Hello again everyone! I hope you are all doing well.

I seem to say this every time I write but once again, the last two weeks have been extremely hectic for me personally. As you all know, life has its ups and downs, and the past fortnight have shown me this exactly.

On Saturday, April 28th I travelled to New York with the soccer team to play against Canisius University. It was the first time all semester we were actually playing a 90-minute game as all our previous ones had been 60-70 minutes.

We started the game off reasonably well and went into halftime 1-0 up. Our goal came from playing high pressure and I was able to win the ball off their left full back high up with pitch before squaring it into the box for our striker to finish. The second half didn’t go well at all and we ended up losing 2-1.

The coaches were very disappointed, and so were we. Not just because we lost, but because we didn’t fight hard enough for a result, or play anywhere near our potential. It wasn’t a great day but as our coaches said, it wasn’t the end of the world and we would have the chance to put things right in our next game.

The day after, Sunday the 29th, I received some devastating news from back home. My aunty Mirella had passed away after losing her battle with ovarian cancer. I couldn’t believe it, I was distraught. Out of all of my aunties, Mirella was the one I was closest to. I got straight on Skype to my parents when I found out and on Tuesday I was on a plane home.

I arrived home Thursday night after a delay or two along the way and I remember being so glad to see my family. It still hadn’t sunk in that she was gone.

After spending a few days with Mirella’s family on Friday and over the weekend, the funeral rolled around on the Monday. I can honestly say that it was probably the saddest day of my life so far. It just seemed like everything had happened so quickly. I had been on the other side of the world and wasn’t really aware just how quickly the cancer was taking its toll. The hardest part about it all was that I never got to say goodbye, Mirella was only 58. She has left a huge hole in so many people’s hearts.

After the funeral and burial, relatives of the family went back to the house and spent time with each other, consoling and trying to cheer one another up. While the circumstances were terrible, it was nice to see some of my cousins who I probably hadn’t seen for over a year or two. Catching up with them is always nice.

Aunty Mirella

Even after the funeral, I was still pretty upset about it all and still felt as if I hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye. So I decided to visit the cemetery alone and spend some time there with her. It was heart wrenching going there again and seeing her photo on the wall where her coffin had been placed. I just sat there for about 45 minutes with her. I couldn’t help but cry.

I came to the realization that the hole that I could feel in my heart would probably be there for a very long time. Yet, I can’t even imagine how my uncle and her kids must be feeling. Mirella truly was one of the most beautiful people, inside and out, that I have ever met. She would always put others ahead of herself and no one will ever forget that. I will always love my aunty and I will never forget her.

My flight back to the States was booked for Friday, May 4th. So with a few days up my sleeve, I thought I would use the opportunity to catch up with some friends whilst I was home. On the Tuesday night, I went down to train with the Glenmore Park FC boys who I had played with over last summer break.

It was good to catch up with the boys and see how they were all doing. One thing I do want to say directly to you boys is that I could see that the professionalism you boys have in training this season has improved a lot from last season. Also, going from having two teams in the Prems competition up to four is a remarkable achievement. You boys should be very proud of what you are doing. I doubt there are many, if any other clubs in New South Wales who have four Prems teams this year.

I was also able to catch up with a few of my closest friends. We went out to dinner, had a movie and FIFA night, and I was also able to catch up with some others individually. I really do miss my friends when I’m gone and I’m really lucky to have such a close knit group who are always there for me when I go home. I honestly couldn’t ask for a better group of mates. I really do love them.

Friday soon came around and it was time for me to fly back to the States. On the long journey I was able to reflect upon the week I had just had. I know that sometimes we take our family for granted and we don’t always make an effort to be close with them, but it really is true when they say you should value every day like it is your last. People come and go in your life but family will always be there. People seemed a little surprised when I flew all the way home to be at my aunty’s funeral. I feel bad for them because maybe they just don’t understand how important family is to me. It wasn’t even a choice for me, I knew straight away that all I wanted to do was fly home and be with my family. At the end of the day, nothing else matters more than family.

I am now back in America and preparing for my final exams this week (wish me luck!) After three days of exams, my season with AFC Cleveland will start. I’m already jumping out of my skin to get started. It’s going to be a good summer for me, I will make sure of that. I know my aunty Mirella will be watching over me.

Thanks once again for reading guys. I apologise that it hasn’t been a happy time recently, but life sometimes challenges you in ways that you don’t understand. It is important to acknowledge your feelings and not let them be hidden. This is how you will grow as a person.

