It’s the second time this year Baulch has seen one of his medals upgraded after the disqualification of a competitor.

In January this year Baulch’s 1997 World Championship silver in the 4x400m relay was boosted to a gold after American Antonio Pettigrew admitted using a banned substance.

But this time there is an air of the unknown as to who has dropped out with no offical statement released by the sports governing body, the IAAF.

It is understood that other memebers of the 2003 Great Britain have already received their medals in the post – a far cry from hearing their national anthem on the podium.

Thomas has been named in coach Brian Nobel’s unchanged nineteen man squad to face london based outfit Harlequins at Neath’s Gnoll stadium.

The game will also mark the Crusaders first return to South Wales since their decision to move to Wrexham in the summer.

It had been widely acknowledged the team would move from their old Bridgend home to Newport’s Rodney Parade, but with financial oblivion looming a Wrexham based consortium offered a rescue package that took the club north.

Crusaders prop Mark Bryant, who has fond memories of playing at Bridgend says returning south will give the club a chance to repay their loyal fans after the move:

“I have fond memories from last year. The people in south Wales were fantastic and they gave us some amazing support. Some still travel to Crusaders games, both home and away, which is phenomenal, so it’s good to go back down there.”

Crusaders press officer Ian Golden talks ahead of the clubs first game at their new home.

Harlequins are rooted to the bottom of the Engage Super League table after just one win so far this season.

Kick off 7.30 pm, The Gnoll, Neath.

In what has been a barren season for the Dragons the win lifts them to second from bottom in the country’s premier netball league.

The teams were separated by just a single pint at the end of the first quarter of the match, with Dragons shooting pair of Becky Neate and Cara-Lea Mosely registering strong returns of 85% and 77% shot success respectively.

It was always going to be a big ask of the Scottish side. This being their third game in just four days, fatigue was always going to be a problem.

The win lifts the Dragons above the Loughbrough Lightning, although the latter have a two game advantage over the Welsh side.

After the match Glasgow Coach head coach Denise Holland said : “It’s a hard lesson learned. We didn’t put in the performance expected. All credit to the Celtic Dragons who kept composed under pressure”

Keep up to date with the Dragons season at:

http://www.netballsuperleague.com/

However every now and again it does get top billing at the BBC, if only for the wrong reasons.

If you’ve ever been guilty of tarnishing all footballers as overpaid prima donna’s who settle their disputes with handbags drawn at ten paces, take a look at this. It’s trully astounding……

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8464347.stm

And the Irish FA thought Henry caused them headaches……..

When the lorry finally arrives the men collecting the bags pick them up with a verve and vigour far beyond the hour of the day.

But while their departure marks the end to another week’s rubbish, a torrent of festering detritus is left behind.

A chicken carcass lies in the road. The split bags, seemingly raided by the cats, rats and foxes are spread across the pavement for all to see.

Fast forward 400 metres to Woodville road. This one-time student hovel is looking remarkably clean. Gone are the decaying foodstuff’s that once marred the pavement. In their place, an army of shiny new wheelie-bins, green for recycling, black for waste, stand to attention, full to the brim.

Woodville Road has had something of a makeover – albeit a rubbish one.

Now a regular sight in Cathays

Cardiff City Council has extended its wheelie-bin scheme to the Cathays area in an attempt to reduce the build up of stricken household waste that has plagued the streets for decades.

The scheme, rolled out across several new wards in the city, including Splott, Riverside and Grangetown, is something of a watershed moment for residents.

“There’s no bags on the street which is nice.Obviously, they attract lots of rats so we won’t have to deal with that issue as much” said one happy Column Road resident.

But in such a student populated area is a scheme like this actually viable? Will the provision of bins actually help to make the area a better place to live, or will student frivolity see them as a handily placed toy after a long night out?

Some residents have already felt the effects of a late night wake up.

“In the evenings they like to wheel them around a bit and have a good time with them which is a bit noisy when you’re trying to sleep” complained one.

Another resident, Anna Osbourne of Column Road has already had enough of the student antics: “Wednesdays are the worst. Now, not only are you getting people shouting and screaming but there’s bangs and crashing bins being pushed over. It’s a bit much really.”

Does the good outweigh the bad?

With the sight of dustbins lining major traffic ways for thousands of commuting students, such as Woodville, and Column Road, the provision of wheelie bins could cause more trouble than good.

