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Noah

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  1. Panthers pip Knights with last-gasp try

    By David Beniuk 19:25 AEST Mon Apr 5 2010

    Jarrod Mullen looked to have scored the winner against the Panthers but Penrith fought back.Newcastle fans were livid at a controversial video referee decision to award Penrith lock Joseph Paulo a try to helped the Panthers to a nailbiting 34-30 NRL victory over Newcastle at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Monday.

    The benefit-of-the-doubt ruling from video referee Paul Simpkins resulted in a 72nd-minute try to Paulo which locked the scores up at 30-30.

    Penrith centre Adrian Purtell then crossed in the final minute to deliver the thrilling win to the visitors after Newcastle had led 24-6 at halftime.

    Knights halfback Scott Dureau appeared to be impeded as Paulo flew high to grab a Luke Walsh bomb and the decision brought a hail of boos from the crowd of 15,894.

    Newcastle five-eighth Jarrod Mullen looked to have scored the clincher in the 68th minute after the Panthers had fought back to 24-24.

    Knights winger Akuila Uate bagged a first-half hat-trick as his side took advantage of three Penrith forward passes at their own end to pile on four tries in 15 minutes before the break.

    The Panthers mounted a second-half comeback, scoring in their first set of six when Knights fullback Shannon McDonnell spilled a bomb and Michael Jennings sprinted away for his first four-pointer of 2010.

    A soft try to interchange forward Sam McKendry eight minutes later made it 24-18 and the momentum was with the resurgent visitors.

    Luke Lewis capitalised on a horror bounce from a Walsh grubber in the 62nd minute to score millimetres inside the deadball line and the conversion had the scores level at 24-24.

    Mullen shredded the Panthers defence in the 68th minute to give the Knights the ascendancy again before Paulo's controversial four-pointer.

    It had been a first half of two halves.

    Newcastle were woeful with their handling early and the more controlled Panthers scored first in the 20th minute when fullback Lachlan Coote scooped up loose ball after a grubber from former Knight Walsh.

    But then an unforgivable three forward passes in their own territory from the Panthers - twice from hooker Kevin Kingston - gifted the Knights the field position to score four tries.

    Uate crashed over twice from dummy half, sandwiching those short-range efforts with a 95m sprint down the right sideline after the Panthers had messed up an attacking raid.

    Cory Paterson got the other four-pointer, another soft try from close to Penrith's line.

    The Panthers were boosted by the early return of powerhouse second-rower Frank Pritchard (shoulder), who hadn't been due to return for another month.

    Burgess onslaught powers Bunnies home

    By Steve Jancetic 21:06 AEST Mon Apr 5 2010

    They may have taken some time to emerge from the burrow but the Rabbitohs made good on their Easter delivery as South Sydney's much-vaunted pack finally walked the walk in a 38-16 NRL thumping of Canterbury at ANZ Stadium on Monday night.

    Inspired by a dominant display from English import Sam Burgess, who scored a first half double as mother Julie watched on from owner Russell Crowe's private box, the Rabbitohs ambushed the Bulldogs with a first-half onslaught from which the visitors never recovered in front of a healthy 30,120 crowd.

    After several listless displays to start the year, the seven tries to three romp was just what the Rabbitohs faithful needed to restore a belief that had been heightened by off-season acquisitions of Burgess and David Taylor.

    Burgess' double was part of a five-try avalanche in an opening stanza - which started with a Bulldogs try in just the second minute - as the Rabbitohs pack matched the hype by rumbling over a Bulldogs defence that had no answer to the relentless assault.

    When Burgess wasn't making inroads it was skipper Roy Asotasi bulldozing his way forward, while lesser lights Scott Geddes and Luke Stuart continued the barrage in attack and defence.

    One who could attest to that was Bulldogs forward Jarrod Hickey, who lasted just five minutes before being taken to hospital for observation following a heavy tackle which left him with a suspected chest injury.

    Halves Chris Sandow and John Sutton thrived on the platform - the pair combining from a scrum win to put Beau Champion over in the fourth minute before a Sutton bomb eventually ended up in Sandow's arms for a 12-6 lead after seven extraordinary minutes.

    The Bulldogs had three straight sets camped on the Bunnies' line but failed to make it across, an Issac Luke bust from inside his own half then leaving the visitors backpedalling as winger Nathan Merrit crossing on the next play in the opposite corner.

    Burgess - in his best performance in the NRL - bagged his double with short-range runs before the break, the result put beyond doubt in the 57th minute when Luke scored next to the posts.

