One Man Down - stench96's Blog

stench96's Blog

One Man Down

Posted on November 18, 2008 at 06:29 AM.

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American sports can differ from other sports in many ways-helmets,mits,padding,single arm stockings to name a few,but a player ejection doesn't impact a game the way it does in football and the rugby codes.Sure Tim Duncan getting ejected for an atomic wedgie on the opposing centre will mean the Spurs lose their main go to guy,but it'll still be 5 V 5 on the court.If a player gets flicked for unsportsmanlike conduct in the NFL,the coach has another 52 players to fill the gap as the culprit walks up the tunnel.
Now I'm not saying I want to see a power play that last 2 1/2 periods in the NHL,or a ball game with no centre fielder.But if you get the boot in a football match,your team is going to be a man down for the rest of the game,which means that your team is destined to be out of contention for the rest of the game-or does it????
Take the Wolves V Southampton match on saturday,I'm at home in Oz listening to the WolvesWorld live webcast,we're 2-1 up against a team that is 3rd from the bottom of the league,there's about 3 minutes left in the half when Southampton's Jason Euell goes studs up,two footed into Wolve's Richard Stearman-instant red card-he's off!!!!
The half finishes and I make myself a cup of tea,quite content in the fact that the game is over-well somebody forgot to tell the Saints,they come out for the second half totally oblivious of being a man down,Wolves are on the back foot as Southampton keep pushing forward,a couple of close shaves,hit posts and crossbars and the final whistle blows-we grind out a 2-1 win-whay happened??
Now if this was in the NFL the gaps left by the missing player would be huge,imagine having no strong safety or only one corner back,but the Southampton lads filled all the gaps on defence and made spaces on offense,all this with one less man-great stuff!!
This is why I love sport,I played football at semi-pro level for 25 years here in Australia and loved every minute off it,although you wouldn't of thought so as I sulked around the house for 2-3 days after a loss!!!As Yogi said-it ain't over till it's over.
So we're still 6 points up on our closest rival as both Birmingham and Wigan won their weekend matches,we play battling Blackpool at home this week,all the pundits are calling it an easy 3 points,but as Boomer says-that's why they play the games!!!
cheers Nick

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