Jondaken Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Anyone tell me a sport England are any good at? Darts maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrogers Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Jon, it's seems we are pretty good at the Rugby World Sevens, given that we beat the World Champions to take the Wellington (Arguably the best) Sevens championship two weekends ago.. We are pretty good at cycling too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZZAM Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Anyone tell me a sport England are any good at? Darts maybe? yeh but in mainstream sports theres no country wich compares with england's collective of teams. for example world rankings cricket -5 rugby- 6 football -8 i know rankings dont rly mean nout but i think you kinda get my point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 15, 2009 Moderator Share Posted February 15, 2009 ignoring the football ranking how many really world class teams are there in the world in the sports of rugby and Cricket? I make it 8 in Rugby, so they are 6th of 8 I make it 7 in cricket so thats 5th of 7 its hardly something to boast about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jondaken Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 ignoring the football ranking how many really world class teams are there in the world in the sports of rugby and Cricket? I make it 8 in Rugby, so they are 6th of 8 I make it 7 in cricket so thats 5th of 7 its hardly something to boast about Going a bit further, how many countries is Rugby the no1 sport? Maybe 4? NZ... South Africa?... uummm.. Wales? How bout Cricket? West Indies?... India... umm... err... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted February 15, 2009 VT Supporter Share Posted February 15, 2009 I'll ignore the obvious USA #1 in gridiron ranking (so obvious that there aren't any rankings!) and the baseball rankings (I'm not even sure there are rankings, and if they are they're probably not representative... though it bears mentioning that in the one international competition thus far that featured the participation of players under contract in the Japanese and USian leagues, the US did not win). However, ice hockey and basketball each have roughly as strong a claim as rugby and cricket on the world [team] sport stage (for a distant second place to football). The USA places 6th in ice hockey (behind Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, and the Czech Republic) and 2nd in basketball (behind Argentina), to go with 20th in football and 19th in rugby. Indeed, going on the 5 world team sports mentioned (in likely order of popularity): Football: ENG - 8, USA - 20 Cricket: ENG - 5, USA - NR (not a test-playing nation... though there are attempts being made to get cricket a foothold in the USA (though it's kind of always been present... the men in my maternal line have a long association with a college for which cricket is the traditional sport!)) Basketball: ENG/GB - NR, USA - 2 Ice Hockey: ENG/GB - 29, USA - 6 Rugby: ENG - 6, USA - 19 Now, if we ranked them by worldwide prominence, allowing for number of countries that play the sport at a high-enough standard, I guess reasonable weightings would be: football - 10 cricket - 6 basketball - 5 (it runs football fairly close in China, a likely second place in continental Europe chip away at cricket's advantage on the Subcontinent) ice hockey - 3 rugby - 2 Sum(weights) = 25 We'll assign 200 as the NR score for this, so England (taking GB's scores where appropriate) has a total of 1,122 to the USA's 1,448, for a weighted average placing of 44 for England vs 57 for the USA. Thinking about it, baseball is probably on a par with rugby in terms of overall popularity... as noted above, questions can be raised about the validity of the world rankings (given that the best players only play in one tournament that contributes to the rankings), but if we considered them, Great Britain would be 23rd and the USA 2nd (to Cuba, which of course has no players playing in the major leagues). Moving beyond traditional team sports (ie sports where the team, not the individuals, are the primary consideration), we should probably add golf and tennis, which would probably each be weighted a 4. The USA is 4th in the Davis Cup rankings to Great Britain's 23rd. I can't find golf rankings (since there doesn't seem to be a World Cup of Golf... more's the pity!). *: I actually would be very interested to see if Manny actually goes through with that stunt. By the same token, it'd be interesting to see a top batsman in the inverse situation. Hell, and maybe see how a Sabathia or a Beckett bowls and likewise with a star bowler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrogers Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 ignoring the football ranking how many really world class teams are there in the world in the sports of rugby and Cricket? I make it 8 in Rugby, so they are 6th of 8 I make it 7 in cricket so thats 5th of 7 its hardly something to boast about Any comment on the game today, being a Wales supporter? What are you thoughts Kaplan and his "Performance"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 15, 2009 Moderator Share Posted February 15, 2009 tbh Nick I only saw the first half as I had to go to work, So commenting on the match as a whole would seem unfair but I can certainly remember scoring more tries than England and having players sent off at Twickenham and being on the losing side. Kaplan in the first half seemed to get it right but from what understand in the second half he made a few mistakes. Also from what I did see of the match England were clearly the second best side Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jondaken Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 English say England were better, Welsh say Wales were better. I'm Scottish, and therefore impartial. You were both