    The Bulldogs restored some respectability with a pair of second half tries before Champion singled the start of the celebrations with his second right on fulltime.

  2. Agreed.

    The Storm are a fantastic team and have been so for a number of years. Maybe they've ridden their luck a bit so far this season but they've done well.

    A lot of New South Welshmen and women are determined to hate them, because they aren't of this state but I always admire good quality teams, in any sport, regardless of whether tradition/other factors dictate that I should hate them instead.

  3. Well if there's an AFL thread......

    WARNING CONTAINS RESULTS FOR GAMES PLAYED TODAY

    Round 1 Results

    Brisbane Broncos 30 def North Queesland Cowboys 24

    St George-Illawarra Dragons 18 def Parramatta Eels 12

    Newcastle Knights 20 def Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 16

    Penrith Panthers 34 def Canberra Raiders 16

    Melbourne Storm 16 def Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 10

    Gold Coast Titans 24 def New Zealand Warriors 18

    Sydney Roosters 36 def South Sydney Rabbitohs 10

    Wests Tigers 26 def Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 22

    Round 2 Results

    St George-Illawarra Dragons 26 def Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 6

    Gold Coast Titans 19 def South Sydney Rabbitohs 18

    North Queesland Cowboys 28 def Penrith Panthers 20

    Melbourne Storm 20 def Newcastle Knights 14

    New Zealand Warriors 30 def Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 16

    Parramatta Eels 24 def Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 20

    Sydney Roosters 44 def Wests Tigers 32

    Canberra Raiders 22 def Brisbane Broncos 14

    Round 3 Results

    Wests Tigers 23 def Parramatta Eels 12

    St George-Illawarra Dragons 33 def North Queesland Cowboys 8

    Melbourne Storm 16 def Penrith Panthers 10

    Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 36 def Newcastle Knights 12

    Gold Coast Titans 24 def Canberra Raiders 4

    New Zealand Warriors 48 def Brisbane Broncos 16

    Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 60 def Sydney Roosters 14

    South Sydney Rabbitohs 30 def Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 8

    Round 4

    Melbourne Storm 17 def St George-Illawarra Dragons 4

    Sydney Roosters 25 def Brisbane Broncos 6

    Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 11 def Parramatta Eels 0

    North Queesland Cowboys 32 def Gold Coast Titans 18

    Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 14 def New Zealand Warriors 6

    West Tigers 35 def Canberra Raiders 22

    Round 4 games to be played tomorrow

    Newcastle Knights vs Penrith Panthers 4:00pm

    South Sydney Rabbitohs vs Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 7:00pm

    Not too happy with the way the season has progressed for my beloved Rabbitohs thus far but the win(albeit an ugly one)over Cronulla in round 3 will do wonders for the team's confidence and I'm hopeful of a good showing against the Bulldogs.

  4. Many people hate day starts. I want to use a day start, in my upcoming game, to let every single player get involved for at least one day phase.

    Still, people do hate day starts. With my mafia game I was thinking of having people vote for the mayor instead of voting to lynch.

    Has that been done that often, in past Mafia games(I think I recall it being in one or two but not many) and would it make a day start more acceptable for you all?

    Also one question that I've wanted to ask for a while. Has a mafia ever thrown their Don under the bus for self-preservation or some other reason?

  5. It should have been a red carpet event. When just one British cinema was given exclusive permission to launch Uma Thurman's new film earlier this month, the film's producers presumably hoped that exclusivity would create a buzz around the movie. Though limiting the release would obviously limit takings, they must have hoped word of mouth could make it a slow-burning success.

    But the tactic backfired catastrophically. Instead of audiences queueing round the block of the Apollo West End in Piccadilly Circus, London, to see the star of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, they stayed away in record-breaking numbers.

    Over its opening weekend, no more than a dozen people went to see Motherhood, a semi-autobiographical account of stressed-out Manhattan parenting written and directed by Katherine Dieckmann. The film made just £88 on the weekend of Friday 5 March. On its debut Sunday, box office takings were £9, meaning one person bought a ticket.

    The disaster has now degenerated into a bitter confrontation between Metrodrome, responsible for marketing the film in the UK, and producer Jana Edelbaum, who blames the company for Motherhood's atrocious performance.

    The film, thought to have cost $5m to make, earned just over £40,000 when it opened in the US last October, but Edelbaum had no idea quite how badly it had performed in the UK until contacted this week by the Guardian. "You're kidding?" she said. "We must have broken a new record for grosses."