Once again, take care and I’ll speak to you all soon!

Have the GWS Giants adapted better than the Gold Coast Suns?

When looking at the two newest teams to enter the AFL in the past two seasons, it can be hard to split them.

Greater Western Sydney and Gold Coast’s team line-up structure, coaching and development, first 5results and marketability has developed the same way; but through different methods.

In 2010 the Suns shocked most AFL fans by signing Geelong superstar Gary Ablett for a record sum of money. Along with him the Sun’s also bought NRL convert Karmichael Hunt, who had only played AFL in his high school days.

The GWS Giants went about growing the club differently; firstly by gaining four times premiership winning Coach Kevin Sheedy and then Mark Williams, the 2004 premiership winning coach, to come on as assistant.

After the establishing a strong coaching base they bought Karmichael Hunt’s origin teammate, Israel Falou for  rumoured six million dollars over four years. Three million dollars more than what Hunt is earning.

Both teams built around the two league superstars, but for me the prize has to go to GWS. The recruited players such as Chad Cornes, Dean Brogan, Rhys Palmer, Luke Power (who will all play a role in coaching as well), Tom Scully and Callan Ward.

That’s three premiership winners and one rising star in that list, the base was well set.

If you compare GWS to the Gold Coast Suns list of established names, there are still a couple of Premiership players in there, but they are not really established enough to bring up the next generation of players in the club.

The likes of Ablett, Campbell Brown, Josh Fraser, Nathan Bock and Michael Rischitelli the men to which I refer.

By the end of his career at Collingwood, Josh Fraser, a 200 game veteran, couldn’t get onto the game list he was so out of form and such form has transferred to the Sun’s.

Rischitelli (a man with his own warning label in his name) is the only established player to really back up Gary Ablett, averaging 25 possessions a game in 2011.

But what about when you look at the initial results of both teams?

Comparing these two teams in their first five games of AFL football in their opening season, only Gold Coast Suns had a win, beating Port Adelaide by three (though not a very hard task that year).

On average the Gold Coast Suns scored two goals more than GWS per game, whilst the Giants conceded 23 less points per game.

Much of that was down to the drubbing the Suns received against Essendon in 2011, the Bombers scoring the most amount of points in a quarter of footy, in history. They piled on 15.4 94 to he Suns’ 0.1 1.

Meanwhile, te development of younger players has shown in the Giants play.

In their first five games young Tory Greene and Tomas Bugg have really stepped up, playing superbly for their first seasons in AFL averaging 20 and 22 possessions, respectively.

Their shortfall has been their established players who haven’t shone through. In contrast, for the Suns it has been the Gary Ablett and Rischitelli show. Both players had stellar opening games for their club, though it wasthe young talent which failed to shine, special mention to first year player Dion Prestia who played unbelievably in the opening games, bucking the trend.

So how do they stack up overall thus far? Is one more impressive than the other?

Not really, both have been or were swamped – as predicted it should be said. The Suns won a game so they can claim that, however the GWS Giants have developed better as a unit there can be no doubt.

The real question is can these two stay in the AFL and pose a threat in future years? Absolutely, mind you it will take a few years.

However, if Wayne Carey forced me to choose or threatened to knock me out with a hotel phone, I think with the coaching staff that GWS have they will grow and reach the finals quicker than the Suns.

But it’s just a matter of time before we see both these teams in September.

Barcelona's Gerard Pique's hips certainly aint lying.

When a woman hears the name Terry Biviano a shoe hallucination isn’t too far and any traces of sweaty men are far out of mind.

Stilettos and football; an unlikely pair, but how many women know Biviano is married to Roosters great Anthony Minichiello? Earlier this year Terry joined the very exclusive WAGs society and although well established with her self-titled shoe brand; her marriage to Mini sealed the deal, as well as a TV contract. Ca-ching!

Lifestyle channel Arena has launched the reality show Wag Nation; following five of Australia’s hottest WAGs across the board including Jackie Spong (Carlton Blues player Jarrad Waite’s wife) and Lynette Bolton (wife of Sydney Swans player Jude Bolton) we watch the struggles each WAG faces with their relationship constantly in the spotlight.

The concept of WAGs has been around since 2002, but really came into vogue in 2006 during the FIFA World Cup, the rest is history.

Whilst doing some research – yes talking over coffee can be research – I asked my best friend what drives our fascination with WAGs; and ended up narrowing it down to three things:

One, they have the ultimate lifestyle: I mean who doesn’t want unlimited credit cards, chauffers, Range Rovers… Chauffers driving Range Rovers!

