Quick NFL Hit

Up until this Sunday, the Detroit Lions endured a really, really long losing streak.  They last won in December 2007, and last season they became the first team in the NFL's history to lose all of their games in a 16 game season.

That ended this weekend with a 19-14 win over the hapless Washington Redskins.  It merited the floowing headline, recently tweeted by Adam Schefter (I belive it initially came from the Washington Post).

Washington Bails out Detroit Again

With Obama's Help, Olympics Seem Chicago Bound

When London was chosen as the host city for the 2012 Olympic Games in Singapore four years ago, one man who emerged with a great deal of credit was Tony Blair. The then-Prime Minister travelled there to lobby for votes from IOC delegates and though he left before the winner was announced, the mere fact that he'd put in the effort on a week in which he hosted a G8 summit is one of the key reasons that the eyes of the sporting world will be on the English capital in three years time.

Today it's been confirmed that Barack Obama will follow Blair's lead and travel to this week's IOC conference in Copenhagen. Obama won't be the only world leader in Denmark - the leaders of Brazil, Japan and Spain will all be there to lend their support to Rio, Tokyo and Madrid. However, as the leader of the United States, Obama's attendance will contain a certain cache of influence not held by the others.

The truth is, Chicago probably deserves the Games. America has not hosted them since 1996. Indeed, the Americas have not hosted them since the Atlanta Olympiad while the world’s greatest sporting event has been to Australasia and Europe. It could be argued that a twenty-year break is short for some countries (London, for instance, hasn’t hosted an Olympics in 1948), this isn’t the case for the land which gives such a massive percentage of the TV rights pie.

Plus, Chicago is the site that makes sense. Rio is looking to host the Games only two years after the World Cup. Madrid has been shunned on a couple of occasions and they are looking for a second-successive European Olympics, and a third in four. Too much. Tokyo is an intriguing candidate, but not an attractive one to many of the major television networks worldwide. The Windy City is home to the Bears and the Cubs and the Bulls – it’s one of America’s premier sporting cities. Now, with the help of the President with the Midas touch, they should get to show that on the widest possible scale.

The Morning(ish) After The Night Before

Time for a post-mortem.

The last post prior to the fight was titled 'Bernard Abú' which is ironic, because last night about 9,000 souls in the O2 Arena were saying 'Bernard..Ah...Boo' or something like that. It was a disappointing fight.

I'm sure you saw it - it seemed to us that Bernard controlled, if not dominated, the opening two rounds but when he was drawn into a fight in the third, he was outclassed by Poonsawat who simply had too much power. Bernard was caught with a strong left hook - and don't underestimate the effect of the punch that cut and hurt his ear while on the way down - and he never truly recovered. He should have tied up, he should have spoiled and fouled, but he didn't. The second knockdown was brutal - there was never going to be a repeat of Cordoba Round 5.

Sometimes, when our sports stars lose, we feel cheated but not last night. All indications were that Bernard's training camp went well and he made no excuses on that front in his post-fight interview. There's also no doubt that he gave anything other than 100%. He was just beaten by a better man on the night.

Sport sucks sometimes.

At this point, I don't know if Bernard Dunne's career has been one in which he under- or over-achieved. That's because I don't want it to be over. I don't say that as a selfish fan but as someone who's genuinely trying to think of his best interests. Dunne has been beaten twice, sure, both knockouts, but he hasn't taken a large amount of beatings in recent years (Cordoba aside). He's not like, say Ricky Hatton, who looks punch drunk and should hang up the gloves. Bernard has a lot left to give inside the boxing ring, the only question is where and how.

For me, I'd be happy to see him fight Rendall Munroe for the European Super Bantamweight Title. Munroe would be a 'name' and the fight would also make cash common sense. His only other option, in my opinion, would be to move up to featherweight. At 5'7", Dunne is big at the 122lb limit and the extra bulk in his body could help him. That plan was indicated as most likely by Brian Peters last night, and both he and Bernard say that the Dubliner will fight on. Good. He needs to recover from last night, mentally more than anything else.

