The final regular season weekend of Aussie Rules Football has
been played. The season was so awesome,
and the ladder so close, that where each team would finish was anyone's guess
until the weekend's games were all played.
Congrats to the Geelong Cats on their taking of the minor
premiership. Geelong rebounded after
last week's loss to finish on top of the standings. The Brisbane Lions, who had great hopes this
weekend of themselves taking the minor premiership, instead lost to Richmond,
who took third, whilst the Lions finished second overall. Collingwood took fourth,
continuing their four game winning streak.
Continuing their slide, with a
second loss in as many weeks, the West Coast Eagles finished fifth. Rounding out the top eight are the GWS
Giants, and 6th place, the Western Bulldogs, and seventh, and Essendon, at
eighth. The top five teams all finished
within 5 points of each other, so the competition was, indeed, fierce to the
end.
18 teams began the season.
These eight teams have advance to the playoffs. These will begin Thursday night, with a match
between Essendon and the West Coast Eagles at their home, Optus Stadium in
Perth.
Meanwhile, in Australia, Worldwide basketball was shocked
yesterday. The World Cup is a week away,
and it was proven that the United States is no lock for gold. Australia delivered that message to the world
on Saturday. For the first time in
nearly 13 years, a U.S. roster of NBA players played an international game —
and lost. Patty Mills scored 30 points, and Australia rallied from a 10-point
deficit in the second half to stun the Americans 98-94.
Australia had never beaten the Americans, and the U.S.
national team had been 30-0 all-time in Australia. The loss snapped a 78-game
U.S. winning streak that started with the bronze-medal game at the 2006 world
championships. That was a loss to Greece
in the Championship semifinals. The
Americans won the bronze there, and have since remained unbeaten.
In the upcoming World Cup in China, Serbia has already made
very clear it expects to win gold, where NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo will
lead Greece, where France figures to have a medal shot and now with the
Australians absolutely knowing they can beat the U.S., will begin next week
with no shortage of realistic title hopefuls.
USA returns to the court on Monday, for an exhibition game vs. team
Canada in Sydney. Australia next faces Canada
in World Cup opener on September 1st at Dongguan, China.
PGA Golf continues today with the final round of the Tour
Championship in Atlanta.
Six people were injured Saturday when lightning struck a
60-foot pine at the Tour Championship where they were taking cover from rain
and showered them with debris, Atlanta police said. Play in yesterday's round was initially
suspended after the lightning strike, and then suspended, to be continued this
morning prior to the start of today's round.
Brooks Koepka leads the Tour Championship by one over Rory
McIlroy and Xander Schauffele going into the final round of play at East Lake
Golf Club. Following a suspended third round, Koepka touched off a 68 on Sunday
morning by making four birdies in the 13 holes he played.
McIlroy made five birdies but a couple of bogeys leave him
one shy of his four-major winning counterpart. Schauffele -- who won here in
2017 -- made a pair of birdies and had an ace on Sunday morning. Top prize for today's tourney is $15
million.
