Chris Rattue: Top sport has become thrilling again

Remember the times when rugby heavyweights ploughed around on dung heaps for heroic 6-3 victories, when cricket teams hung on for five-day draws to preserve their honour, when league was a thug-a-thon?

May those days rest in peace.

The past few weeks have been a particular high point in modern-day sports watching. Everywhere you look, entertainers are winning the day and exuberant game plans are helping unfancied teams to confound the pundits.

There is one main and distressing exception to this. The much-fancied Chelsea are squashing the life out of the English soccer premiership, where they score about one goal per £100 million spent and concede an average of 0.14 goals per game.

Surely with all that cash from his Russian sugar daddy, the debonair Jose Mourinho could come up with something more exciting, although apparently not.

At this rate, Chelsea will have won the damn thing by Christmas, at which point it will be time to watch something more interesting - like our domestic cricket competition.

Still, flamboyance is having its day just about everywhere else.

To trawl through the sports entertainment achievements of the past month or so…

Wests Tigers

Go the Tigers! Those cumbersome top dogs who have dominated league for so long have been put in their place by the mighty midgets.

Who knows how long this will last?

Little guys slamming into big guys is not usually a recipe for longevity. But let's enjoy the spectacle for now and hope that Benji Marshall's shoulders last the distance. Wests have scored tries this year that were made in heaven.

Their grand final opponents, the Cowboys, are also a decent watch and have made a startling comeback after being crushed by Wests in the opening finals round.

The Cowboys have a more conventional game plan but still include unconventional and thrilling players to watch - especially Matt Bowen on a good day. They also have Dally M medal winner Johnathan Thurston. It's a shame prop Carl Webb, a turbo-charged barrell, got himself suspended out of the finals. Still, the scene is set for the most memorable of grand finals and one which may herald a new and exciting future for league.

Auckland and North Harbour

The two best teams in the NPC to watch, by a long stretch. Yes, yes. I know Canterbury are leading the comp and were heroic in the final stages of their Ranfurly Shield defence against Wellington, with what amounted to a modern and extended version of sticking the ball up the jumper. But too much more of that and Canterbury will make Chelsea look exciting - and the advertisers who stick their logos all over the footballs will be fuming.

About once every four years, Auckland rugby comes up with a magic formula which involves not too much formula.

This Auckland team are all hair, and a fair bit of harum-scarum. They'll score tries from anywhere and while they are a bit liberal on defence, they don't labour in attack.

But fingers are firmly crossed here for North Harbour to win the top NPC title for the first time, as unlikely as this may seem. Our rugby is long overdue for a Wests Tigers-type story, and one that gives the cosy Super 12 network a decent jolt.

Full marks to North Harbour and coach Allan Pollock.

North Harbour get plundered by one and all - it would be great to toast a team who live off crumbs.

England's cricket team

It's not often that the Poms are portrayed as the good guys in this part of the world. Freddie Flintoff and the lads didn't just win the Ashes, they won them in style.

And it was a most unusual style for England with a couple of sloggers in the batting department - including a bloke with a splash of bleach in his hair - and a new-ball attack which scared the Aussies.

England also had a spinner who spins the ball, just a bit. To make sure we knew it actually was England, they dropped catches all over the place. But this England team not only brought the magnificent Australians down, they also raised cricket up.

Roger Federer

The Swiss who can hardly miss, especially in a final. Federer gives tennis elegance and excellence.

Strolls around as if on a Sunday walk, manipulating opponents and firing off pinpoint winners which leave the vanquished in admiration and despair.

The good-guy champion - who beat the much-loved Andre Agassi in the US Open final - plays with modern-day power and old-fashioned charm.