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'Has hurling had enough exposure as we head for championship?'
Diarmuid O'Flynn
When the details were first announced I wasn’t a fan of this new Allianz Hurling League format, the split-division six-team five-game sprint in which there is minimal room for error and thus minimal room for experimentation.
Having seen almost a full season of it I'm still not convinced, and I believe hurling would be much better served by a return to the format of the last couple of seasons, albeit with two slight modifications.
1) Keep the eight-team divisions but reintroduce divisional semi-finals, giving more teams something to play for as the league progressed.
2) Introduce a relegation/promotion playoff between the second-last division 1 team and the loser of the division 2 final, repeated likewise down through the divisions.
We have what we have, however.
You'd imagine, wouldn't you, that with just one round to completion, the people who would be most displeased at the cut-throat nature of the new format would be the new managers, those who most need time to bed into their new positions, who most need games to get to know their players.
Yet last Saturday evening in the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick, their teams having just drawn a game that sees them both teetering on the edge of a final playoff place, two such managers - John Allen (Limerick) and Ollie Baker (Offaly) - were enthused by it all.
John: “This result changes nothing, we still have to go to Antrim and win but that's the challenge you need.
"You don't want to go up there with nothing at stake. Now it has value, that's what we want, we want quality games with value that are competitive.
"Hopefully we get over that and we'll be playing again the Sunday after (division final) - there's a big break between championship and the end of the league, unless you get to the league final proper. But that's a long way away.”
"Ollie: “We need to win now in Tullamore in our last game, against Clare - it's great.
"When we lost in Wexford (round two) it was a do-or-die situation for them; having lost to Antrim in their opening game Wexford had to get a result against us or they were gone after only two rounds, so they fought us to the bitter end and got the win. It was the same for our lads against Limerick, they showed great character, came back from six points down, fought for a result - do-or-die again.
"It's going to be the same again next week now, and isn't that the way every game should be? It doesn't guarantee you a good result but it does guarantee you that your players are going to give their best every time.
"That has to be a positive.”
Okay Ollie, it’s a positive, as has been the fact that every game had real meaning, but has hurling had enough exposure as we head for championship?
Have yourself and John had enough games in which to form your impressions of your strongest 15, have enough players had enough chances in which to stake a claim? What if you took two teams from division 1B and put them into division 1A, wouldn't they have been better served? And if you had four semi-final places on offer, two teams in relegation trouble, it would mean a lot more to play for than was the case last year and the year before.
Okay, a negative is that four division 1B teams would find themselves in the company of four current division 2A teams but there would be a trade-off here, those latter four teams getting a step-up in competition.
In fact if you took the current two top teams in this group, Carlow and Westmeath, they would give any of the bottom four 1B teams a decent game, at the very least. That format, moreover, would give the four division 1B teams more latitude for growth and experimentation.
In summary, mouth-watering and all as are the six games this weekend, crucial as every one of them is, entertaining as it’s all been, I’m not convinced.
Last year’s format needed just those slight couple of tweaks, and I think the result would have been even better.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/-ia7Uh_Q6aM/post.aspx
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Ben Arfa keen to make up lost time
Frenchman with a turbulent past seems changed by new-found happiness. But he warns: 'I'll always be different'
It is rare that a 25-year-old who has won a European Championship, five league titles and two domestic cups can be described as an underachiever. Yet such is Hatem Ben Arfa's talent that despite those prizes there is a sense ? shared by the player himself ? that he has yet to fulfil his potential. Recent performances for Newcastle United ? notably his bravura display against West Brom last Sunday ? have ignited hopes that he may have finally put his problems behind him and is about to take off on Tyneside.
When France won the Under-17 European Championship in 2004, Ben Arfa was widely hailed as the best player in an extraordinary team that featured Samir Nasri and Karim Benzema. But even before then he had been identified as a turbulent character, as two years earlier a documentary team filming French training at Clairefontaine caught, on tape, Ben Arfa, a scholar there since the age of 12, fighting with his team-mate Abou Diaby, now of Arsenal.
He made his Ligue 1 debut for Lyon in 2004 and went on to win four titles with the club but never became a stalwart, his inconsistency infuriating a succession of managers, notably G�rard Houllier with whom he regularly argued. He clashed with team-mates, too, and ultimately with the club's owner, Jean-Michel Aulas. Lyon eventually had enough and, in 2008, accepted a bid from bitter rivals Marseille. Ben Arfa could hardly have left Lyon on less amicable terms, with the club and the player publicly trading jibes for weeks afterwards ? the most memorable exchange being when Ben Arfa accused Lyon of being "financially disorganised" and Lyon responded by revealing that when they cleared out Ben Arfa's locker at their training ground they found that he had absent-mindedly left behind a cheque for ?90,000.
After a scorching start to his Marseille career his flame dimmed to the point that Eric Gerets dropped him. Ben Arfa seethed. And his relationship with the manager blew up when Ben Arfa refused to come off the bench in the derby against Paris St-Germain. He later apologised but his dispute with the club went on for weeks, during which he did not train.
The following season brought a new manager, Didier Deschamps, but more mishaps, as flashes of brilliance were followed by flashes of, well, flashness: in one match his entrance off the bench was delayed because he struggled to remove his gold chain; in another because he was wearing the wrong jersey. The player said that he was unhappy and searching for his identity. In the second half of the season he found it, on the pitch at least, as he produced his best performance for Marseille and hinted at a new maturity in his game, adding efficient decision-making to his magical dribbling and shooting. Marseille won the league.
