Tuesday 11 October 2011

Forms of Intelligence

No this isn't about artificial intelligence.  Nor is it about extra-terrestrials.  Or about intelligence of plants and animals.  This is about mankind.

We generally attribute certain characteristics to intelligence - good memory, being able to think both logically and laterally and being able to concentrate for periods of time.  And while these are good for the education we receive at school and university, is this the only type of intelligence that matters?  Are things like intuition not important?  And what about inter-people "intelligence" (for want of a better phrase)?  Knowing what to say to people, how to make a good impression, put people at ease and things like that?  What about adaptability? Is that not an intelligence trait?

We then get into the question of which of these are more important for general life?  For work life it is very dependent on the career you plan to take up, and I would have thought that for most people they try to go for a career which is suited to their abilities in these matters.  Meeting new people there is one that stands out, but when in conversation with people you've known longer then it matters more that you have similar levels of the earlier traits so you can have a two way conversation and push each other.

Tests never seem to treat these later aspects, and I'm sure there are plenty of others I've overlooked.  I think they are as important as the things that we do test for and I would like to see more.  I also think it would be interesting to see how different people would score - would people with a conventionally high IQ score well, or whether we would see a convolution of the distributions - and what the relation between them would be.

Tuesday 20 September 2011

A XV from 15?

With the world cup now in full swing, it is always tempting to try to come up with the best XV in world rugby.  However, I find the challenge of assembly a world team where each country can only contribute one player more interesting - do you start with the key positions and then work out?  Do you start with the best teams, or do you start with the worst?  Or do you look for stand out players in any teams and then try to work out a XV?

I don't think there are any places you can hide in world rugby now - poor props and you will get penalised constantly in the scrums and when you're giving away that many penalties it gets hard to get any continuity.  Poor 2nd rows and you struggle in line outs as well as getting pushed back in scrums.  Poor back row and you never get any quick ball, so you're backs struggle to get space to work in.  Poor scrum and fly halves, the outside backs again don't have anything to work with.  Poor centres, you never get over the gain line from first phase ball.  Poor back 3, and you get peppered by high balls and struggle to get any territory.  Consequently, my approach will see me taking the best players from the worse teams first, and then taking good players from the best teams to fit in instead of their best.

The current IRB rankings are:

1(1)NZLNEW ZEALAND90.55
2(3) RSASOUTH AFRICA86.71
3(2) AUSAUSTRALIA84.84
4(4)ENGENGLAND83.99
5(5)FRAFRANCE83.78
6(8) IREIRELAND82.50
7(6) WALWALES80.73
8(7) SCOSCOTLAND79.12
9(9)ARGARGENTINA77.30
10(11) ITAITALY73.88
11(14) CANCANADA73.74
12(10) SAMSAMOA73.59
13(13)JPNJAPAN71.95
14(15) FJIFIJI71.01
15(12) TGATONGA70.30
16(16)GEOGEORGIA70.00
17(18) USAUSA66.38
18(17) ROMROMANIA65.69
19(20) NAMNAMIBIA61.24
20(21) PORPORTUGAL60.67
(http://www.irb.com/rankings/full.html)

The first 10 teams are obvious, Tri Nations, 6 Nations and Argentina.  After these, it becomes more awkward.  I will go for the Samoa, Tonga, USA, Georgia and Namibia.  Apologies to the higher ranked teams, especially Canada and Japan, but I think they have players that stand out more in their teams, and are closer to the level of the top 10 nations, (most unlucky here is the Japanese 10 James Arlidge who played exceptionally well against France).

Starting with Georgia, I would take their openside flanker Mamuka Gorgodze, man of the match against England, and voted the best overseas player in France's Top 14 league - beating players such as Contepomi Parisse and Wilkinson.  Namibia would give me their captain and flanker Jacques Burger, who has recently left the Sharks for Saracens and is a bit of a one man wrecking ball.  From Tonga I would have the Saints prop Soane Tonga'uiha, arguably the best prop in the Premiership.With Samoa, the choice is between Henry and Alessand Tuilagi, and Seilia Mapusua, and I think I will have Mapusua at 13 - Exiles fans will tell you how much they missed him since he went to Japan, allowing me to take Takudzwa Ngwenya from the USA to play on the wing - the man who famously outpaced Habana at the last world cup.