Rolling the scheme out to new wards around the city has not come cheap. With 6,725 homes in Cathays the council has had to put aside £135,000 for that ward alone. With ten wards part of the expansion the scheme could end up costing over £1 million.

However, with Cardiff City Council fully committed to sustaining a green future, it is an expense they hope will set the green agenda for households in the city.

The Council has been bold in its plans to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2020, double the Westminster target. It is hoped that by opening up recycling opportunities to new areas, residents will start to make the shift towards a more sustainable city.

For the scheme to have any real impact on the lives of its residents though, the current provision of the service to less than half of the wards’ homes will need to be improved.

View Larger Map Streets currently provided with wheelie bins

However, this is unlikely to happen any time soon.

After a long consultation period looking at whether wheelie bin provision was something residents wanted, council officials were met with plenty of opposition. Although many residents were in favour of joining the scheme, more voiced concerns.

But, the biggest hindrance for Cardiff City Council has, and will continue to be, the geography of terraced suburbia.

With little or no space at the front of many of the houses in Cathays’ terraced streets, Council officials are unable to provide any sort of enclosed recycling system, for fear of blocking the highway.

Since the introduction of composting facilities through the “kitchen caddy” baskets provided by the Council to Cathays residents, many have taken the opportunity to improve their green credentials.

However, the lack of any protected means to get refuse from kitchen to council is still one of the ward’s main stumbling blocks towards a sustainable future.

Cathays has seen a marked improvement in the state of it’s streets in the six weeks since the scheme was extended. Those lucky enough to be provided with bins have seen their streets rid of the festering, rotting food that has marred it for so long.

But this is only part of the answer. More must be done to ensure both a cleaner, and greener, future for suburban Cardiff.

It is looking at the cost of flooding to small businesses and how one group of designers have found one way round the problem.

At least, not if you’re in a hurry. And we are.

Today’s announcement that Johnston Press, the local newspaper producer that owns a large portfolio of titles, is to trial the use of a paywall on six of their titles is something of a monumental leap.

If the newspaper as we know it is to survive, today could be the day we all look back on as the day it turned a corner.

There’s no doubt ‘papers cannot continue as they are. Massive drops in sales as well as the knock on advertising dips have pushed the local paper to the brink of extinction. National, household names like the Telegraph and the Times have had drastic cuts in jobs as the same effects are felt.

So will Johnston’s move work? Maybe.

It’s a tough ask. You see, the problem newspapers have is that their generally tentative steps into the online domain have left a whole generation of news buyers aligned with the mindset that information on the internet is free.

Pre-internet generations may be savvy to the benefits of the ‘net but they still appreciate the brand value of their chosen paper. So they will no doubt be more accepting of a paid for news service.

But the teens and twenty somethings who have grown up with one hand on a mouse will not be so. To the internet generation google is the purveyor of all info, and it doesn’t cost a penny.

So good luck to Johnston Press. I for one hope their experiment works. But I’m not sure it will.

As Robert Andrews from paidcontent.org said in a lecture he gave at Cardiff University last week, current models for upholding paywalls for general open news content do not give the reader any incentive to pay for something they can get elsewhere for free.

Rupert Murdoch has made it known that he will soon be putting his weight behind the drive for paid content too. Many in the industry thought it would take Murdoch to insitgate any leap of faith and lead the way.

An interesting counter theory has also arisen since Murdoch made his intentions known. If a man with such a vast and powerful media empire starts charging for content, is it done in the hope that people will instead revert back to buying a hard, printed copy?

This may be the case for big brand papers with large circulations, but the reality at local level is different.

Unless Johnston aim to provide their readers with something over and above general news content that can be found for free elsewhere, they may well struggle to attract any customers at all.

The example set by the FT, Wall Street Journal and Auto Trader leave me in no doubt that specialism in future journalism is key to online profitability, with profits consistently rising.

Hopefully, local coverage will be deemed specialist enough for Johnston’s trial titles, and shine a ray of hope on a dwindling newspaper industry.

Joanna’s visit was timely. For me anyway.

For the last few weeks I have been lucky enough to hear from some very knowledgable people. Some have been journalists, out and out. Old school, some of them say. Some have been managers of some of the biggest media corporations in the world, and some have been more, shall we say, innovative in the way they have embraced technology.

