My Sporting Weekend 25-27th of February:
Warm-Up's:
Super League (Rugby League):
St. Helens V Warrington Wolves, This was Saints first game at their new, temporary, home of the Stobart Stadium in Widnes, but the vocal support of the Warrington fans made it sound more like a home game for them. Warrington made a great start with Lee Briers getting 2 trys and 1 for Richie Myler to open up a 18-0 lead within 20 minutes, Saints came back with 5 back to back sets, but fantastic goal line defence from Warrington, kept Saints out. holding up St Helens 3 times in the first half Louis Anderson got the first try of the second half, after 13 minutes, extending Warrington's lead to 24 points as the rain started to fall and both teams started to make handling errors. Michael Shenton finally got Saints first try on 66 minutes, but a drop goal on 70 minutes form Lee Briers all but sealed the 2 points for Warrington. Chris Flannery and Lee Gaskell got consolation trys Saints in the last 5 minutes, but the final score, of 18-25, did not reflect on how good Warrington's defence played throughout the game.
6 Nations (Rugby Union)
England V France, even though each team had only played 2 games before this match this was seen as the decider for the 6 Nations 2011. Penalty's dominated the scoring in the first half with both teams scoring 3 each, towards the end of the first half France had more of the possession and started to dominate the match, as mistakes leaked into England's game. England started the second half strong with Ben Foden getting the first try of the game on the 41st minute, England then had two other close try scoring opportunities, with Chris Ashton being pulled back for a forward pass from Toby Flood and Mike Tindall's effort chalked off after English players were off their feet at the previous ruck. France didn't really create any good scoring opportunities during the match, and England always looked like they were going to win after getting the try early on in the second half.
A win in two weeks against Scotland and England will have all but won the 2011 title and they would have put themselves in a fantastic position to complete the Grandslam.
La Liga (Football):
Mallorca V Barcelona, on 40 minutes a fantastic piece of skill, chesting the ball on the run before a looping header over the keeper, from Lionel Messi, after a good flick over from Seydou Keita gave Barcelona the lead. Up to that point Mallorca played well in defence, not allowing Barcelona to create many chances, but after that Barcelona had virtually all the possession for the rest of the first half, creating a couple more good chances. In the second half Mallorca's defence couldn't catch out David Villa with an offside trap as he went through to score a 1-on-1 with the keeper, up to that point Mallorca's defence played quite deep, which helped to cut out Barcelona's forwards runs through the defence. Barcelona were in complete control after their second goal and Pedro got his 20th goal of the season on 66 minutes with a looping shot from outside the area.
Barcelona were missing several key players, Xavi, Victor Valdes, Danni Alves, and at time's this made a difference, like the incisive, defence splitting, passing of Xavi, Alves creating 1-on-1's down the right hand side by pushing forward, and way Valdes plays the ball to his defenders feet, but a win was never in doubt.