Moving into the top 10 Nations, we look at Italy, France, Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales and Argentina.  From Italy the two obvious candidates are Castro and Parisse.  For France and Wales it is the outside backs, Jamie Roberts and the front rows.  Ireland have BOD, POC and Bowe.  Scotland and England have second rows in Courtney Lawes and Richie Gray, and Scrum Halves.  Argentina, the strength is in the pack and in Hernandez who they are sorely missing this World Cup, and one of the stars of the last one.  From this, I would take Parrise, Bowe, Gray, Youngs, Hernandez, Adam Jones, and Servat, although it is very tempting to switch to Lawes/Cusiter - or potentially both second rows leaving room to take du Preez from SA.  This leaves me a second row, full back and inside centre from the Tri-Nations.  I would have Victor Matfield, Sonny Bill Williams and Kurtley Beale.

The Full Team:
1: Tonga'uiha (Tonga)
2: Servat (France)
3: Jones (Wales)
4: Gray (Scotland)
5: Matfield (SA)
6: Burger (Namibia)
7: Gorgodze (Georgia)
8: Parisse (Italy)
9: Youngs (England)
10: Hernandez (Argentina)
11: Ngwenya (USA)
12: Williams (NZ)
13: Mapusua (Samoa)
14: Bowe (Ireland)
15: Beale (Australia)

Looking at the players, only a handful would get close to a normal world XV, possibly only 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 14, and 15 would be considered with no guarantees about being picked.  However given the exercise here, I think this is potentially one of the better teams possible.

Sunday 4 September 2011

World Cup Preview

The Rugby Union world cup is just around the corner, and the squads have been announced.  So I thought I'd use this opportunity to look at the home nations ahead of the tournament in New Zealand, and see where we stand.


England

Squad

Props : Dan Cole, Alex Corbisiero, Andy Sheridan, Matt Stevens, David Wilson
Hookers : Dylan Hartley, Lee Mears, Steve Thompson
Locks : Louis Deacon, Courtney Lawes, Tom Palmer, Simon Shaw
Loose Forwards : Tom Croft, Nick Easter, James Haskell, Lewis Moody, Tom Wood

Scrum Halves : Joe Simpson, Richard Wigglesworth, Ben Youngs
Fly Halves : Toby Flood, Johnny Wilkinson
Centres : Shontayne Hape, Mike Tindall, Manu Tuilagi
Back Three : Delon Armitage, Chris Ashton, Matt Banahan, Mark Cueto, Ben Foden


With only 3 out and out centres, England do look a little light in this area, and the big shock was Riki Flutey missing out.  However, Armitage and Banahan both have experience playing in the 12/13 shirts so it is understandable.  And with the way that England played in the 6 nations, having big ball carrying centres freeing up space for the back 3 worked then, and I would expect them to use a similar tactic in the world cup.  Which carries on with the choice of loose forwards - only one out and out openside, but any combination of Wood, Haskell and Croft on the flanks have between them the skill set needed, almost more like a Left/Right combination than Open/Blind.  I agree with the choice of 5 props and 3 hookers, and the personnel chosen - in a world cup campaign I think it is essential to have depth in these positions.  With the half backs, I think Wigglesworth is lucky to be there, and I think the only reason he is, is because he can cover 10 too.  I like Simpson and think that he has the pace to keep defence honest near the fringes, which plays into the game plan of the big centres, and that due to the centres we've gone for a 9/10 player instead of bringing in Hodgson and having Flood or Wilkinson covering 12, as this would change the team dynamic too much.

Ireland

Squad

Props :  Tony Buckley, Tom Court, Cian Healy, Mike Ross 
Hookers : Rory Best, Sean Cronin, Jerry Flannery 
Locks : Leo Cullen, Domacaha O'Callaghan, Paul O'Connell, Dennis Ryan
Loose Forwards : Stephen Ferris, Jamie Heaslip, Dennis Leamy, Sean O'Brien, David Wallace (injured).

