The deluge started less than 30 minutes after we invited readers to submit articles to the sportblog. By Thursday night we had received over 100 articles, a lot of them better than the guff we churn out on a daily basis. Here's our top three.
(NB: All entries received after midday on Thursday were not considered because of time constraints, and will this be moved forward to next week's Big Blogger. Those who want to be considered for that should mail their 500-word pieces to sports.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk, marked Sportblog Submission, by Thursday morning, and we'll publish the best a week today.)
Divided loyalties David Price (Davidpie)
Our team affiliations are bestowed upon us in obvious ways. If your grandfather once had a trial for Tottenham, your parents met in a pub around the corner from White Hart Lane and you thought Brown, Baker, Henry; Blanchflower, Norman, Mackay were part of a nursery rhyme, it's not likely you'd grow up to be a huge Arsenal fan.
Our interest in particular sports is also passed on. Few Welsh seven year-olds boys would have said "I think rugby is rubbish" on a settee with their father in 2005. Now they're nine, they might say "this Welsh team is rubbish" but they'll still devoted to the national team, and the sport, for life.
We are hard wired. We're passionate, we're loyal.
Not me. I bet on sport.
My pre-match build-up is not a bottle of Carib and a flying-fish sandwich in a bar in the shadow of the Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad. It's not a flask in the car park at Twickenham nor a lonely pie and a pint on the way to watch that oxymoronic bunch Alloa Athletic. It's an internet trawl for a good bet.
As brave souls have made it from Merthyr to Murrayfield and the anthems begin, I'm hovering at home about to buy or sell total points. These two teams, at Murrayfield, have averaged 59.75 points in the last four games going back to 1999. The spread quote for the buy option is 43.
Feeling risk-averse rather than frozen stiff, I take a fixed-odds Scotland win with a five-point start on the handicap at 11-10. I key in £40, hit 'submit bet', grab a beer and that's that.
Now, I've been a Welsh rugby fan since the days of Cliff Morgan (his voice, if not his magic at outside-half). There's something about possession and ball-in-hand in red shirts that has me bellowing in belief and expectation. Then this goof Chris Paterson, in a blue shirt, starts slotting over penalties and the camera becomes infatuated with the Princess Royal. To change my luck, at half-time, I go to the pub. Maybe Wales will play better on a bigger screen.
The try-line is only further away from Welsh ambition. Then we hit the 60-minute mark and we have the traditional dance of the substitutions and the eager look at the clock begins. In every American sport, the clock goes down. But not here. Now I'm thinking what 80.00 minus 72.26 leaves us with. Two Welsh tries? Paterson kicks another penalty. I despair.
Then I hear this muffled voice: "Done and dusted. Great game. Now just hang on."
It's my wallet talking. Only then do I remember my bet and go through the emotional shallows of willing on the Scottish defence. I feel like Hansie Cronje.
Black BMW, White Lexus Jon Jones (jonnyboy71)
Watching the second Test between England and South Africa at Twickenham last year, my eye was drawn to the advertising hoardings - they seemed to offer more inspiration than anything on the pitch in the second half. 'What Car?' they shouted. Damn good question.
At the risk of sounding like a second-rate Jeremy Clarkson, England's elite rugby squad resembles the Range Rover Sport. The bulky, shiny body kit looks the business round town, some of the parts are the same as on the previous all-terrain model, and it still costs a packet - but nothing masks the fact that, for functional performance, it has nothing on the old version. And there's the niggling question as well: just what is it designed to do brilliantly? It hasn't got the low-range grunt of the old Range Rover, and it's too ponderous to qualify as a sports car.
Compare this with the brutal bursts of acceleration of a team that performs as effortlessly as a BMW M5. Available only in black, it has a variety of modes from which to select depending on how tricky the road ahead looks. Hard to admit, but the All Blacks never really had to get out of economy to burn off England, France or Wales in November. They're the global benchmark in every conceivable way. So how can you compete?
The answer is simple. Deconstruct what makes the Beamer so efficient, devastating, untouchable - then put it all back together again, paint it white and call it England. Get someone talented to drive it. Then hope the BMW gets a puncture.
But we haven't got the players to make it work, you say. Small point, but who has? And do the All Blacks do what they do because only that very special group of players actually can?
This won't go down well in your local Walkabout bar, but the All Blacks are beatable, in theory at least. In set play, they do the same thing nine times out of ten. For instance: defending the set piece, the first three defenders come up fast and blitz their opposite numbers. That's OK, because the full back or blind-side wing is covering behind for the chip or grubber. So the hassled attackers shovel the ball on quickly without taking a tackle, the inside defenders drift onto the outside backs and the chances of breaking the line are heavily reduced.
So if it works, why isn't everybody doing it? All the northern hemisphere sides, including Audi - sorry, Ireland - are just coming up in a neat line and waiting for someone to try to break through, British bulldog-style. No surprise about this, as most of the northern hemisphere defence-coaches - Mike Ford, Dave Ellis, Rowland Phillips, Graham Steadman - are all League ex-professionals. If it's good enough for Castleford, and so on.
