Australians in the NFL - Holmes another failure

And once again, the arrogance of the NRL player is in full effect. This time it is Valentine Holmes stepping up to the plate to shank it.

Been looking at his pre-season stats and again, he isn't even as good as Hayne. Lets look at the stats

So these are the two pre-seasons head to head. For Valentine Holmes (who is supposed to be a RB) to have 11 carries for 9 yards is rubbish. And remember, this is against the part-time defense.

Even Hayne did better than that to at least average 7 yards a carry.

When it comes to receiving, it is a better story. To average 10.6 is respectable, but still poorer than Hayne. But he isn't there as a receiver.

And this brings me back to my original point. For an NRL player to try and break it into the NFL as a positional player (i.e not a punter) is a fool errand. It is a highly technical game that requires years of experience to master. If you want to do it properly, you need to do your apprenticeship in the college system, not just rock up and hope for the best.

So again, like Hayne, he will be lucky to make it onto the practice squad to be paid at $8,000 a week (or around $144,000 for the entire season). And again, like Hayne, for a guy who was earning roughly 8 times than in the NRL, I don't see him hanging around.

First flight back to OZ, Valentine.

ASHES 3rd TEST - Unbelievable Comeback from England

Wow, what a game.

Ben Stokes is the man. Shows he is England's most valuable player at the moment.

Been looking at the stats as always, and Stokes, after an average First TEST (a Z-score of basically 0...the average player), has outperformed in TEST 2 (Z-Score of 2.78) and this TEST (Z-Score of 2.62)

For Australia, Labuschagne has been a good addition to the team (Z-Score 2.89) and Warner finally had a good game (z-score 0.62) after a couple of shockers.

In the bowling stakes, again, Archer is proving to be a handful. In two tests, he has had Z-Scores of 1.1 (in the 2nd Test), and 1.95 (in this one). Already 13 wickets for the series...

Bowling for Australia...Hazlewood (z-scores of 0.11, 1.35) is certainly a better option than Siddle (z-scores of 0.26, 0.09). Siddle will always give you an average performance, but he doesn't have the capability to out perform. Cummins (z-scores of 1.99, 1.44, -0.09) had his first average game after blowing England away in the first 2 tests. Pattinson is a question at the moment. I don't think he has done enough (z-scores of -0.07, 0.44). I think the best bowling attack is yet to be released. For me, it is Cummins, Hazlewood and Stark, with Lyon as the spinner. They should go with that attack in the 4th TEST.

But the stats don't show the fact that Australia received a shocking LBW decision...amazing how little decisions can have big impacts...