Scrum Halves : Isaac Boss, Conor Murray, Eoin Reddan.
Fly Halves : Ronan O'Gara, Jonny Sexton 
Centres : Gordon D'Arcy, Brian O'Driscoll, Paddy Wallace
Back Three : Rob Kearney, Tommy Bowe, Keith Earls, Fergus McFadden, Geordan Murphy, Andrew Trimble 

The Irish haven't had a good build up, losing all 4 warm up games, but they have a good sprinkling of match winners throughout their squad, and being able to leave players of the calibre of Fitzgerald and O'Leary at home speaks volumes about the faith Kidney has in the replacements.  Personally, I would've been tempted to take them, as the old adage goes, form is only temporary and I would back them to regain theirs.  The loss of David Wallace may allow them to try something I am keen to see, a back row of Heaslip Ferris and O'Brien - similar to the way Englands worked for the 6 Nations, although I doubt they will.  I think a lot will depend on how well their 9s play as they don't have a large degree of experience between them, but the back line outside is very encouraging.

Scotland


Squad

Props : Geoff Cross, Alasdair Dickinson,Allan Jacobsen, Moray Low, Euan Murray 
Hookers : Ross Ford, Dougie Hall,Scott Lawson
Locks : Richie GrayJim Hamilton, Nathan Hines, Alastair Kellock
Loose Forwards : John Barclay, Kelly Brown, Ross Rennie, Alasdair Strokosch, Richie Vernon 

Scrum Halves : Mike Blair, Chris Cusiter, Rory Lawson 
Fly Halves : Ruaridh Jackson, Dan Parks 
Centres : Joe Ansbro, Nick De Luca, Graeme Morrison
Back Three :  Simon Danielli, Max Evans, Rory Lamont, Sean Lamont, Chris Paterson 

Scotland have, understandably, gone with a forward dominated squad.  Their lack of try scoring is well publicised, and I hope that they will get this monkey off their back, with the backs actually doing some planned moves, and seeing lots of support runners for any breaks as this often is a major issue.  Their strengths are in 9s and back three, but a lot will depend on the centres and fly halves.  Nicki Walker is a loss as he was playing quite well for them, but hopefully whoever comes in will do a job for Robinson.

Wales

Squad


Props : Ryan Bevington, Gethin Jenkins, Adam Jones, Paul James, Craig Mitchell
Hookers : Huw Bennett, Ken Owens
Locks :  Luke Charteris, Bradley Davies, Alun Wyn Jones 
Loose Forwards : Toby Faletau, Ryan Jones, Danny Lydiate, Andy Powell, Sam Warburton

Scrum Halves : Tavis Knoyle, Michael Phillips, Lloyd Williams
Fly Halves : James Hook, Stephen Jones, Rhys Priestland
Centres :  Jamie Roberts, Jonathan Davies, Scott Williams
Back Three : Aled Brew, Lee Byrne, Leigh Halfpenny, George North, Shane Williams 

With Wales, I feel the biggest question marks are in the forwards.  With the back row they've only taken 1 specialist 7, who admittedly has been playing excellently, and only their first choice 6 is capable of covering there.  And then 3 players who can play at 6 or 8.  The balance seems off to me.  With the front row, they're missing their captain, so Hooker is a week area, and the first choice props are just coming back from injury so there are question marks there.  I feel this area is where they could struggle.  Behind the scrum, the squad is more or less as expected.  For their sake, I hope Phillips doesn't play too much as he is too ponderous and they need quick ball to get their outside backs to work.  However their back 3 are always exciting to watch, even if Hook, first choice 10, is the best cover at 15.

Tuesday 23 August 2011

Resulting from Results

We're into the middle of August now, and that means that A-Level students have, after what must seem an age for them, got their results, and the GCSE students are about to get theirs.  On the apparent up side, the pass rate has risen to 97.8%, 8.2% of which was at the top grade of A*, but on the down side over 190 thousand people  had to go through clearance to try and get one of 40 thousand university places, and an expected 200 thousand people who wanted to go to university missing out.  But are these really the high and lowlights to come from results day?