The good thing, though, is he will be back.

***

The rest of the card, Dunne aside, was quite good. Stephen Haughian was lucky to get a draw, and Tyson Fury wasn't that impressive - an injury to his right-hand may have something to do with that. The Jamie Power-Michael Sweeney fight on the other hand was a cracker. Like Dunne-Poonsawat, it only went three rounds but there wasn't a dull moment and it was a great win for Sweeney, the Ros Muc based Mayo native. I'd love to see the two of them go at it again. Brian Peters, or whoever, should get them to fight in a small-hall show in Power's native Limerick because that's a fight I'm more than willing to watch a lot more of. Should it happen, then I'll see you there.

***

A big thanks to all of you who checked out the live blog last night. There were hiccups, and there were issues but it was fun to share our thoughts with you in such an instant way. It's something you'll definitely see more of here at The Almost Daily Sports Blog.

Bernard Abú!!

So D-Day has arrived for Bernard Dunne. There’s not long now until his battle with Poonsawat, and the nerves are high. Both boxers weighed in successfully yesterday (though there was a slight scare as the Thai had to climb the scales three times to come in under the 122lb limit).

We here at The Almost Daily Sports Blog are providing coverage all day, as you can see, and we want you to take part. There’s a few ways that you can do that. Any tweets with the hashtag dunnelive (i.e. #dunnelive) should appear in the console automatically, while you’re also welcome to leave comments at the bottom of this page.

You can also comment in the CoveritLive console itself – for most of you these comments require moderation and this will be provided at various points from this evening, hopefully, and certainly during the fight itself.

So start off NOW by taking the poll, and let us know who you think will win. Feel free to tweet/comment with your predictions for the fight or anything else you want to say. Hopefully you’ll enjoy what we have to offer here later today.

One final thing, to get you in the mood, here’s Newstalk’s commentary from the final round of Dunne v Cordoba in March. If this doesn’t get your pulse racing, nothing will.



C'mon Bernard!!

Some rugby....

Just to break the boxing trend for a quick post.

Gerry Thornley reports today in the Irish Times of changes to the qualification process for the Heineken Cup.

It's a tad verbose, but effectively if Munster and Leinster are to continue their success in the competition it will automatically qualify Connacht a place.
This is great news - I am sure some die-hard fans would prefer to see the West province qualify by finishing ahead of Ulster in the Magner's but had you offered an automatic place to Connacht players for the 2007 season after Munster won their first title, I dare you to find me someone who would have turned it down.

This is indeed intriguing news, and no more so then the day it has appeared in print.

Tonight Connacht face Ulster in the first Irish derby of the Magner's league season.
Both teams are dealing with losses to key players, but to me it makes it an even more interesting game.
Can Connacht repeat last years feat and turn over the home teams in Galway?
Will the 8 o'clock kick off provide enough time for any rugby fan in the West to pack the Sportsground.
I hope so, personally I'm hoping to get home in time to catch it on tv. There is enough riding on the game for both teams for it to be a spirited affair.
Here's to the health of Irish rugby for the season - and a possible 4 Irish Teams in the Heineken Cup for the 2010-11 season!

Edit: Link to Liam Toland's piece in today's Irish Times about Connacht.
For me Toland is one of the best analysts of the game both in paper and on TV. If Conor O'Shea was ever to leave RTE's rugby coverage they should immediately snap this man up from Setanta. Objective, concise and informative.

T'Other Fella

As promised, here's a profile of Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, Bernard Dunne's opponent this Saturday.

***

Let's be honest, Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym isn't the sort of name that rolls off the tongue. Yet, difficult as it is to pronounce, the Thai's name is on the lips of all Irish boxing fans ahead of Saturday's bout with Bernard Dunne.

The main question, to be honest, is 'Who is Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym?'

Well, that's not an easy question to answer but I'm going to try. Make no mistake, this won't be an easy fight for Dunne. Like Bernard, Poonsawat has only one defeat in his pro career. Boxrec ranks him fifth (three places ahead of the Dubliner) while the WBA have installed him as their mandatory challenger for Bernard's WBA Super Bantamweight belt.