Two, they’re married to world’s best looking men: Beckham, Nadal, Ronaldo; need I go on?

Three, they all tend to be the most stylish, beautiful and successful women on the planet; but perhaps this is a result of both one and two?

When you think of the ultimate WAG, one woman comes to mind…

Victoria Beckham, known as the “Queen of the WAGs” definitely takes the crown as the most recognisable and amazing of the WAGs (if I do say so myself). In case you’ve been living underground for the past 15 years, Victoria “Posh” Beckham is married to English (and the World) football superstar David Beckham. Her shot to fame came from making up one-fifth of 90’s girl band The Spice Girls and well you know what happened next.

Women look up to her as a fashion icon, men are happy just to look at her; but it hasn’t always been a red carpet stroll when allegations arouse in mid-2010 claiming David had slept with the family nanny. Posh was under constant surveillance by the paparazzi as she stood by her man and rode the rumours out.

You could say that marrying an elite athlete has an “enter at your own risk” warning. David wasn’t the first and definitely won’t be the last of alleged, and unfortunately sometimes confirmed rumours of infidelity. I’m not sure what’s in the water over in the UK but both Wayne Rooney and Ashley Cole were dumped by their WAGs after being caught out with a string of other women leaving their wives to pick up the scraps in front of the vultures (also known as the English Tabloids).

If it were up to me, sure I’d love the exclusive lifestyle with red carpets and first class flights around the world, but deep down I know being a WAG definitely has more cons than pros.

Living in the shadow of your partner and never being seen as an equal would undeniably be a blow to the ego. Take Victoria (yes I know I’ve used her already but she makes such a perfect example!) Empire to one of the hottest fashion labels right now, her season launched was lined with the paps checking to see where David was and what he was wearing rather than the clothes. This leads me to wonder if she would be as successful if she wasn’t married to David.

I suppose it works both ways, I mean when did Shane Warne ever hit the fashion radar? Liz Hurley has certainly given his career a turn from VB and mobile phone sexting to detox diets and Dom Perignon.

Sure every woman wants that Cinderella story; but I hear Prince Harry’s still on the lookout

Hello again everyone!

I hope you are all doing well! The last two weeks have been fun and eventful for me. Things are really starting to heat up now (even the weather) as the end of the semester gets closer. I’m really looking forward to finishing up with school so I can start playing with AFC Cleveland for the Summer.

As this is my third piece already, I feel that I should talk a little about my housemates since I spend so much time with them and have become so close with them.

I live with four boys, Jacob Sheppard (Canadian), Jan Skorupinski (German), Phil Cutler and Elliot Kelly (both English). Some of the banter that flies around the house can be ridiculous at times. But it’s always fun living with these boys. That’s them up the top!

As you all know, the Easter weekend arrived a few weeks ago. Over here we were given Thursday, Friday, and Monday off school, pretty standard as I’m sure you all know! Because we were on break we weren’t allowed to train with our coaches and most of the team went home to their families.

Apart from Phil, who went on a trip to Pittsburgh with his girlfriend, we all stayed at the house and spent Easter together. It was a good break all round because we got to have some time off from school and just relax. We went on a few runs to keep our fitness up and some of the boys went to the gym a couple of times but apart from that it was all about chilling out.

This past weekend we traveled to Indiana to play against a local school (IPFW) and Findlay College. It was always going to be interesting because IPFW is a Division One school and there has always been that theory/myth that Division One is the best.

As we are now moving into Division Two, and Findlay also being in Division Two, they were probably expecting to beat us both.

We played Findlay first and won the game 2-1. Our coach decided to split the squad virtually in half. One half was basically the players who started most games during the season and the other half were players who were vying for a starting position.

The normal starting 11 were on the bench and the other half were given the start and played pretty well. It is good to have a squad where the coach is able to use any combination of players and still put on a good performance and get a result. This keeps every player on his toes because everyone wants to play.

The games would be 35 minute halves and at around the 50 minute mark the coach subbed all 10 outfield players and the second group (which I was in) came on. We came on with a 2-1 lead and ended the match with the same scoreline. Overall, we didn’t play at our best but we were solid defensively and carved out quite a few goalscoring opportunities but couldn’t find the back of the net.

For the second game against IPFW we started with the 11 players that finished the game against Findlay. We put on a much improved performance in this game and managed to win 3-1. Overall, the result was deserved and we maybe should have had more goals. We were exposed to a few, let’s just say, strange calls from the referee but our coaches explained to us that these things can happen and they were pleased with how we dealt with the situations thrown at us.