It is said so often now that it has become cliché that exams are too easy, and a figure of almost 98% passing seems to be damning evidence for this argument.  However I do not believe this to be the case.  I think that people are no longer being taught the subject, but being taught to pass an exam.  With exams tending to ask similar questions year on year, and the restriction of the syllabus for some subjects aiding this it is possible to get an A in some A Levels by going through mark schemes and looking for the points that they reward, and then learning them.  I know this works, I did it for one of my modules a few years ago and got over 90% in it.  It demeans the qualification that many 17 and 18 year olds put a lot of effort in gaining.

I also think having such high rates are devaluing the qualification.  Unfortunately, with teachers living by their percentages they will do what they can to keep it as high as possible, which bring me back to being taught to pass the exam.  It may look great that they have so many A grades, but the actual amount they know may not bare sufficient resemblance to what an A grade student should know.  This results in universities struggling to differentiate between them - the amount of places that require 3As or higher is significantly less than the amount of students gaining them - over a quarter of all A-Level grades are A/A* this year.  We need more people failing, and fewer people gaining the top grades.  In general everyone will experience some kind of failure in life, but without having any experience of having done so at school they may not react positively and that is a vital life skill.  So overall, I think having the highest pass rates and % of A/A* ever is in fact not a good thing, but a bad one.

I also think that the huge amounts of people wanting to go to University is bad, so the 200,00 missing out is a good thing.  Understandable, but bad.  The reason I think it is understandable is that with the increase in the cost of going to University set to rise, the amount of people who would take a year out, or aren't sure are applying now otherwise the cost would be incredible.  However too many people are going to Universities simply to have a student experience.  This has become the overriding reason, whereas it should be that people go to University because they are interested in their subject and want to study it for 3 years.  This attitude is a pet hate of mine, and I would dearly love to see UCAS interview everyone who applies through them to decide what their motive for a degree is, and for people who only want to go get drunk to not get through.  However, such a system would be far too expensive and probably not work anyway.  There are also too many Universities now, giving a huge surplus in graduates seeking employment.  This results in jobs demanding a degree when it isn't always applicable to them.  Not every qualification needs to be a degree, or needs to be a university course - I also think the old polytechnics should go back to that status too.  As much as I want the population to be educated, university education isn't for everyone, and too many people don't realise it.

I know that my thoughts are probably against what most people believe, but in order to make the qualifications more meaningful I think they are necessary

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Holidays for Science

I am an atheist.  I never pretend to be christian, yet every December I buy and receive Christmas presents, and every spring I do the same with Easter Eggs.  Yet I don't believe in them.  I do believe in science, but I've never celebrated any historic event from science in a similar way.  The 2001 census had approxiately 15% of the people who answered that question claim to believe in no religion, and almost 8% of people refused to answer it.  And while this is my opinion and not fact, I believe that there are people who never go to church, don't believe in any god, but put themselves down as Christian due to being raised in that religion.  Atheists are a growing population, but as a Christian country, we still celebrate these two holidays as a nation, even if we don't believe in them.  Darwin's Birthday I saw mentioned a few times last year, but this was the first time for it.  Any event worthy of celebration is only celebrated on memorable anniversaries of them, not annually.  And while the birth and death of Christ are clear events to celebrate, there isn't a birth of science, and neither has it died.  This leads to the question which should we celebrate?

