Terry Reilly
“DO me up a blog on three predictions for next year?” I'm told and greet the news with the same joy as a request from the wife to pick up a present for her mother before Christmas.
It's not that buying the present is a problem, it's the hassle that goes with it. The five minutes of thinking about it. The refusal by anyone around you to offer any help. But most of all the potential for disaster (a few years ago I picked up what I thought was an anti-ageing cream to get away from a bunch of panicked teenaged shoppers fighting for the last bottle of Beyonce perfume only for a case of embarrassment all round when my mother in law opened the shop assistant's wrapped tub of breast firming cream!).
This is a similar scenario. Get it right and no-one remembers, get it wrong and it will be brought up the next time you try to make a point on a sporting argument.
But just like the in laws' presents dilemmas, there are a few things most men have to accept in life: 1) you are usually wrong; 2) once the people around you know that everyone gets on a whole lot better; 3) use that as an excuse to buy another tin of breast firming cream for the wife next year and if she uses it excellent, if she doesn't revert to 1!
Tiger Woods will win the British Open
I was prepared to write 'never start small in the predictions business' until I checked the odds for the event and found out the bookmakers agree with this sentiment and have put the former world number one in as favourite at 7/1. He won't enjoy a big advantage at the Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club, as the course will be set up to punish wayward shooting. Therefore the big hitters will have to row back at this event.
But factor in Tiger's first victory for more than two years and 26 tournaments at the Chevron World Challenge and the psychological hold he still has on the golfing fraternity and he is a good bet.
Cork will win the league, Kerry will win Sam
THERE'S nothing like a scorned Kerryman and talking to any of them over the past few moments you can't help but notice the underlying seething anger with the way they lost the All-Ireland final. Add to that the procession of Dublin taunts since that day, intended or not, and you have a team with the best forwards in the country, a decent midfield when catching clean possession is irrelevant and a mean defence with two Ó Sés manning central berths.
This county gives the term 'chip on a shoulder' a new meaning and Jack O'Connor will have them firing for the season ahead.
That will be bad news for Cork who, having been destroyed with injuries last season, will start the year on top but fade once the open spaces of Croke Park come back to haunt them.
France will win the Grand Slam
Here's a chance to use that never-end-small-in-the-predictions-business line. That very line almost forced me to put England in this slot but a moment of calm reflection showed the Tindall-like error of my way.
Given France's World Cup off-the-field implosion you would think Wales and Ireland should have more armoury to claim this. But never write off Gallic flair and, just like Kerry, they have a point to prove and with a new coach Philippe Saint-Andre in charge they should provide a tour de force.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/HnKis0WSQl8/post.aspx
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