Overall, it was a decent day at the office for me personally.

My performances were much improved from our last trip. I am feeling much fitter now than I was on our previous outing and I was able to put in a fairly positive performance.

As a winger, it is important that I take on the defender and get crosses into the box. I feel overall I did pretty well at that and my crossing was good apart from one pretty bad one that may have killed a few squirrels in the forest behind the pitch.

I am pleased with how it went and I am already looking forward to our next game coming up this weekend.

I hope you guys are enjoying reading about what I’m up to and like I’ve said previously, if you have any suggestions for anything you’d like me to include in my upcoming articles, don’t be shy to make a suggestion!

Thanks once again for reading. I’ll be back to update you all again in a few weeks’ time so keep an eye out for my next piece!

Take care and enjoy!

When Kerry Packer initiated his ‘World Series Cricket’ in 1977, he dreamed of a cricket world where professional international players would be paid what they are ‘worth’ both by skill and by the crowd.

On the April 18th, 2008, The Indian Premier League came into being. It expanded upon Packer’s ideal and has furthermore changed the game once again.

The IPL is now well into its 5th season and is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. It has had growing support by fans over its last four years, especially in India.

But how beneficial has it been to the international game? Furthermore how relevant is the competition in the modern game?

The IPL is a case of conflict of interests. While CEO’s and owners of these lucrative teams love this competition as it fills both their own pockets and their players pockets, it is doubtful that all those in international cricket administration are also in favour of the IPL.

Why? Well firstly because it has often created issues between players national team obligations and their IPL obligations.

Former Australian player Andrew Symonds was a victim of this problem when IPL administrators and Cricket Australia officials deliberated over Symonds’ playing commitments. This is only one of many examples – West Indian tweaker, Sunil Narine, could easily be bowling for his country today in the Test series against Australia,  if he hadn’t been snapped up by Kolkata Knight Riders.

Obviously this sort of conflict of interests is not healthy for the game of cricket. But the issue arises as a result of the huge amounts of money being thrown around the competition.

A recent Annual Review of Global Sports Salaries places the IPL as the second highest paid league in the world. Only the NBA is higher paid – cricket has never experienced such large player salaries. FACT.

Of course there are some positives in that it gives up and coming young players an international stage on which to prove themselves. Also retired international players such as Adam Gilchrist, Sourav Ganguly and Shane Warne have enjoyed some welcome cash. The crowds love seeing these retired greats swap their whites for the coloured pyjamas that the IPL players grace in these exciting Twenty20 battles.

On a fundamental level though, I can only see this form of the game ruining player mentalities and techniques, particularly batsmen as they strive to hit the ball out of the ground.

We are seeing the fruits of the T20 form of the game in our longest form of the game. Quality teams are not consistently making big scores, as player after player tries to score of most deliveries that they face. It is an epidemic that is only thanks to competitiones like the IPL, unfortunately.

Players like David Warner are an excellent example. In the Test series against India (2011/12), he was quite successful, however, he simply was not consistent. Consistency is a trait required if one desires a long term international career, no matter what format.

The IPL, like most initiatives, has its positives and negatives. Unfortunately in a long term analysis it only really has negatives.

As much as these Indian owners jump up and down like clowns talking up their beloved IPL, with awfully corny names such as the ‘Chennai Super Kings’, ‘Bangalore Royal Challengers’ and the unbelievably unimaginative ‘Mumbai Indians’,  I am not sure how this competition is taken seriously. Like what the hell is a ‘Super King’ Or a ‘Royal Challenger’? I won’t ask about the last one.

Surely all this money could be put to better use? Especially in India where they struggle to prepare a decent pitch! It annoys me that these young upstarts, and unfortunately a lot of them are from Australia, play in the IPL and seem to believe they suddenly deserve a permanent state team position or even a Test call up.

Again, I must have it in for Steve Smith, but he has been an exact example of this.

The IPL and various other T20 competitions have created a new generation of cricketer, one that cannot master the block or leave, one that cannot get stuck in and bat his team out of a bad situation and one that cannot bowl a decent line and length consistently. As far as I am concerned, the administrators should drop the ‘Premier’ in the name, as it does not describe what the IPL is.

So next time you sit down to watch an IPL match, take a moment to say a little prayer for the future of cricket, plead that it does not ruin our great game! For competitions like this are like cocaine, it might seem fun and exciting at the start, it might give you a little hit for a bit, but at the end of the day, it’s only going to mess you up.