There are too many contenders to celebrate them all.  A few initial thoughts give rise to the following :

1. DNA discovered
2. The structure of the atom being described
3. Achieving Cloning
4. Artificial life being created
5. The laws of Thermodynamics
6. Maxwell's Equations
7. Newton's Laws of Motion
8. Einsteinium Relativity
9. The Start of Quatum Mechanics
10. Darwin's theory of Evolution

Admittedly, having studied physics, I am highly biassed in including some of these, but I believe that without them our understanding of the world, and the technology that we would find ourselves using would be incredibly different to how it is now.  We would be without so many things we have found ourselves relying on, yet we don't celebrate them ahead of the birth of someone over 2000 years ago on a date different to that he was actually born on.  This seems to me to be crazy.  But if we split this group into two, Physical and Biological seem to be a natural split, we could replace Christmas and Easter with holidays that atheists actually believe in.  I realise that there are countless things I missed here -  I didn't even mention Penicillin and all the medical advances we've made, feel free to suggest any worthy of major celebration in our new atheist calender which will take over from the Christian one.  And just as the Christians annexed Pagan festivels to make the transition easier, I suggest Biology Day, being about new life, should be in the spring, leaving Physics Day to be Mid-Winter.  Surely it is only a matter of time before religious calenders become out dated, and with people still wanting holidays to celebrate, I think this is the future.

Friday 29 July 2011

Bowlers Batting and Batters Bowling

With the injury sustained by Chris Tremlett ahead of the second test against India, I started wondering about who I would bring in to replace him.  This led me to a more general question as to the balance of this England side as it bids to become the best in the world.  With no true world class all-rounder avaliable it leads to the age old question - 4 or 5 bowlers?

With 4 bowlers, there are a couple of main issues to my mind, and we don't have to look too far back to come across one of them.  In the first test India lost Zaheer Kahn to an injury early in the first innings, leaving them with 2 quicks and a spinner as their recognised bowlers.  And with a first day pitch in England very rarely conducive to aiding the spinner, they struggled.  Even Dhoni had a bowl to try and make a breakthrough.  While I don't think anyone will pick a side in case someone gets injured, I do feel it is a problem with picking 4 bowlers.  The other being that when struggling for a wicket, a change can sometimes work wonders.  This is especially a problem when you have 3 very similar quicks, such as when Broad Finn and Tremlett all played against Sri Lanka earlier in the summer.  This often leads to having part-timers trying to do something a bit magical, which in Englands case means Trott.  An extra difficulty this bring is trying to keep all the bowlers fresh, which can be especially problematic at some of the hotter places they play.

With 5 bowlers, the problem is the weakened batting line-up.  A tail starting at 7 is quite a long one, so unless the pitch is flat and the top 6 are all in form, this tends to get avoided.  It's effectively the reverse of the problem of playing 4 bowlers.  In one case you can end up going to the batsmen to get the wickets, while in the other you go to the bowlers to get the runs.

I take the point of view that to win tests, you need to take 20 wickets, so I lean towards the extra bowler.  Other people like the batsmen to ground the other team down and then set things up nicely for the bowlers, but I feel this leads to more draws, and I'd rather risk losing for a higher chance of a win.  But this means having a long tail, does this weaken the team too much?

For my money, not.  While I don't think Broad is a test 7 yet, I think he's definitely not a 9 either, yet that's where he batted today.  The combination of Bresnan, Broad and Swann is a competent enough batting unit to be 7,8,9 as their combined test average is almost 85 - and I think Broad's of 28 will rise further - his last two test innings show his ability.  Given that the top 6 should average over 250 between them (ideally towards 300, with 50 being a good test average), I think this is enough batting, with extra flexibility in the bowling.  While I think Pieteresen is a good second spinner, I don't think Trott is a good enough bowler to be able to fill in, something Collingwood was excellent for.

Another question that arose when I was considering this, is that of a night watchmen.  While I'm not opposed to using them, I don't think Anderson is the right style of player for it, much in the same way as I didn't think Hoggard should have done it.  I think a night watchmen should be able to protect his wicket in the evening, and then play some strokes the following morning.  While Anderson has worked on his batting, I don't think he has enough scoring strokes for it.  Years back, I wanted Giles to do the role, and currently I think it is something Broad or Bresnan should be doing, and given Broads current form I would plump for Bresnan.  Swann could do it - he definitely has the shots for the following morning -  but I don't think his defensive game is quite as good as the others for the evening slot.

