Lombardi Is Coming Home

My Sporting Weekend 4-6 February 2011:

Warm-Up:

6 Nations (Rugby Union):

Wales V England, a fantastic 26-19 win for England, with England taking their chances and Wales not. This was not the best free-flowing game ever but still a good one nonetheless played in front of a sell-out crowd at the Millennium Stadium that produced a fantastic atmosphere. The half-back combination of Ben Youngs and Toby Flood works great for club and country and this will hopefully leave detractors saying Johnny who. For Wales to break their losing streak they need to make changes, with the main one being moving James Hook to fly-half as he gives that extra skill level that Stephen Jones does not.

Italy V Ireland, an expected 13-11 win for Ireland, not the best game but Italy were well disciplined and were unlucky not to get the win, the drama ratcheted up for the last 10 minutes following a sin binning for Ireland's Dennis Leamy. Luke McLean's try out wide gave Italy the lead, and hope of a first ever win over Ireland, but a Ronan O'Gara's drop goal with 2 minutes to go dragged Ireland back into the lead. The game finally petered out with an awful drop-goal attempt from Italy's Luciano Orquera after some good work moving the ball around.

France V Scotland, this was the best of the 3 6 Nations games this weekend to watch, with France winning 34-21. A fantastic piece of skill, on the 54^th minute from François Trinh-Duc, with a pass between his legs to Imanol Harinordoquy, lead to a try that gave France a seemingly uncatchable lead of 17 points, from then on they played without fear, but only scored 1 more try. Scotland played well, but France were just too good, making better use of their time with the ball. After this display I think that France will go on to win the 6 Nations but will probably struggle against Australia, South Africa and New Zealand later this year in the World Cup.

IRB 7's Series Wellington (Rugby Union):

I only caught the cup final, with New Zealand beating England 29-14, their was a great party atmosphere that couldn't be dampened by the wind and rain. The 7's series provides great events and it would be fantastic if they could expand to 12 or 14 events a year, bringing in places such as Argentina, Brazil (home of the 2016 Olympics), Canada, France, Japan or Russia.

La Liga (Football):

Villarreal CD V Levante UD, a good attacking match with a fantastic team performance from Levante giving them only their second away win of the season with a final score of 1-0, even though Levante set their team out quite defensively they still got forward and created lots of good chances, Villarreal also had some good attacking play but could not break down Levante's defense, and only had 3 shots on target, leaving the keeper with little to do.

FC Barcelona V Athletico Madrid, Barcelona made a great start with 2 goals in the first half, Athletico came back into the match at the start of the second half but could not get a goal. Messi completed this hat-trick on the 78 minute for his 40^th goal of the season, with 24 in the league. With a 3-0 win Barcelona just make winning look so easy, and have now got the record for most consecutive La Liga wins, with 16. But the amount of work each player does, with and without the ball, is incredible, and there is no place for lazy players in the team.

Main Event:

Super Bowl XLV Pittsburgh Steelers V Green Bay Packers:

American's provide some of the biggest spectacle's in sport and the Super Bowl is no different with the tag line 'The Biggest Show On Earth', and thankfully the overawing event didn't seem detract from the game of American Football that was taking place. But as much as I do enjoy American sports why does the National Anthem have to be sung A Capella, as it just ends up being an over dramatic warble with undistinguished words and Christina Aguilera's version was no different.

Green Bay had a great start to the game, scoring 2 touchdowns within 25 seconds towards the end of the first quarter, the second being a pass interception returned by Nick Collins, taking the defense's tally to 7 touchdowns for the season.

During the second quarter Pittsburgh came back with a field goal, which was followed by a touchdown for each team. Towards the end of the second quarter Greens Bay's defense started to drop like flies, and they lost veteran Charles Woodson for the rest of the game.

The Black Eyed Peas half-time show was a bit bitter-sweet with the performance being brilliant with dramatic entrance's, fluorescent lit dancers and moving sections of stage. But they just didn't have the songs to fill a 13 minute slot, having to draft in Slash for a rendition of 'Sweet Child of Mind' with Fergie, and Usher, who just looked like any other nondescript dancer, to do his own song OMG, backed up with a few yelps from will.i.am.

The third quarter only saw one score with Pittsburgh's Rashard Mendenhall rush for a touchdown. This led to the Pittsburgh fans increasing the volume and getting out their terrible towels, as momentum continued to shift in their favour.

In the fourth quarter a fumble recovery by Green Bay led to Greg Jenning's second touch down of the night, but Pittsburgh weren't finished yet and with a touchdown from wide receiver Mike Wallace and a 2 point conversion brought Pittsburgh to within 3 points of Green Bay. Green Bay responded with a field goal, which were the final points of the game.

Ultimately turn-overs cost Pittsburgh the game with Green Bay scoring 3 of their 4 touchdowns from them, but it was a well deserved win for Green Bay, with quarterback Aaron Rodgers taking the MVP.

The official attendance for the game was 103,219, which thankfully fell short of the record attendance, set in 1980 at the Rose Bowl for Super Bowl XIV, as paying spectators inside and outside of the stadium that didn't have a seat or even a view of the field counted towards the official attendance. The record would have been broke but some temporary seats were not able to be used as they did not receive a safety certificate as they were installed too late.

Cool-Down:

Another 2-2 draw for Sheffield Wednesday, if they can't beat teams finishing games with 9 men how do they expect to end the season in the play-offs, I cant see Gary Megson doing much and would of rather liked to see Chris Hughton or Gary Johnson take charge.

Another loss for the England Cricket team, in ODI cricket, to finish the series with Australia losing 6-1. I don't think that it is going to be injury's that impedes us in the World Cup, it will be that we lose wickets high up in the order too easily.

Stoke's set pieces against Sunderland during the Premier League's Saturday lunchtime kickoff worked brilliantly, they caused chaos among the defense, thus creating scoring opportunity's to who ever got their first.

And finally a winning start to the season for the Sheffield Eagles, beating Gateshead Thunder in the Northern Rail Cup group stages, I think that this season they have a genuine chance of brining home some silverware, and hopefully they can build on last seasons success of moving too Bramall Lane, with higher attendance figures, and maybe other matches being played their too (cup semi-finals or internationals)

Recent Results:

Npower League 1 (Football): Sheffield Wednesday 2 Milton Keynes Dons 2

Evo-Stik First Division South (Football): Goole AFC 2 Sheffield FC 5

Northern Rail Cup (Rugby League): Gateshead Thunder 20 Sheffield Eagles 32