourne Arena

The Phoenix led for 33 out of 40 minutes of the 3rd edition of the Throwdown, but thanks to the genius of Melo Trimble, they weren’t leading when it mattered most.

Melo scored all 22 of his points in a ripping second half, including the go-ahead free throw to make the scores 96-95 with 2.1 seconds to play.

That’s now 4 straight wins for United, and they’ve rocketed up to 3rd on the table!

Cairns Taipans 94 defeated Brisbane Bullets 85 @ The Snakepit

The Battle for Queensland, and much to Bob Katter’s delight, it was the snakes to the North to got the job done, and it was the big and mean Kouat Noi who did the damage with 20 points, 10 rebounds and 2 assists, as the Taipans pretty much dominated all night, building a commanding lead through 3 quarters, and at one point they were leading by 22 points, a lead that the Bullets simply couldn’t shoot down.

Sunday

Perth Wildcats 88 defeated New Zealand Breakers 77 @ Perth Arena

A trip from Auckland to Perth is a long and painful one, especially when you go in with next to no hope, but it’s still not as painful as Israel Folau’s attempts at maintaining relations with the same sex community of Australia.

Oh crap, I’ve said it.

Anyway, it was a fitting way to cap off a fun-filled week for the Breakers, which kicked off with their owner Matt Walsh getting suspended and fined for a verbal altercation with Commissioner Jeremy Loeliger during the Breakers’ loss to the Phoenix, and then one of their injury replacements Glen Rice Jnr was arrested and stood down on Thursday for getting involved in an Auckland bar fight.

Rice’s history is damn impressive- He was shot in the leg outside an Atlanta restaurant in 2015, was simultaneously arrested for reckless conduct and marijuana possession, in 2016, he was arrested on aggravated battery and drug possession charges in Georgia, and then in February 2017, he was arrested again on misdemeanour battery charges in Miami after police established that he punched a bouncer at a strip club.

I bet he took a look at Matt Lodge and Wayne Carey and said “Hold my beer.”

Sydney Kings 92 defeated Illawarra Hawks 87 @ Qudos Bank Arena

Another superb moment for the NBL, with a drop in ticket prices, a red-hot Kings team, and the presence of Lamelo Ball, enabling them to break the league’s attendance record, with 17,514 fans rocking up to Qudos Bank Arena.

The NBL’s previous record was 17,143 between the Kings and the Canberra Comets in 1999 at the former Superdome, which was Leg 2 of a doubleheader, so technically, the previous single-game record was 15,366 at Rod Laver Arena in 1996, when the old South East Melbourne Magic took on the Melbourne Tigers.

He may still qualify to be a teenager, but that should serve to show how big Lamelo’s pulling power is- He can willingly make people travel to Sydney Olympic Park.

5 years ago, even Christ himself couldn’t have achieved that, although I wouldn’t say Lamelo is anywhere close to the son of a carpenter.

Christ had a much better 3 point shot.

With the full house sign up, Lamelo rose to the challenge and did his thing with 16 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists as he was kept to 26 minutes because of foul trouble, but given they weren’t playing the Taipans, it was not to be, as Jae’Sean Tate one-upped him by leading the Kings to victory, with 24 points and 7 rebounds, the best on the floor, just ahead of Casper Ware’s 21.

Monday

Adelaide 36ers 103 defeated SEM Phoenix 91 @ The Firepit

The Phoenix were turned to ash when Jerome Randle scored about 15 points in the opening 5 minutes, as nobody had a fire extinguisher on hand to douse the star import, who was ON FIRE, and from there, it was as if the game followed a pattern

The Phoenix would get to within 3 points, and then the Sixers would just go on a small run, pop the margin back out to double figures, rinse and repeat, and they pulled off what was on form, an upset.

The Phoenix have still only traveled once in their short life in the NBL, but just having a quick squiz at the schedule and seeing that they’re playing the Kings next, I have a feeling they’re about to start encountering a few brick walls.