Unfortunately, this means dropping one of the batsmen, probably Morgan, and this seems harsh on an ever improving player (this isn't in reaction to a few low scores, it's due to the position he occupies in the line-up.  If they keep 4 bowlers he should be given at least until after this series for his form to pick up, and I have no doubts that it will).  I would like to see how this balance would work, but I would be against making such a change mid-series.  However on flatter pitches in the sub-continent it should be considered.

Friday 22 July 2011

Moffat's Magic

Steven Moffat's Sherlock started a rerun on Wednesday, filling the gap in the schedules from the completion of The Apprentice, and watching it again knowing the outcome let me appreciate the hints that had been put in place throughout the episode.  Before the initial airing, people were worried about trying to turn the Sherlock Holmes stories into a modern day piece, but these worries went unrealised.  The entire production was excellent, the relation between the two leads often getting highly praised and quite rightly so, but all the other aspects I feel are exectuted brilliantly too, and I for one am looking forward to the rest of this rerun before the next series.

This isn't the first show that Moffat's written where I've been thoroughly impressed by some of the writing.  Coupling and his Dr Who episodes have a tendancy to be very clevelry done, and while enjoying the stories I always appreciated the tightness (for want of a better word) of the writing.  Case in point in the first episode of the fourth series of Coupling where you have the show done in 3 parts following 3 main couples and the overlaps between them continue to unfold right through to the final minute with you learning more about the earlier scenes by watching them from a different perspective.  A clever idea, and the execution is flawless.  Other episodes have had long conversations that were completely double ended, scenes done in parallel to previous ones and double screens - following two groups with sound alternating between them.  I'm a huge fan of the comedy, but these clever little tweaks make it different to the rest and are all done well.

His other majoy success was in Dr Who.  Before he took over the reins from Russel T Davies who had resurrected the series and made it essential viewing, he'd written some of the more memorably episodes.  Blink is still quite possibly my favourite episode, and the Silence of the Library and the Empty Child double features were for many the stand out episodes of their respective series, wonderfully self-contained and showcase some of his talents.  But I think that's been shown even more since he took over as head of the production, and the penultimate episode of the last series - the Pandorica Opens was truly spectacular, and the scene where the Doctor shouts to his collected enemies was brilliant - and When a Good Man Goes to War also stunned me with its brilliance, and I can't wait to see the outcome when it returns.

I believe that Moffat is one of, if not the best writer in British television, and I can't wait to see anything else he works on.  The return of Dr Who and Sherlock are events that I can not wait for, and I hope that he has more ideas up his sleeve for other programs.

Saturday 9 July 2011

Franchise Failure

While I wouldn't describe myself as a Nintendo fanboy, I would say that I think they're a great games company and have enjoyed a variety of their games, I have a confession.  Out of games of their big three franchises, Mario Zelda and Metroid, I have not finished a single game.

Gaming consoles I've had, have all been from the Big N: Gameboy pocket and a N64 from my childhood, and more recently a Wii.  For these I've had LoZ Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, a Metroid game for gameboy, NSMB Wii and Mario Galaxy 2.  I had other games from other franchises though - I completed Yoshi's Story, Lylat Wars, and Super Smash Bros (original and Brawl) among others - but never one from the big 3.

In my defense, I only got my three Mario games recently - Super Mario 64 I found second hand in Chips a bit over 6 months ago, and with University I've not had much time for playing them.  I probably could have got them finished by now, but after getting about half way through them I decided to try to 100% each of them instead of just going to win.  Currently, I've got over 80 stars out of 120 for SM 64, half way through world 8 on NSMB Wii with only a few star coins missing from each of the previous worlds, and about 70 stars in Galaxy 2 out of the 242, but I need to beat the game to go past 120 there.  With the onset of summer, I'm hopeful that I can beat these soon.