A quick look at his record reveals a lot of truths. Very few of his wins have been against 'name' fighters, while two of his last five fights have been against men with losing records. There are impressive names on his list though. Poonsawat has a win over Somsak Sithchatchawal, a former holder of Dunne's WBA Super Bantamweight crown. That was an eleventh round knockout in March of last year, and it was this win that gave Poonsawat the right to fight for the belt on Saturday. He's also beaten four-weight World Champion Leo Gamez (indeed, Poonsawat finished the Venezuelan's career) while there is one name that Irish fans will recognise - Poonsawat handed Ricardo Cordoba his first pro defeat with a split decision win in 2005.

As I said, he also has one defeat, and that was in his only fight that hasn't taken place in Thailand. Poonsawat travelled to Germany to take on Wladimir Sidorenko in 2006 and was beaten, in a unanimous decision, by the Ukrainian (who himself has a pair of draws with Cordoba).  That defeat seems to have been a key point in Poonsawat's career. Up until then, he was pushed, and he was going for big things. The above wins, the key ones, all came before then (with the exception of the Sithchatchawal fight) and since then, most of his fights have been against fighters with less than stellar records. The bout with Dunne is his toughest since then.

This analysis leads me to make these two points about Poonsawat ahead of Saturday's fight:

1. He's a tough cookie, there's no doubt about it. He's beaten big names, and his record of 27 knockouts from 38 wins shows that he has power to boot.  He's ranked higher than Dunne and this very well may be Dunne's sternest test to boot, Cordoba included.


2. Poonsawat is a fighter looking for a second coming.  His career has stalled (bar one win) for over three years and Saturday is a must-win for him, if he is to get it back on track.  He lost his one fight away from home, against Sidorenko, in Germany and he's already making pre-emptive excuses ahead of his trip to Dublin.

Yes, those are two contradictory points, but when we know so little about Poonsawat, we don't know which is the truth.  He could be a desperate fighter who Dunne is taking on at the right time, or he could break Irish hearts this weekend.  His record shows that he is more than capable of both, but we have no way of knowing which is the truth.  Dunne's camp should be confident that the second point is what will materialise, while at the same time fearing the first.  I certainly am not be confident enough to predict this fight, either way.

***

Don't forget our LIVE blog this Saturday.  You can sign up for an email reminder for it below.  It will kick off during the day on Saturday and we'll be blogging from inside the O2 Arena, giving you a flavour of the atmosphere direct from Dublin.

Bernard Dunne...So Far

As part of our preview for Bernard Dunne v Poonsawat, here is a profile of the WBA Super Bantamweight Champion and Ireland’s own, Bernard Dunne.

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The first time I saw Bernard Dunne, professional boxer, was not inside the ring but in a feature on SKY’s much-missed boxing magazine show, Ringside. They profiled Dunne, who at the time had about seven wins from his first seven fights in the United States. The reporter (I think it was Adam Smith) kept up an Irish tradition in that when he went to visit Dunne, he brought him a present from home, in this case the ubiquitous box of teabags. He may have been all the way over in LA, but Bernard was still Irish, that's for sure.

When it comes to inside the ring, we didn’t get Bernard’s fights while he was Stateside, but his reputation was growing online. Aside from a few national amateur finals that had been shown on RTE, he existed only in print. He had gone from Neilstown to California, and was managed by Sugar Ray Leonard, trained by Freddie Roach. He was set for big things...but then all those plans changed.

Leonard decided to leave this contender to start his NBC TV series, The Contender, leaving our Bernard in the lurch. He was without a manager; he was without a firm future. He was forced to come back to Dublin. Though it didn’t seem a good move at the time, this move was to make Bernard Dunne the highest-profile and publicly-available boxer on this island since Barry McGuigan.