shite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CastleBromVilla Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 English say England were better, Welsh say Wales were better. I'm Scottish, and therefore impartial. You were both shite. Nevermind, at least we'll never be as bad as you lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ricardomeister Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 How can anybody knock Scotland's contribution to top level world sport?!...yes they have always been a laughing stock in major sports like football and rugby but they did win the world elephant polo championship :winkold: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jondaken Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 How can anybody knock Scotland's contribution to top level world sport?!...yes they have always been a laughing stock in major sports like football and rugby but they did win the world elephant polo championship :winkold: Don't get me started, It'll get ugly! Btw, 1st British team to hold the European Cup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted February 15, 2009 Author Share Posted February 15, 2009 yeah, it was all the refs fault you lost fair play - england gave a better account of themselves than the form book suggested, but lets be fair here, i watched it at the ground and replay today on the tv (sky+) - when the scrums were going down, the ref was telling vickery time and time again that he wasnt binding correctly and he carried on with it. goode's yellow - had to go - he stopped a certain try. if it was in the southern hemisphere, it would have been a penalty try as well so dont complain (espeically seeing as martyn williams had a perfectly good try disallowed in the opening 10 minutes). finally - worsley was immense for you lot - tackled everything and stopped our power house threat - espeically when goode went into the scrums for him to line up out wide - johnson showing some brains! you can blame the ref as much as you like but england killed the ball time and time again and were lucky not to have a third yellow (was it the replacement hooker??) later on in the game because he decided to lay on the ball... i may have to rethink my prediction though because that english side is better than the micks and the frogs so good luck to you during this tournament. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted February 15, 2009 Author Share Posted February 15, 2009 tbh Nick I only saw the first half as I had to go to work, So commenting on the match as a whole would seem unfair but I can certainly remember scoring more tries than England and having players sent off at Twickenham and being on the losing side. Kaplan in the first half seemed to get it right but from what understand in the second half he made a few mistakes. Also from what I did see of the match England were clearly the second best side 1str half they got into wales' half twice. fair play they scored on both occaisons but how they got into half time not being 25 points down is anyones guess. how any england fan could even doubt that wales were the better side there is odd. england played much better than they did against italy but were still second best to wales. blame the referee or whatever - it isnt wales' fault england tried desperately to kill the ball at every opportunity is it? ps - good shout by england to call wales' lineout the achillies heel - it was **** fantastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted February 15, 2009 Author Share Posted February 15, 2009 wales didnt offer much and they were at home vs apperently a shit england team,who were still alot better than wales what was the score fella we beat you, we could have stepped it up even further. you lot killed the ball at every break down then complain about yellows? give me a break!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Why didn't your man go to the bin for doing exactly what Geraghty did last week and what the Scotsman did, too (i.e. the 'tackle' on the player in the air)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZZAM Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 wales didn't offer much and they were at home vs apparently a shit england team,who were still a lot better than wales what was the score fella we beat you, we could have stepped it up even further. you lot killed the ball at every break down then complain about yellows? give me a break!!! pipe dreams,england crushed you just when you thought wales had finally overtaken the english as the greatest northern hemisphere side england start to bring it back and its apparent wales arnt that great. england were better and that shocked a lot of people and if the ref hadn't had a disaster game england woulda won,wales discipline was just as bad as englands and yet the ref never gave no yellows to the wales and never gave us barely any penaltys,ryan jones should be binned he did exactly the same as goode and whoever took out armitage in mid air shoulda been binned to you got lucky thats all no room to gloat but when your english people seem to find this magic luck against us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 wales were clearly better and I'm English! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jondaken Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 wales were clearly better and I'm English! Well that settles it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted February 15, 2009 Author Share Posted February 15, 2009 Why didn't your man go to the bin for doing exactly what Geraghty did last week and what the Scotsman did, too (i.e. the 'tackle' on the player in the air)? Cos Lee Byrne didnt wrap his arms around the man - he went in looking for the high ball. Theres the difference - penalty for the offence, no card because there was no intent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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