Still, all was not well in Ben Arfa's world. His father, the former Tunisia international Kamel Ben Arfa, went public to express his concern for his son's lifestyle and the perceived negative influence of his agent. Ben Arfa Jr says that at one point he was on the verge of giving up sport to join a religious cult.
His transfer to Newcastle in 2010, initially on loan, represented a shot at a renaissance. He began well and earned a recall to the France senior team, only for a tackle from Manchester City's Nigel de Jong in October 2010 to leave him with a broken leg. His recuperation clearly went well, both physically and mentally. In an interview with France Football last month Ben Arfa said that he has finally found inner peace. "I know I have an image of being arrogant and only shining when I want to, but it's not 'when I want to', it's when I can," he explains.
"In the past I wasn't able to because I was unhappy. But I'm still aiming for the same thing that I always have: to be the best. I'll never be like others and that's the way I want it. I've always tried to show what makes me different. I'm not interested in going on to the pitch and making pointless two-metre passes like some players do ? so I have to accept that people are going to be more demanding of me." He is demanding on himself, too: "Check me out in three or four years. I can see myself being at the very top then, maybe winning the World Cup in Brazil or the Ballon d'Or. I still have lots of dreams."
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/mar/31/newcastle-united-hatem-ben-arfa
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Gulf's dolphins pay heavy price for Deepwater oil spill
New studies show impact of BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster on dolphins and other marine wildlife may be far worse than feared
A new study of dolphins living close to the site of North America's worst ever oil spill ? the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe two years ago ? has established serious health problems afflicting the marine mammals.
The report, commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA], found that many of the 32 dolphins studied were underweight, anaemic and suffering from lung and liver disease, while nearly half had low levels of a hormone that helps the mammals deal with stress as well as regulating their metabolism and immune systems.
More than 200m gallons of crude oil flowed from the well after a series of explosions on 20 April 2010, which killed 11 workers. The spill contaminated the Gulf of Mexico and its coastline in what President Barack Obama called America's worst environmental disaster.
The research follows the publication of several scientific studies into insect populations on the nearby Gulf coastline and into the health of deepwater coral populations, which all suggest that the environmental impact of the five-month long spill may have been far worse than previously appreciated.
Another study confirmed that zooplankton ? the microscopic organisms at the bottom of the ocean food chain ? had also been contaminated with oil. Indeed, photographs issued last month of wetland coastal areas show continued contamination, with some areas still devoid of vegetation.
The study of the dolphins in Barataria Bay, off the coast of Louisiana, followed two years in which the number of dead dolphins found stranded on the coast close to the spill had dramatically increased. Although all but one of the 32 dolphins were still alive when the study ended, lead researcher Lori Schwacke said survival prospects for many were grim, adding that the hormone deficiency ? while not definitively linked to the oil spill ? was "consistent with oil exposure to other mammals".
Schwacke told a Colorado based-publication last week: "This was truly an unprecedented event ? there was little existing data that would indicate what effects might be seen specifically in dolphins ? or other cetaceans ? exposed to oil for a prolonged period of time."
The NOAA study has been reported at the same time as two other studies suggesting that the long-term environmental effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill may have been far more profound than previously thought.
A study of deep ocean corals seven miles from the spill source jointly funded by the NOAA and BP has found dead and dying corals coated "in brown gunk". Deepwater corals are not usually affected in oil spills, but the depth and temperatures involved in the spill appear to have been responsible for creating plumes of oil particles deep under the ocean surface, which are blamed for the unprecedented damage.
Charles Fisher, one of the scientists who jointly described the impact as unprecedented, said he believed the colony had been contaminated by a plume from the ruptured well which would have affected other organisms. "The corals are long-living and don't move. That is why we were able to identify the damage but you would have expected it to have had an impact on other larger animals that were exposed to it."
Chemical analysis of oil found on the dying coral showed that it came from the Deepwater Horizon spill.
The latest surveys of the damage to the marine environment come amid continued legal wrangling between the US and BP over the bill for the clean-up. BP said the US government was withholding evidence that would show the oil spill from the well in the Gulf of Mexico was smaller than claimed. Last week BP, which has set aside $37bn (�23bn) to pay for costs associated with the disaster, went to court in Louisiana to demand access to thousands of documents that it says the Obama administration is suppressing.
The US government is still pursuing a case against BP despite a deal the company reached at the beginning of March with the largest group of private claimants. That $7.8bn deal, however, does not address "significant damages" to the environment after the spill for which BP has not admitted liability. And it has not only been the immediate marine environment that has been affected. A study of insect populations in the coastal marshes affected by the catastrophe has also identified significant impact.
Linda Hooper-Bui of Louisiana State University found that some kinds of insect and spider were far less numerous than before. "Every single time we go out there, the Pollyanna part of me thinks, 'Now we're going to measure recovery'," she said. "Then I get out there and say: 'Whaaat?'"
She had expected that one group of arthropods might be hit hard while others recovered, but her work, still incomplete, shows a large downturn among many kinds. "We never thought it would be this big, this widespread," she said.
For its part BP has claimed in a recent statement that it has worked hard to fulfil its responsibility to clean up after the spill. "From the beginning, BP stepped up to meet our obligations to the communities in the Gulf Coast region, and we've worked hard to deliver on that commitment for nearly two years," BP chief executive Bob Dudley declared recently.
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/31/dolphins-sick-deepwater-oil-spill
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