Leonard was replaced by Brian Peters, who took advantage of the opportunity.  He, and an unlikely RTE television deal, allowed Bernard the opportunity to base himself in Dublin and fight in front of his home fans. He was to give Irish boxing fans our first taste of the sport on the box. We lapped it up.

There were wins over Jim Betts and a scary last round against Yuri Voronin. Dunne made occasional trips to Germany and Italy but by and large, he built up his fanbase in Dublin, so much so that in November 2006, Dunne was able to lure Esham Pickering to Dublin to defend his European title.

It was a hard-fought and well-won points decision for Dunne, and it was the biggest night in Irish boxing since the days of Steve Collins. In under two years, Dunne had gone from career disaster in America, to winning the European Title in front of 9,000 hometown fans. He was one of the biggest earners in his weight division and it seemed like world class opponents would soon be coming our way.

The next chapter of Bernard’s career gives his critics plenty of ammunition. He fought a pair of relatively obscure European Title contenders, instead of pushing on like Peters’ own website had proclaimed. He won those fights comfortably, before the fateful night against Kiko Martinez. Dunne rushed into the fight – it came just nine weeks after his previous win against Reidar Walstad. The curtains were closing on the Point after this fight, and Martinez very nearly brought the curtains down on Bernard’s dreams in just 86 seconds.

Disaster doesn’t sum up how much of a blow this was. Bernard had been all conquering, he had been unbeaten in 24 fights; now he was Bernard ‘Dunne in One’. A long rehabilitation process was necessary. Dunne took a break, and when he did return his next three fights came against mediocre South American opponents; two of them were even held in Castlebar.

Then came Cordoba.

While Dunne’s career probably didn’t merit a shot at a world title, his earning power did. The fact that he had been on RTE for so many years, and was so well known, meant that a World Title Fight in Dublin could sell thousands of tickets, enough to lure Ricardo Cordoba all the way from Panama. Boxing, as the Don King adage goes, is not about what you earn: it’s about what you negotiate. Peters excelled, allowing Dunne to challenge for a World Title in his home town.

All Dunne had to do now was deliver, and boy did he do just that. Dunne put Cordoba down early in the fight, but then hit the canvas himself, twice, in the fifth round. It was de ja vu, the Martinez fight all over again. Dunne was once again on the seat of his pants, in the same arena where he'd suffered his worst night in boxing.  His supposed weak chin had cursed him again.  Yet Bernard Dunne survived through the fifth round, and the rest of the fight, before knocking Cordoba out in the eleventh. It's a good job he did - Dunne would have lost the fight if the judges were to be asked for their opinions.  But they weren't.

It was one of the most dramatic moments in Irish sports history, and given what had happened that afternoon, that’s saying something.

You can argue about the merits of the WBA as a body, but Dunne is now a legit World Champion, even if he’s not the true cream of his weight division. Unification may come further down the line, but for now Dunne stares into Saturday’s bout with Poonsawat. We’ll look at him, and at Saturday’s event in Dublin, tomorrow night.

***

Remember, The Almost Daily Sports Blog will be LIVE blogging all day Saturday for Bernard Dunne v Poonswat and we want YOU to be involved. Sign up below for an email reminder about the event, and be sure to check back here Saturday for all the build up to the fight, and the atmosphere direct from the O2 Arena.

A Venture Into The Unknown

Last March, on the same day that our rugby team won their first Grand Slam in 61 years, another remarkable sporting event occured in Ireland.

Bernard Dunne became WBA Super Bantamweight Champion in one of the best fights you'll ever see, knocking out Panama's Ricardo Cordoba in the 11th Round at Dublin's o2 Arena. I, along with the boss, was lucky to be there and we're going back to the o2 this Saturday for Dunne's first defence, against Poonsawat Kratingdaeng.

We're going to be blogging all day, about the journey up, the food, the cost, the fights and those quirky things that make a day like this memorable (this time I WILL figure out just how Marty Morrissey gets a crowd excited).  Our start time is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. but you can expect the comments to come in long, long before that and then they'll ramp up nearer to and during fight time.