Cricket World Cup 2011:
India V England, this was going to be England's big match, going to India's home of cricket the 90,000 capacity Eden Gardens, Kolkata, to take on the hosts, but after building delays the match was move to the smaller, 40,000 capacity, M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, but the atmosphere was just as hostile with the Indians cheering their team on all throughout their innings, but they calmed down as England started to catch India's score and came back alive towards the end of the game. India built their innings well with Sachin Tendulkah getting his 5th World Cup century , but England failed to take enough wickets, to slow down India's scoring, until the last 5 overs when they got 7 to bowl India out for 338, 1 ball short of 50 overs. Tim Bresnan's bowling at the end of India's innings was excellent taking 4 wickets in his last 2 overs, as well as Virender Sehwag's opening wicket early in the game, but James Anderson was poor again taking only 1 wicket and being hit for 91 off his 9.5 overs. England started their innings well with the opening partnership of Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen put them in a good position to catch India's score, until a fantastic catch from bowler Munaf Patel dismissed Pietersen for 31 off 22 balls. Spin slowed down England's run rate and India got their 2nd wicket with Piyush Chawla getting Jonathan Trott out for 16. Strauss and Ian Bell formed a good partnership, lasting 26 overs, with Strauss getting his 1st World Cup century, but they both fell in the 43rd over to Zaheer Kahn, Bell for 69 and Strauss for 158. Collingwood and Prior came and went pretty sharpish before Michael Yardy and Bresnan steadied the ship, for 2 overs anyway, until Yardy was dismissed for Patel's second wicket, at this point it looked as if India had the victory as England needed 32 of 15 balls to win. After 15 runs and Bresnan's wicket in the 49th over England needed 14 to win, in the last over Graeme Swann got 3 off the first 2 delivery's before Ajmal Shahzad hit a 6 facing his first delivery, a bye followed next before Swann got 2 more, on the last ball England needed 2 to win but all they could get was a single. A draw was probably a fair result with Zaheer Kahn and Tim Bresnan being brilliant with the ball and Sachin Tendulkah and Andrew Strauss excellent with the bat.
Main Event:
World Club Challenge (Rugby League):
Wigan Warriors v St George Illawarra Dragons, the big rugby match of the weekend, pitting together Southern Hemisphere champions St George Illawarra Dragons against Northern Hemisphere champions Wigan Warriors. After a great start from Wigan, with George Carmont scoring after a pin-point accurate kick from Paul Deacon, the Dragons came back with Brett Morris and Matt Cooper getting a try each down the left side. Carmont then got his second try after a fantastic weaving 40 metre run, but Bret Morris also got his second try out on the left wing, the half then finished with a drop goal from Sam Tomkins, for Wigan to take the lead 15-14.
The Dragons got the next two scores with Cameron King scoring the first try of the 2nd half on 54 minutes, after a knock on from Darrell Goulding who was attempting an interception, and a drop goal from Jaime Soward on 68 minutes. This meant that Wigan needed a converted try to tie the scores. Wigan then put the pressure on during the last 10 minutes, with Morris having to make a try saving tackle on Goulding, but after back to back sets they could not get a score.
This was a great game of rugby league played at a high standard with both teams playing well, but Wigan just didn't have enough to crack the Dragons defence in the second half, who had a fantastic performance, and the Dragons came away with a 21-15 win to win the World Club Challenge.
Cool-Down's:
Gary Megson got his first win as Sheffield Wednesday manager, but getting into the play-offs now looks like an impossible task, so it looks like they are now building for next season.
Well done to Birmingham for winning the Carling Cup against Arsenal, I was glad they won after during the build up to the game everybody thought that Arsenal would just turn up and win their first trophy in 6 years and now Birmingham have playing in Europe next season to look forward too as well.
After a 3rd loss in 4 games Sheffield Eagles are now out of the Northern Rail Cup as the group stage is now complete. Next week they are playing Leeds Met University in the Challenge Cup, at home, which they should defiantly win and the week after the regular season starts, and hopefully the team will be up to speed ready for a good go at trying to win the Championship Grand Final.
I read a story, here, from the NASCAR website over the weekend about Joe Denette who won the Virginia lottery in 2009 and now owns a Camping World Truck Series team and this got me thinking if I had a big win in what ways would I spend the money. Now I am not a big fan of 'Sugar Daddies' in sport and I think that teams, leagues and organisations should be self-sufficient so I don't think that I would put any money into any teams I support, apart from buying seasons tickets to all my local teams, (but not Sheffield United, obviously) and I would just probably travel going to watch different sporting events and matches all around the world.
Recent Results:
Npower League 1 (Football): Carlisle 0 Sheffield Wednesday 1
Evo-Stik League South Division (Football): Sheffield FC 3 Shepshed Dynamo 2
Northern Rail Cup (Rugby League): Sheffield Eagles 12 Hunslet Hawks 16
Uploaded by enemyofreality, 28th of February
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