Similarly, when it comes to contesting the ruck, New Zealand are winning physically and tactically. But predictably. When they don't think they'll turn over their opponent's ball, they commit just as many players as they need to slow it up while their defence reorganises itself. Ireland have cottoned on to this and, whether you want to call it smart play or cheating, they have taken the lesson on board. When the All Blacks take the ball to ground, they clear the ruck and the space around it by throwing in their heavyweight back row and mopping up the opposing loose forwards so that the backs can run more freely. The whole thing is slick, quick and powerful and generated about 50% of their points in the autumn. But you can counter it by (1) imitating the tactic, and (2) trying to avoid rucks.
Rugby by numbers, executed at high speed and with precision by the sport's fittest, most powerful athletes. Impressive - but nothing is hidden.
The X factor: broken play, where New Zealand are a different proposition altogether. How do you train players to pick the right option when there are bodies all over the field? Maybe the answer is a negative: you don't try to train them. You remind them that the best players and teams avoid getting tackled. The worst look for contact and die with the ball. That's a start.
An eagle-eyed blogger, Fourturntables, was at Twickenham on Saturday and spotted the England backs trying to do something different: playing a double full back in defence to cover broken play. In attack, the full back would stand in the line while his position was covered by the blind-side winger, getting that natural overlap going, adding a sixth gear.
Brian Ashton is re-engineering his side. The question for the chasing pack is whether the All Blacks are already too far ahead for anyone to catch.
He's behind you! Steve Hewitt (reemgear)
Spring has come early to SW6. The Stamford Bridge brouhaha has died down and, on the pitch at least, normal service has been resumed. Chelsea remain in a glorious position to build an all-conquering empire, and who's to argue otherwise? They have it all: money, Special management and one of the finest corporate minds in football. What they don't have, despite copious protestations to the contrary, is any semblance of harmony 'upstairs'.
By the end of the current season (barring an unlikely Treble) the uneasy armistice between manager and board looks certain to collapse. Chelsea fans will be left scratching their heads and, no doubt, looking for the culprit. With everyone surreptitiously blaming each other for the club's recent infighting and concurrent (relative) dip in fortune, the last person anybody has thought to scrutinise is chief executive Peter Kenyon: Mr Peacemaker himself.
How long can this Houdiniesque performance last, though? To my eyes, Chelsea will never dominate in the way Manchester United have, or Liverpool before them, as long as Teflon Pete is there to drive a self-preserving wedge between Chelsea owner and Chelsea manager.
Interestingly, the battle lines were drawn during the best of times. Presented with the opportunity to dismiss rumours that he and Mourinho were spatting, Kenyon was the very model of passive aggression, "Poppycock! José is only too happy to be working beneath me", he more or less said.
This furtive volley occurred in April 2006, with Chelsea well on their way to back-to-back Premiership titles. Given that, up until recently, Chelsea had possessed little hope of winning a damn thing, it all seemed a tad incongruous. Or was it? Not if you subscribe to my imagining that Toady Pete reads The Art Of War at bedtime whilst nursing a nice hot mug of baby seal blubber.
Despite criticism of José's occasional profligacy, the consensus is that he did not instigate last summer's signing of a certain £30m megaflop, so the denial of decent funds during the January transfer window - given the freak loss of two goalkeepers and a captain - seemed faintly ludicrous; unfair even. Doesn't the Chelsea board actually want the club to be successful this season? Or is there a longer view being taken; internal power before external prestige?
Deafening whispers of Abramovich and Mourinho being at each other's throats notwithstanding, you can't help but sense the presence of a certain canny instigator, lurking and smirking in the shadows ... "Who sir, me sir? No sir! I'm just a poor marketing stiff trying to ply his trade. Anyway, I was in China when it all kicked off."
Of course, Kenyon defenders could highlight his sterling efforts to steady the ship over recent months. Others might point to the divisive semantics he continues to employ: "I signed him (Mourinho) to Chelsea and he wanted to be part of it ... The owner and the board are fully supportive of Jose" and so on. In politics or big business, such backing is frequently the kiss of death. While Manchester United talk of Sir Alex Ferguson's reign ending whenever he himself chooses it to end, Kenyon cites the finite duration of José's Chelsea contract.
Such mild equivocation could simply be evidence of an unbending bias towards the hierarchical, a reflection of the artless structure within which his corporate soul resides. One thing's for sure though: be it a question of "will not" or "cannot", as long as Kenyon is at Chelsea there will never be a manager of any real power or longevity.
Honourable mentions: Gary Naylor (MouthoftheMersey), Abby Waysdorf (louisquatorze), Matt Rickard (folklore), Mike Landers (Plissken), James Andrews (Ebren).