I have some idea about how this will work, but not a massive amount! There will be issues, technical ones, but I hope that we'll be able to convey a sense of what's going on and give you a bit of the atmosphere live from Dublin.  I hope this will be the first of many live blogs here on the site.

To get you in the mood for the fight there'll be plenty of Bernard Dunne related stuff here on The Almost Daily Sports Blog all week. Sign up below if you want an email reminder about the event, and be sure to check back here on Saturday for all the shenanigans!!!

Hellie the Rebelette

I prefer the Rugby players in Munster to the GAA football players. When the Rugby players come home after a match you can be sure they will arrive in a flurry of style and charisma in their lovely sexy suits complete with a Munster Rugby tie pin. So as you can well imagine, I had high hopes for today when the Cork team arrived in Mallow. I was bitterly disappointed. They stepped off the train in, and I cringe as I type it, tracksuits. A serious let down. Not least considering they lost the All Ireland yesterday but in order to distract me from that upset I decided to focus on their clothes. HEHEHE I am Hellie, a girl so therefore I have different priorities! CLOTHES! CLOTHES! CLOTHES! HEHEHE!!

The brave team were eagerly awaited by a small group of supporters, the first 5 having arrived at half four.....they had a long wait til half six when the team turned up! But to be fair to the people of Cork we slowly turned up bit by bit until we had managed a, and I use this term loosely, a crowd of people. Well to be fair to Cork, Mallow is a small town with a small train station so to have a crowd of 200 ish was impressive to say the least. And for such a mediocre sized crowd they sure made a lot of noise when the team dared to step off the train to the platform and face their loyal supporters.

The speeches went well, the manager was obviously disappointed that his team didn’t win but you could see, hidden in the face of defeat was a sense of pride. A pride felt by a lot of Cork GAA patrons, the team were after all quite young and did really well to get to a final. And sure yeah of course as a county Cork would have loved to have seen them win and show Kerry where to go....But at the end of the day we knew we were facing into a tough match against a extremely experienced Kerry team. We did well and to see the fans congregate showed the team the pride is still there.

The Team left the platform to go to talk to the crowd. They spent ages there signing jerseys and talking to the young players in the gathering in Mallow. The managers, subs, players and anyone remotely connected to the team came out to talk to the fans. From the distance of the platform, where I was hidden away I could see the team captain Canty holding a tiny baby wearing a even smaller jersey. While the team were talking to fans I was lucky enough to get a word with a young player who expressed his slight distress that there weren’t more GAA followers in Mallow. I was delighted to tell him of the huge crowd awaiting them in Cork City Centre....we watched as the team boarded the train again and left for cork city and Kent station.

They may have lost the All Ireland Final but the Cork team won over a new fan tonight in me.

Renault Given Suspended Ban

Just a quick post (from my phone...how modern!) to discuss the verdict from the FIA World Council Meeting in Paris. In case you haven't heard, Renault have been given a suspended two-year ban while their former manager Flavio Briatore has been given an indefinite ban from all forms of motorsport, including driver management.

My buddy James, on his F1 Focus blog, argued that Renault should have been excluded from Formula One for race fixing and up until last week I probably would have agreed. They not only conspired against the merits of competition, but did so in a potentially dangerous fashion. However, the key figures in their conspiracy (namely Piquet, Briatore and Symonds) have all now left the team. Would there really be anything to gain from kicking them out? I think not.

Also, would Formula 1 be helped by banning Renault? Certainly not. In the last year we've seen the withdrawal of Honda and BMW and while fans aren't drawn to supporting the multi-ational manufacturers, the sport is helped in a commercial sense by their involvement. Business should not interfere with sport but there's little merit to punishing Renault when the 'brains' behind their plan have fallen on their swords. A fair balance has been struck, in my opinion.

As for Flavio...ciao. He may be enigmatic and a flamboyant presence, but anyone who conspired over this and other rumoured cheating scandals in the sport is no loss. We don't need him, and the sport will survive and thrive in the coming years, minus hospital ilk. It's time to close the door on 'crashgate' and move on.