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When It Comes To Manners, Nick Kyrgios Just Threw In The Towel

Public sympathy for Kyrgios has pretty much dried up.
Throwing the baby out with the bathtowel.
Throwing the baby out with the bathtowel.

There are two ways to look at the latest Nick Kyrgios outburst, which came in his overnight first round French Open victory over Italy's World No 124 Marco Cecchinato.

One is through the player's own eyes. Kyrgios said he yelled the word "towel" aggressively at a ballkid because the crowd was loud, the 20 second points gap between points is short, and he wanted to get on with things.

The other way of looking at the incident is through the eyes of chair umpire Carlos Ramos, who said, "It's not that you said 'towel' loudly. It's the way that you said it".

We love this. A code violation for tone. Life actually works this way. Try yelling really loudly to your partner or one of your workmates about the thing you need that second, and see how that plays out.

We also loved this. Relax. "Whipping out your tweener" is nowhere near as rude as it sounds.

Kyrgios had a fair point when he compared his official reprimand for voluminous bathwear demands to the lack of penalty for Novak Djokovic, who recently brushed away the arm of a chair umpire.

He also made the good point that he said "thanks" every time he gets a towel from a ballkid. He's actually a polite thoughtful person when he wants to be. The problem is he's also an ugly loudmouth half the time, so officials are now punishing him on reputation as much as anything. That's also how real life works.

In other Kyrgios news, the 21-year-old Canberran said on the weekend there's no way he'd play on until he's 30. Apparently he'll throw in the towel much earlier.

Let's move on with our regular weekend sports wrap. Actual matches of rugby league happened on the weekend in between all those rugby league scandals. Honestly, with all those casino visits and bikie dinners and alleged gambling binges, it's amazing these fine young men of the Parramatta Eels manage to cram any football into their schedules.

Fortunately, the Broncos and the Cowboys reminded everybody why we still watch this game. As we all know, last year's grand final was a golden point thriller sealed with a Jonathan Thurston field goal. The teams met in Round 4 this year. Broncos by a field goal. They met again in Round 11 this weekend and the scoreline had a familiar margin. Yep, Cowboys by a field goal.

All team sports need great team rivalries. Sydney-centric scribes tend to focus on NRL match-ups like Rabbitohs/Roosters but Cowboys/Broncos is turning into the greatest grudge match in the modern game. No question.

In modern AFL rivalries, it's hard to go past the Hawks and the Swans. Sydney won the battle on Friday night in what will be their last match at the MCG this year before the finals (should they make it).

But there's only one Sydney team that created massive shockwaves on the weekend, and that's the GWS Giants. The Bulldogs had key players unavailable, but wow, the locals were still impressive, winning 15.8 (98) to 10.13 (73). The sub 10,000 home crowd was not so impressive, but that's another story.

The other really impressive performance this weekend was Collingwood beating the Geelong Cats. Cats coach Chris Scott gave a refreshingly honest take, free of jargon and gobbledygook, when he said many of the Cats players just "played badly".

The Geelong result really underlined how open the premiership is this year. A Giants flag? Not impossible. They're equal second favourite at $6 with the sports bookies. Meanwhile the Kangaroos sit two games clear of the pack after their first ever 9-0 start to the season. But they've got a tough run starting with the Swans on Friday, so we'll know more about their chances in a few weeks.

Manchester United won the FA Cup on the weekend. It's the first piece of silverware for the world's most famous football club since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, but it still looks like it won't be enough to save Dutch manager Louis van Gaal, who appears to have been replaced by the walking ego known as Jose Mourinho.

Anyway, enough of the backroom scuttlebutt. United won the final 2-1. Enjoy the magnificent Wayne Rooney run that set up the equaliser. Then stop reading the sports news and go do some work, OK?

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