On The Attack Pt. 12 - Wimbledon, Wallabies and Webber



#TSHontheattack

Zesty footwear, sour performance
Falling foul of the strict All England Club dress code was the least of Roger Federer’s worries this week as the reigning Wimbledon champion headed a list of shock exits. The suave Swiss was pulled up about his orange soled Nike trainers but that was nowhere near as red-facing as crashing out to 116th seed Sergiy Stakhovsky. Federer followed close rival and recent French Open champion Rafa Nadal out of SW19. And while Nadal’s loss to world 135 Steve Darcis was understandable (the Spaniard is short of fitness), Federer’s was unfathomable, for he is the king of grass with seven Wimbledon wins. Inevitably the talk of Andy Murray’s chances of winning the competition have multiplied, however many are overlooking the fact that his most potent threat, Novak Djokovic, remains very much at large.



A Horwill hug
The International Rugby Board (IRB) have dramatically appealed against the decision made by a judiciary panel which ruled that Australia captain James Horwill was not guilty of stamping during the defeat to the Lions in Brisbane. Horwill was cited following a match review in which his boot struck the head of fellow lock, Welshman Alun Wyn-Jones, in the early exchanges of Saturday’s game. It is a first for the IRB who, while having the right to appeal against the decision on the basis of a player’s (Wyn-Jones) safety being brought in to question, have never actually exerted such sanction before. Horwill is free to play in the second test in Melbourne on Saturday, but could well miss out on the third and final test.


"I haven't had a shower like this for ages. No, really!"
Mark Webber has chosen to retire from Formula 1 at the season’s end in what has to be one of the least surprising announcements of recent times. He has been usurped and upstaged on many occasions by his younger and superior Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel and played second-fiddle to the talented German on many occasions. Like a squabbling married couple Webber has decided to not just get out of bed with Vettel, but leave the bedroom completely and settle in the retiring comforts of Porsche’s new sportscar programme. The Australian at 36 years of age will end a 12 year spell in the sport. It would be easy to conclude that he hasn’t had a bad career and you’d be right, it hasn’t been bad, it’s been downright dismal! The ex-Minardi, Jaguar and Williams man has won just NINE races from more than 200 attempts. Perhaps the ‘good guy’ of F1 was instead just too nice, and not actually that good after all. 



And while we’re at it...ever run 100m in 9.97 seconds only to find out someone had false-started? Yeah, us too, and it’s a real pain, so we empathise with Jamaica’s Asafa Powell who suffered the exact same fate in Ostrava recently. Luckily, when the race was restarted, minus the offending Cayman Islander, Powell’s slouchy 10.06 seconds was enough to see him home. It happens to us all!

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