One of the greatest Wimbledon men's singles final tussles of all time - certainly the longest; clocking in at 4 hours and 57 minutes. Novak Djokovic eventually triumphed over Roger Federer in the tie-break decider which now occurs after a twelve-all game deadlock in the final set.

England defeated New Zealand in the World Cup in what has been called the greatest game of cricket ever. Both sides scored 241 runs after their 50 overs. A 'super over' followed where-in they again drew at 15 runs each. The match was eventually decided in favour of the Poms, the decision being based on how many boundaries they hit in the overall match.

I have to say, I disagree with the criteria here. Surely a more just way of deciding things in such an admittedly unlikely situation would be by giving the match to whoever had lost the least wickets.

This was not the only piece of misfortune visited upon the Kiwis. In the final over of the match itself English batsmen Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid, needing nine runs from three balls, were attempting a hasty second run when the throw from the fieldsman deflected from the lunging Stokes's bat and headed for the boundary.

It is a convention in cricket for batsmen not to continue to run in such a circumstance, and Stokes and Rashid didn't, but when the ball then crossed the boundary the umpires had no choice but to award four overthrows to England. This combined with the two they'd run gave England six runs from the delivery.

Bad luck Kiwis.

But it gets worse. According to former international umpire, Simon Taufel, the umpires got it wrong. Because the batsmen had not crossed at the time of the throw, Taufel points out that the laws of cricket dictate that the second run does not count and so England should only have been awarded five.

That mistake, and that run, more than likely decided everything. It was not New Zealand's day.

It was an unusual week in the rugby league There were upsets galore:

Canterbury (then occupying last place) beat the Newcastle Knights, at Newcastle. (Canterbury are now second last).

The Rabbits beat Manly by a point.

The Cowboys beat the Roosters at Gosford, 15 - 12.

Canberra, with twelve men (which we'll get to in a minute), thrashed St George 36 - 14.

There were firsts:

We had a draw - the first of the season, and, actually, the first one I can remember in recent times.

Neither the Broncos nor the Warriors could manage a 'golden point' in the extra time and so it turns out you can have a draw after all. And the sky did not fall in.

There was the first outright sacking of a coach - the Titans giving Garth Brennan his marching orders after a 24 - 2 loss to Penrith.

And we had our first send-off for the season - Canberra's Nick Cotric heading for an early shower after what was deemed to be a 'spear tackle' on the Dragons' centre Tim Lafai.

I think you've got to feel for Cotric a little. I don't think the tackle had any real malice in it. As Ricky Stewart said afterwards, it just got away from him. Still, the decision is understandable - in the current climate, amidst entirely legitimate serious concerns about head injuries, for obvious reasons, such play has to be eradicated.

Still, again, it wasn't a spear tackle. I found this photograph (see picture) among my stuff the other week. Merv Wright in action. That's what a spear tackle looks like!'

Locally, there's been some controversy this week with the upcoming FFA soccer match at the sportsground. There's been much discussion and I think there are a few things that need to be made clear.

First and foremost, the event is not a Maitland City Council event. This is a different situation to something like the recent Knights game which fell under the council's banner.

Unlike the circumstances of the Knights game, the sportsground is more usually a user-pays facility, and this is the case for this FFA event, hosted by the Maitland Magpies.

Issues arose in that Maitland have drawn an A-league team, and so are obliged to meet the criteria associated (outlined in a 45 page booklet) with hosting a match at that level.

One such criteria involves having sufficient lighting capacity to enable SBS to film the game in order to cross to the main coverage when (if?) goals are scored.

At the moment the sportsground simply lacks this lighting capacity, meaning that lighting equipment will need to be hired. This extra expense has caused budgetary concerns to the Maitland Football Club. In response to these concerns Council has agreed to underwrite the event, in the possibility of a loss, to the extent of $11,000.

Seems like a good result to me. And permanent lighting is on the way as part of the Regional Athletics Complex which is currently under construction.