However when it comes to the others, I'm afraid I've let Link and Samus down.  I've had these games for years and not beaten them.  Ocarina of Time bested me as a child, and I never got into the Metroid game I had.  That one is completely my fault through a lack of effort - I gave up far too easily on it, and was more willing to put in the hours on Pokemon Red (which I did finish, and filled my pokedex - yay me!), and I feel that now I should either go onto the virtual console and get one of the early Metroids or find one of the newer ones to play and give a fair attempt to.  But Ocarina is my current challenge.  With the release of the 3DS version, I've had a compulsion to go back and play it.  I got lost at the bottom of the well when I was younger, and never got past there, but today I went back to it, got the eye of truth and went onto beat the shadow temple.  With Skyward Sword on its way sometime before the end of the year, I want to be able to say I've beaten Ganondorf at least once before playing that.  I'm not bidding to find everything in it, there are far too many heart pieces and Gold Skulltullas in it for that, but I want to win before the end of the summer.

After those 4 (I'm sorry Samus), who knows?  Nintendo has other franchises I've not even played.  Maybe when I have some more money I may go onto the virtual console and raid it for some classics.  All the classics of the 3 I mentioned before, more Star Fox, some DK for the first time, I've never played Kirby either, and maybe even getting the Pikmin games and a Gamecube controller - I've missed out on games from NES, SNES and GC, and I want to have those experiences.  Who knows, I may even branch out from Nintendo and download the first 3 Sonic games.  Is it time to live the Sonic/Mario Rivalry for myself?

Sunday 3 July 2011

The State of British Sport

So in the last week Andy Murray went out in the semi-finals of Wimbledon while Liam Broady lost the boys singles' final, David Haye lost his WBA title to Wladimir Klitschko, the England Cricket team lost the 2nd ODI against Sri Lanka and the top Brit in the first stage of Le Tour was 6th.  As a nation we crave success, and deem the last week to be an abject failure.  But is it really that bad?  Given our relative size I'd say not.

Starting with Murray, he's the 4th best player in the world.  That's not something to be sniffed at, especially when you consider that the men at 2 and 3 are always mentioned in any discussion about the greatest of all time, and the man who beat him hadn't lost at Wimbledon in his previous 19 matches.  Murray's won 17 titles and been in 3 grand slam finals.  Most players would love to have those statistics by the end of their careers, and Murray still has plenty of time left in his, with the hard courts of the US and Australian opens more likely to give him success than the grass of SW19.  He may not have a Slam yet, but he's had enough success for us to be more than happy to have him.  Broady came from nowhere and got to the final.  In my book that's a success.

David Haye lost his unification bout, but at least he had the ambition to go for one.  In the end he just wasn't good enough, but that's been true for anyone that's faced either Klitschko in the past 5 years.  He stepped up a weight division having been hugely successful at cruiser, and became a world champion multiple weights.  He's done brilliantly in his career, and brought fresh life into the heavyweight champion with his approach, even if it wasn't to everyones taste.  Unfortunately, it is quite possible that this fight will be all people will remember of his career, which is a sad way to remember a former champion.

The England cricket team is not great at ODIs.  The loss against Sri Lanka was not hugely surprising - the world rankings show them to be the better side -  but we beat them in the first one and there is plenty of time left in the series.  This is a fledgling team, with a new captain.  We will have to wait and see how they develop over the next year or two before we can fairly judge their progress.  And in the mean time the test side is doing brilliantly and the series against India later in the summer will see if their goal of becoming the best team in the world is a feasible one.

Similarly with Le Tour, we can't comment after only one stage.  However there we have Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins, two people who will both want to be at least in contention for jerseys.  Cavendish, with 15 stage wins in 3 years, will be disappointed if he doesn't don green at least once this year and will believe he can win it.  Wiggins, 4th two years ago, will be looking to improve on that and get onto the podium.  Cycling in the UK is in a strong position, and will be looking to lead a gold rush at the Olympics next year.

I don't believe these should be viewed as failures but as success, especially given our population, and when you combine them with the success in golf - top 3 in the world are all British - the England football team are up to 4th in the world rankings, although unfortunately haven't had any tournament success for far too long, and all of the home nations feel confident going into the rugby world cup this summer, although the Tri-Nations are favourites, and at the last Olympics we came 4th in the medal table and 2nd in the Paralmypics.  We should be proud of our sportsman and celebrate their success, and not criticise them so readily.