(V)A(R) League: Round 6

Perth Glory, Melbourne Phoenix and Western Sydney Wanderes all had byes this week, so given the Glory couldn’t lose, I was happy.

Adelaide United 3 defeated Central Coast Mariners 1 @ Bluetongue

A hat-trick of wins for the Reds, the first time they’ve pulled that off in the league since their title win in 2015-16, which does make sense given their middling success in the league since then.

The Mariners had hope for 20 minutes, when Milan Duric converted a penalty drawn by Silvera in the 5th minute.

Ben Halloran leveled the scores in the 26th minute, Nikola Mileusnic fired home a rocket of a cutback in the top left corner that Mark Birighitti had no chance of stopping, and then a minute before the half, Halloran used his pace down the right wing, and found the Norwgian Kristian Fardal Opseth for his first A-League goal.

It was the most brutal sudden beatdown by a bunch of Reds since a legion of Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest in October of 1956.

United were awraded a penalty of their own in the 67th minute when Riley McGree was fouled, but Birighitti guess correctly, diving to the left, with his daddy long legs denying Ospeth a double.

Newcastle Jets 1 defeated Western United 0 @ Kardinia Park

The weird world of the A-League.

A winless and struggling Jets team go down south to play the 2nd-placed Western United and then produce their best performance since the last time they visited Geelong.

It was all made possible in the 36th minute by Dimi Petratos, who played Angus Thurgate with an absolute laser of a through ball, and with the kind of pace the ball had been played at, he had no issue beating Filip Kurto.

Glen Moss then spent the rest of the game denying United’s attempts to level the scores with some fantastic keeping, and the Jets took all 3 points in an upset!

Brisbane Roar 4 defeated Melbourne City 3 @ Dolphin Stadium, Redcliffe

This match was just Peak A-League material- Completely crazy and nobody had a clue what was going on.

7 goals, the VAR kicking in and awarding the match-winning penalty, and 10 cards without a red.

At Half-Time with the Roar 2-0 down, Robbie Fowler was questioning why he’d even bothered to set foot in Australia again, given his team hadn’t scored a goal in a month, and the closest they were coming to crossing the white line is if they bought a few grams of coke at Surfers Paradise.

They promptly scored 4 goals in 33 minutes, and won in a result that I’m still struggling to believe actually happened.

Sydney FC 2 defeated Melbourne Victory 1 @ Kogarah Oval

Another gripping edition of the Big Blue, and in a tradition starting with the farcical scenes of April at the SCG, it was played on something resembling a cow paddock.

Yeah, it’s not Kogarah hasn’t had any problems this year… they only had to move a Matildas Cup Of Nations match.

Doesn’t matter if it’s on the SCG or out in St George, the A-League cops the long end of the shaft with dodgy playing surfaces in Sydney, yet they don’t have enough clout to actually get some proper change.

Victory skipper Ola Toviolnen scored just before the half, but the Sky Blues struck twice in the span of 7 minutes after the hour with Adam Le Fondre scoring a lovely header on the near post, and then after Rhyan Grant set things up, Kosta Barbarouses came back to crap on his old team when his shot from point blank range hit the bar, before rebounding and allowing him to finish off the Victory at the second time of asking.

Sydney ended up pretty well dominating the final 20 minutes of the match, and it was only several cases of very good keeping from Lawrence Thomas that prevented it from ending up as a 3-1 or 4-1 scoreline.

The Sky Blues go to 2nd with a game in hand on City, and the Victory still have 1 win from 6 games, but the big thing they have on their side is the ineptitude of half the league, which means they’re still only a point off the Top 6.

This just in: Unemployed fruitloop links bushfires to gays and abortion

Full credit to Izzy on this one.

Not only is he doubling down and sounding like one of those deranged US politicians talking about gays causing floods and hurricanes but he’s making Anthony Mundine look like a sane member of society in the process.