Each and every one of them has been invaluable in their own right and brought to the table another, if not always different, perspective.

Joanna, however was different.

You see, the thing with her was that she has grown up (career wise) in the digital age, or at least, the beginnings of it.

This is not to say that other guests have any less valuable an insight into how to make technology work for you as a journalist, just a different one.

Joanna has, for the first time really, showed me in real terms the value of making social media( twitter, blogging, audioboo etc) a practice part of my career. I mean, she has made it her job, from nothing really.

Blogging has, until now been something I have done with pleasure, but something I’ve a been a touch sceptical about as to its real money-making potential.

Joanna’s use of blogging communities to launch innovative structures of contribution and specialism at the Birmingham Post has led to the paper forming a strong online family that can be financially exploited.

She has used her online persona to network contacts that have provided job opportunities at national newspapers as well as online.

All in all it has shown me what you can do online. it is not all idealistic, social action. It can, and does have a real application. Money can be made, if the journalist is willing to explore and find out ways to interact and network with online communities. 

Internet entrenprenuerism - a new journalism??????

Exciting times.

And rightly so, they are angry. I mean, I would be. That really is no way to bow out of the most prestigious competition in the sport.

Calls for a replay have been ringing in the ears of Fifa officials ever since. Even the great man himself (king Henry) is holding his hands up to this one.

But rightly so, France have refused.

Rightly so not because of some undying determination to get one over the Irish. Not because of an unwavering desire to do the dirty, and most certainly not because they wish to taint their presence in South Africa next year.

France have no obligation to make sure the ref has a good game. They are charged with one aim only, to win the game. 

As Roy Keane quite rightly told his pre match press conference yesterday, Ireland have bigger things to complain about than the referee. Where were the defenders? Where was the goal keeper? How can the ball bounce in your six yard box? These are the questions they should be asking themselves. Control the controllable.

Yes, it was a foul, yes, the goal should not have stood, but, in equal measure it is not up to France to decide what is allowed and what isn’t. Would the same requests be put in if Ireland had been fouled at the other end of the pitch during the build up? No. At least, not with any real effort.

It is moments like Henry’s hand ball that make football. We may not think it at the time, we may not even acknowledge it for many years, but without the controversy, without the talking points and without the complaints football, in fact sport as a whole would be a boring, one-dimensional dullard.

Controversy makes sport the emotional rollercoaster it is. The real-life soap opera each and every one of us is part of.

We’d be lost without it.

And once again, every man and his dog is up in arms about how it’s bringing down society, instigating armegeddon, signalling the demise of humanity etc etc etc.

I used to wholeheartedly agree with the masses. I was most definatley on that particular bandwagon.

But now, I’m not so sure.

You see, the thing is, I’ve found myself questioning where the line is drawn between right and wrong when it comes to gaining yourself an advantage in sport.

It’s not as easy as you think.

On the face of it it is wrong. Wrong on every level. It is breaking a rule (simulation), it is against the ethos of the game, and it is gaining the upper hand unfairly.

But if these are the parameters from which we are to judge right and wrong, then, people, for an ordely cue and the rule change office. Sport as we know it will never be the same again.

Wherever you turn liberal treatment of the rules of the game are bent and pushed as far as they possible can be.

Rugby – that bastian of manly honesty. Where two teams of real men compete in gladitorial majesty; “may the best man win”…….my arse.

On friday I was unlucky enough to witness Wales almost give it away against a spritely, if unremarkable Samoa team in Cardiff.

And every time the referee blew his whistle, someone was doing something they shloudn’t have.  Not by accident  but in order to try and cheat the rules and gain an advantage. Hands in the ruck? illegal. Intentional. Pulling down the scrum? Illegal. Intentional. Offside, maybe not as blatant but pushing the limits none the less.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Cricket – sledging. F1 - crashing on purpose, NFL – any foul you wish to pick!

And I reckon, if you look into any sport you like you’ll find some sort of underhand tactic used to gain some kind of advantage.

But that’s gamesmanship. Apparently.

And to my mind gamesmanship is fine. In fact it’s good. It’s what makes sport the battle of body and mind that is loved by millions.

Diving is gamesmanship in exactly the same way. No difference at all. It just makes a noticeable difference.

It just changes a game in an instant.