Isn’t regular football brutal enough?

American football is a brutal game and so it should not be surprising that it occasionally erupts into outright violence. This feature was on display recently when Myles Garrett, a player for the Cleveland Browns, yanked off the helmet of an opposing player and repeatedly beat him on the head with it until he was restrained by other players. As is often the case there were events that led up to this assault but it was still egregious by any standards. In fact, yanking out a player’s helmet can be very dangerous because the neck is violently jerked. He has been suspended indefinitely but it made me wonder at what point this kind of on-field violence moves into a territory where the perpetrator is subject to legal prosecution.
[Read more…]

A critique of commercialized mindfulness

I am sure that pretty much everyone has heard the term ‘mindfulness’ being bandied about in the media. While it has its roots in Buddhist meditative practice, it has been taken to mean that, at least in its most drastically simplified form, it involved ‘living in the moment’, that one should pay full attention to what one is doing at any given time and not be trying to do many things at once. i.e., it is the opposite of multitasking. For example when you are driving, focus on where you are going and how you are driving and don’t try to talk on the phone, text, read or daydream.
[Read more…]

Rugby World Cup: South Africa emerge champions

They defeated England in the final by a comfortable margin of 32-12. Up to the 66th minute of regular time, the points were entirely made up of penalty goals with South Africa leading by 18-12. Then in the last 15 minutes, they scored two tries and converted them to put the game out of England’s reach.

In the other match on Friday, New Zealand easily beat Wales 40-17 to take third place. This game was far more open and attacking than the final.

South Africa beat Wales to go to Rugby World Cup final

By beating Wales 19-16 in a close game, South Africa earns a place in the finals next Saturday where they will play England. New Zealand will play Wales on Friday for third place. The game today, like the other semi-final, was largely a defensive one with just one try scored by each side, the other 21 points coming off seven penalties. While this makes the game less scintillating than attacking rugby where a team passes the ball back and forth across the field in successive phases until a try is scored, defensive games also have their own appeal and you get to see some superb kicking in the try and penalty conversions by both sides.

Since both England and South Africa won largely with their defenses, that may portend a defensive game for the final too. But whatever style of play emerges, it is expected to be a close game.

Here are the highlights.

World Cup rugby upset

England beat New Zealand, the winners of the previous two World Cups in 2011 and 2015, in a stunning upset in the current World Cup, winning 19-7 in a defensive, forwards-dominated game, with each side scoring only one try, all the other points coming from penalties. New Zealand had beaten England in 15 of their last 16 exchanges.

I wrote before of the pre-game haka ritual of the New Zealand team, part of the psychological battle, and there were plenty of interesting comments to that post discussing the meaning and purpose of the haka and how teams respond to it. Apparently, the English team had decided on a different way to respond.
[Read more…]

Rugby World Cup semifinals this weekend

England will play New Zealand on Saturday while Wales will play South Africa on Sunday. Of the four quarterfinals matches played last weekend, three were blowouts, with England, New Zealand, and South Africa easily defeating Australia, Ireland, and Japan respectively by margins of over 20 points.

The one nail-biter was between Wales and France where France was ahead for almost the entire game and had a 19-10 lead at the 30-minute mark before Wales fought back and ultimately won 20-19, the last try scored just about seven minutes before the end of the regular 80 minutes of play.

At the 4:00 minute, France missed the conversion of their first try, a kick that players at this level could be expected to make. The ball hit the vertical crossbar and fell back onto the field. The missed two points was the difference between victory and defeat.

English bookmakers are favoring New Zealand to win the championship (5/6), followed by South Africa (10/3), England (9/2), and Wales (10/1).

Here are the highlights of the Wales-France game.

Rugby World Cup quarterfinals begin today

All the group matches have been completed in the World Cup with the top two teams from each of the four groups moving on to the next quarter-final knockout stage. On Saturday, England will play Australia while New Zealand plays Ireland. On Sunday, Wales plays France while Japan plays South Africa.

A major typhoon Hagidis hit Japan during the tournament forcing organizers to cancel some matches and treat them as drawn games. Whether this might have affected the group results is hard to say. Intransitive discussed the implications of the cancellations
[Read more…]