    Edelbaum is adamant that Metrodome must be to blame, and insisted that she would demand a full explanation. "Think how much crap succeeds at the cinema," she said. "Motherhood is not bad. It's a very decent movie. I've seen movies that are not half as good."

    In fact, Motherhood, which also features Minnie Driver, Anthony Edwards and a cameo by Jodie Foster, cannot lay claim to the dubious title of Britain's lowest-ever grossing film on its opening weekend: that honour is taken by My Nikifor, the 2007 film about Polish artist Nikifor Krynicki, which took just £7 on its launch.

    But it has, according to the veteran film critic Barry Norman, confounded expectations of quite how resounding a flop a mainstream film featuring a bona fide star can be. "Good God. I have never heard of anything like this before," he said. "This is not some small, independent movie. It's astonishing that only about 11 people could be bothered to go and see Uma Thurman. The reviews were very poor indeed but that alone isn't enough to explain this. It's a reasonable assumption that there was a marketing and advertising catastrophe, and people didn't know it was showing. But it should have attracted more than 11 people in passing trade alone. Apollo cinemas, after all, aren't in tucked-away places. They're all prominently located. I'm baffled."

    The Apollo cinema chain – which later briefly screened the film in Burnley, Fareham, Redditch, Stroud and Altrincham – failed to return calls from the Guardian.

    But Metrodrome, which has manoeuvred films including Monster, Donnie Darko and The Counterfeiters to financial and critical success, defended its approach in the week after the launch.

    "Over the course of the week leading up to Mother's Day we also released the film on DVD, video on demand, and pay per view so customers could choose how to watch the film," the company said. "Inevitably some films will work better on some platforms than others. In this particular case the DVD was stronger than the theatrical result. It is important that experimentation is encouraged at a time when the entire film industry is in transition," the statement continued. "We all need to adapt to new models of distribution in the future and discover new opportunities."

    There were, however, signs that Metrodrome had already begun to suffer a lack of confidence in Motherhood before it was premiered.

    At the beginning of the month, 70 tickets were given away to members of the website Mumsnet for a special screening at which they were asked to give detailed responses.

    "Interested to know why the company wanted opinion on the film so close to its general release?" queried one after the screening, to which fewer than 20 of the winners went. "It is proper pants. In fact it's one of the rare movies I didn't stay until the end for."

    But Edelbaum defended the film. "Our effort was noble. It's a love letter about how difficult it is to be a mum and an individual, and have an identity outside of that. I think we have proved that mothers are too busy to have fun. That they are overstretched and overburdened by the difficulties of their job."

    Others, however, disagreed. "It's a yummy-mummy newspaper column splurged onto celluloid, like baby sick on your best cashmere sweater," said Ellen E Jones on film review website, Total Films. "This whiny drivel makes me ashamed to be a woman," said Wendy Ide on the website Rotten Tomatoes – which gave the film a rock-bottom 20% Tomatometer success rating.

    Edelbaum admitted she dreaded telling Dieckmann, who also directed the 2006 comedy drama Diggers, how badly Motherhood had gone down in the UK. The film was, she said, a labour of love that had "taken up many years" of Dieckmann's life. "I can't bear to ring her and tell her," Edelbaum admitted . "I'm a producer; I've got a thick skin but, well, she's a creative."

    The film is no longer being shown at a single cinema across Britain. Indeed, it has sunk so quickly and untraceably that, back at the Apollo West End, it has not even left a ripple.

    The woman behind the popcorn counter in Piccadilly Circus didn't remember the screening at all. "It's very strange," she admitted. "Even if I'm not paying attention to what's being screened here, I can usually tell you every film because customers talk to each other and the names just stick in your head. But I'm sure I've never heard that one being mentioned."

    The man selling tickets also had no memory. "Have you got the right cinema?" he asked, looking puzzled. "There's another cinema down the road – perhaps it was on there instead?"

  6. I've always said UFC doesn't hold much interest for me, beyond any fighters with pro-wrestling connections and any Aussies involved but I've really been getting into it lately.

    Mainly thanks to the One Digitial sports channel. I've seen highlights, retro stuff, previews and the full UFC 110 and Vera vs Jones.

    It's all been rather exciting.

  7. I still can't believe there's a Geelong fan that's down on their team.

    With the exception of Grand Final 2008 pervert.gif you've ruled the aflverse and I see that not changing this year.

    Perhaps you'll be even closer to the pack but you'll still take the flag and possibly the minor premiership as well.

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