shawThings.net : a collection of shaw things ...

An excellent win, even it was a friendly. Ireland are preparing for key world cup qualifiers, so it wasn't meant to be an easy match. Both sides wasted chances, with Australia running out comfortable winners. That man again, Tim Cahill, doing the early damage. Good stuff.

Menus (of the type found in bistros and restaurants, not websites or software) are often a source of humorous typos. Last night's trip to the local pub was no exception. The first was "chilllis" (with three l's), although given the font they were using this was hard to spot and can be forgiven. "Banga's and Mash" though was an interesting variation on a theme, managing to cram a mis-spelling and an apostrophe violation into the one word.

I've been saying for a long time that Tim Cahill is our most valuable player and I think he proved it again here. His two goals gave us a significant psychological advantage over Japan. Sure this game was a dead rubber in terms of qualification, but there's still rankings in Asia and the World to consider. Plus our rivalry with Japan. So inflicting their first defeat of this round as well as maintaining our record were both important.

In the end Australia were comfortable winners. It wasn't a great performance, but it was another win and another clean sheet and there's a lot to be said for that.

Woo-hoo! Australia secured the point it needed in an exciting 0-0 draw. We're off to South Africa as one of the first qualifiers, instead of the last.

With a long break between episodes, this one seemed a little ... rusty. The actors were good, as were some of the special effects, but the story didn't really grab me. Average is the best I can give this one.

Naruto was in a grumpy mood the other day.

Jamie: You know it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.
Naruto: I like to keep fit.

When Valeri went down and the referee awarded a penalty, there was that feeling again. We're off to the World Cup Finals! A great result for Australia. The other result overnight means technically we can't be certain, but it's all over bar the shouting. We will get the solitary point required from our next three matches. And then it's South Africa here we come.

Groan. A lot of talk in the lead-up to this match was about whether the A-League is strong enough and its players good enough. Kuwait probably demonstrated there's a long way to go. We didn't play well, but they outplayed us. Bottom of our group after two matches. Improvement needed!

The context for this one only adds to the humour. Here's another one.