Fortune's Always Hiding

It's been a pretty grim day of sport. Sunderland raced into a 2-0 lead at home to West Ham, playing their best football of the season, before conceding a goal in first half stoppage time for the second week in a row. The second saw a red card and a goalkeeping clanger to cost them two points, failing to win in spite of their best performance so far by miles/ This has all of the hallmarks of a relegation season. Eight matches in and I've already reached the "acceptance" stage of grief. Will Dick Advocaat quit? Will he stay? I'm almost past the point of caring.

Meanwhile at the Rugby World Cup, the chariots have seldom swung lower as England crash out of their own tournament at the group stage. They were comprehensively outplayed by Australia as too many positional and handling errors cost them dearly in a 33-13 defeat. They join their cricketing and footballing counterparts in being eliminated from the most recent World Cup at the group stage.

I'm glad that I can finally stop pretending that I like or am interested in rugby union, as watching that match reaffirmed everything that I dislike about the sport (and not just the fact that England are seemingly terrible at it). Absurd situations, long periods with stoppages and seemingly completely arbitrary refereeing.

After O2's "Make Them Giants" campaign, I look forward to seeing an advert next week where a group of cartoon giants in England shirts are verbally abused by members of the public before the company completely deny the existance of a Rugby World Cup.

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