The bookies have made the Tahs favourites to beat the Blues...this makes the Blues a good bet.
They have also given the Reds as favourites over the Lions...perhaps a good bet is the Lions but not as good as the top. one.
Tit, instead of telling us which odds are good and which aren't, why don't you rather man up and play either Total Rankers or the Superbru prediction game where everyone's picks are totalled up over the season and we can see for ourselves whether your tips are worth anything.
Saffex, I don't think the Reds are much chop either but I must say I was very impressed with that #8 of theirs. His name is Harry Wilson and he's a cricketer turned rugby player with very good hands. Good power and speed too. Watch him.
Go Lions!
PS I just googled him and Harry Wilson has a century off just 35 balls in a minor provincial cricket game.
Didn't we have a rugby and cricket Springbok too...cannot remember his name...I think he went to Westville Boys High in Natal.
There have been some amazing multi-talented sportsmen - CB Fry is the first that comes to mind - but of the South Africans, Herschelle Gibbs must be our candidate. He excelled at test cricket, played Craven Week rugby as a flyhalf, received an invitation to trial for Manchester United junior football team and held the 100m sprint record at Bishops for many years (may still hold it for all I know). Here is a link to an article that includes some footage of Herschelle as a rugby player.
Peter Kirsten is another SA test cricketer who excelled at rugby and he played flyhalf against the 1974 British Lions for the Quaggas as well as 3 games for the WP senior side before picking up an injury and choosing cricket.
Jonty Rhodes was a dual international in cricket and hockey while Eddie Barlow, Dave Callaghan and Errol Stewart are some of the SA players who played at international level in either cricket or rugby and at least provincial level in the other.
That all said, if anyone reading this has never heard of the Englishman CB Fry, Google him. It's astonishing.
PS Saffex, if you're going to mention Jeff Wilson you also have to mention Brian McKechnie who played international rugby (flyhalf and fullback) for the All Blacks and ODI cricket for the Black Caps. He was also the batsman who faced the notorious underarm ball from Trevor Chappel in Au stralia's most shameful sporting incident.
HH Castens didn't just play rugby and cricket for South Africa, he captained both our national teams.
Oh and Graeme Smith wore the #15 in cricket because he was a pretty decent fullback in rugby by all accounts.
I suspect most of us had someone in our class at school who was a natural at sport and shone at everything involving a ball.
I was good enough to make the Transvaal Craven week rugby team (on the bench) but I didn't really shine at cricket or anything else besides the 800m. I was a good enough leg-spinner to make the 1st XI for two years but I should have been a better batsman. I don't know anyone who went out 1st or 2nd ball as often as I did but if I survived the first few balls and got my eye in I could smash it a bit . . . but after all my failures that was noramlly in the #8 position.
I would never call myself an all round sports star or one of those sporting naturals we all had in our class but my son certainly was . . . or could have been. He played provincial football, has a 2 golf handicap, played Lions U19 7s rugby and was a pretty good fast bowler, but concussions cut his rugby career short and he decided to focus on trail running. He ran some crazy 100km marathon last year up and down Table Mountain where he finished ahead of trail running legend Ryan Sands and this year he's doing a 100 mile (160km) trail run in the Natal Midlands. Such a tragedy that his rugby career was cut short because he remains the most gifted fullback I ever saw, but I won't be surprised if he wins some major honours in his new chosen sport of trail running. He has the heart and the character.
I'm quite sure that the likes of Moffie and Dumbass will dump all over me for bragging but I am extremely proud of my boy (not really a boy anymore, he's turning 30 this year) but he was definitely one of those guys we all had in our class who could do it all.
Yes it was Errol Stewart but yes he only made provincial status at rugby so did Peter Kirsten the other way round as did Roy McLean, Eddie Barlow and Herchelle Gibbs.
Hansie Cronje also played rugby for Grey Bloem 1st XV...more or less same time as Ruben Kruger.
I know Jonty was outstanding at hockey (could not play rugby due to epilepsy). Jonty was the type of gifted, bold as brass type of guy that would have excelled at any sport, despite his size and so was Darryl Bestall, incidentally he also captained my schools rugby team and Natal Schools...often guys at school that excel at both have to make a choice later on, Jackie Mc Glew and Andre Bruyns (was an outstanding rugby scrum half at school and got Natal Schools in that capacity) and late captained WP alternatively with Bunter...they worked together at Stellenbosch Farmers in the seventies and Morne Du Plessis was a fair cricketer. Alan Kourie also played Baseball at national level.
There are some Saffas though that played both (at national level), I guess I could google them but nobody will remember them it was so long ago.There are quite a lot of Poms too.
Haha, Les Blues had no cricketers and so I guess will never have, incidentally some nations will never play cricket, a pity, I guess there must be literally heaps of potential out there in other non-playing countries...the only cricket they play is social ( ex-pats)...I believe Hollywood had a cricket side in which David Niven played (The Moon is a Balloon).
I reckon countries like USA and some European countries have potential that will, as in rugby never be realised. The Yanks messed that one up with their useless baseball and rugby with that mindless Grid Iron..
I surmise it all started because immigrants to the USA in those days were "gatvoel" of the English and did not want anything to do with the English games and invented their own games and cruder versions of them. Perhaps it was the Irish rebel instinct..hurling etc and Aussie rules footie in Australia too.... Could be, don't you think?
On that same note, it still amazes me why the French took to rugby...we all know how much they love the Poms
Well this post should be another topic but nevertheless it could be an interesting subject.
Hahaha....both my 2 good bets...wow that was close don't you say Rooi
Tit, before you disappear up your own arse, if you go take a look at Superbru you'll see that 86% of players picked the Lions and 56% of players picked the Blues . . . except you don't see all of us who tipped those two rather obvious results running around shrieking for attention.
Once again, if you think you're something special then why not join us in the Ruckers Forum Superbru pool? Don't tell me it'll take up so much of your time and energy because it will take you about as long to make your picks each week as it took you to write all these posts about how clever you are because you tipped two obvious wins.
