Sports: Unrated!

Top 10 sporting cliches I've heard in my many, many interviews

TRANSLATED EDITION!

1) "We gave it all we had and you can't ask for much more from the boys, they were fantastic."
Translation: "We got a good win, and to be honest, the team played bloody well. The opposition had no hope against us today."

2) "We're not focused on the result, we're just focused on what we did right, and what we need to work on for next week."
Translation: "Yes, I know we're looking freakin' good at the moment, but I'm trying to keep a lid on the expectations. Otherwise the boys will get big heads."

3) "You can argue all you want about what went wrong in the third quarter, but at the end of the day we've got the win, and that's all you hope for."
Translation: "We turned to crap in the third quarter and we're lucky they didn't beat us. I'm just stoked we got away with the win."

4) "We've got a good young group and if we can keep them together we can go a long way."
Translation: "Yeah we played well today, and our kids look like world-beaters, but don't talk us up too much because we're going to lose more games than we win in the near future."

5) "I think the message from today is that if we work hard, we've definitely got something to build on for next year."
Translation: "I'm trying to stop my players from getting too arrogant, and big wins like this don't help that. I need them to realise that hard work is still necessary."

6) "There were too many passengers today, and that cost us."
Translation: "A few of my senior players played like crap today. I'm not prepared to call them out in the media, but you can believe that they will get their heads torn off at training."

7) "That decision hurt us, but you take the good with the bad, and the reality is we should have won it if we'd played like we were supposed to."
Translation: "I'm pissed off with the umpires. Shocking free kick decision. Cost us the game. That said, I thought we were much better than the opposition and should have won regardless of that useless bit of umpiring."

8) "We'll have a good hard look at the team for next week, because we've obviously got some issues that need to be addressed."
Translation: "Yep, we're definitely dropping some big names next week. They were bloody disgraceful today. You know which ones I'm talking about."

9) "No doubts about it, that was a big result for us."
Translation: "Geez, we pulled that one out of the bag! There was no way we should have won that. I actually feel a bit sorry for the opposition because they kicked our arse all day."

10) "It's the old cliche, we're taking it one week at a time."
Translation: "What can I say? I've got no idea how the team's going to perform next week. They're so up and down. As a coach, it's very frustrating."

Thanks Bron - I probably should have translated them to begin with! Being a sports journalist would be a lot more fun if coaches actually said what they thought. Occasionally they will and it makes for a great story. But it's rare.