My Sporting Weekend 4-6th March:
Warm-Up's:
Aviva Premiership (Rugby Union):
Leicester Tigers v Saracens, the game was pretty evenly matched with a tight start and a 6-6 scoreline until Manu Tuilagi got the first try on 28 minutes after receiving the ball just inside Saracens half and beating 4 men down the left hand side. This was followed by each team scoring a penalty, with the Tigers going into half time with a 14-9 lead.
Saracens started the second half well but good defending from Leicester kept them out after 23 phases in their own 22, with the Tigers players celebrating winning a penalty like they had scored a try. Saracens had virtually all the field position and finally got the first points of the second a half with a Alex Goode penalty on 64 minutes, but then the Tigers finally got into the second half, missing a penalty, but having some possession and field position of their own. Alex Goode then scored another penalty, from 40 meters, for Saracens to take the lead on 74 minutes, Leicester put the pressure on and Saracens gave away a penalty, for being offside, with 30 seconds to go. Replacement Billy Twelvetrees stepped up but missed with the last kick of the game, giving Saracens the victory.
The first half was pretty even, with the Tigers getting the break though with the only try, but Saracens played well in the 2nd half, keeping the Tigers pinned in their own half, and deservedly won the game.
Barclays Premier League (Football):
Manchester City V Wigan, the game was pretty evenly matched, with Wigan playing well, until an awful error from Al-Habsi on 38 minutes, letting a shot from David Silva through his legs, gave City the lead. The second half was pretty uneventful with neither team really creating any goal scoring opportunities, but Wigan did play some good football, keeping possession well, and City looked as if they were playing for a 1-0 win from the moment they scored. Man City had a lot of the ball but didn't play fast enough to put Wigan under any real pressure, as they had time to get men behind the ball.
British Super-Featherweight Title (Boxing):
Gary Sykes v Carl Johanneson, this all Yorkshire bout pitted Dewsbury's British champion Gary Sykes against Leeds's challenger Carl Johanneson, who was looking to kickstart his career, at the Huddersfield Leisure Centre. Sykes dominated the opening rounds with his fast movement and quick punches, but Johanneson came back into the fight during the 4th round, before taking control during the 6th with his big hits. The pair were then evenly matched until Johanneson knocked Sykes down in the 9th and tried to finish the fight straight away, Sykes controlled himself and came back into the fight as Johanneson tired, ending the round on top. Sykes then took control during the 11th putting the pressure on for the final 2 rounds. The fight pretty even and was boxed at a fast pace throughout, with Gary Sykes winning on points. This was a really exciting and hugely entertaining fight between 2 evenly matched boxers, with Gary Sykes now looking towards a European Title fight.
Cricket World Cup:
England V South Africa, I turned on to see that South Africa needed 100 from 23 overs and thought that the game would all but over pretty soon with England losing too easily. But they fought back and with the help of a slow pitch, some good, economical, bowling and good wicket keeping from Matt Prior England got themselves back into the game. South Africa started to fall apart from the 32nd over, losing 4 wickets for 3, over 5 overs, South Africa steadied themselves and picked the run rate up, leaving them needing 30 from the last 60 balls with 3 wickets in hand. After 10 overs without a wicket England took control of the game with Tim Bresnan getting the 8th wicket with 22 balls to go, and Stuart Broard finished the game getting the 9th wicket with 17 balls to go and the 10th 3 balls later for England to win by 6 runs. What I saw was really entertaining with the slow pitch playing a huge part in that, hopefully England can now kick on and put together full team performance's for the last too group games, against Bangladesh and the West Indies, and qualify for the quarter-finals in a good position.
Main Event:
Barclays Premier League (Football):
Liverpool V Manchester United, Liverpool started well with some good passing and movement, with United not being able to keep up with them.
Liverpool got the first goal after some good control in the box from Luis Suarez, taking the ball round 3 players, and crossing the ball for an easy tap in for Dirk Kuyt, Kuyt also got the second goal after pouncing on a mis-timed header back towards the United goal from Nani. Their was a bit of a bizarre incident just before half time, after being on the end of a bad tackle from Jaime Carragher, where he studded him on the shin, Nani got up and walked around before diving/collapsing in front of the ref, and requiring to be stretchered off, leaving the rest of the players squaring up to each other. Liverpool did excellent in the first half, playing with confidence and having lots of possession in the Man U half and creating the better chances. Man U had a lot of possession around the half way line but didn't really create anything going any further towards Liverpool's goal.
Man U started the second half well but could not get the break through, and when Kuyt then completed his hat-trick, on 64 minutes, following up a Suarez free-kick that Van Der Sar couldn't keep hold of, the game was all but over and the Man U players were left standing still with their hands in the air. Hernandez got a consolation during injury time, from a header off a Ryan Giggs cross where he was poorly marked. To an extent the second half was a bit of a non event, and after Liverpool got their 3rd goal they never looked like losing, as Man U didn't create anywhere near enough good chances to get themselves back in the game. Suarez had a excellent game, putting defenders under pressure and creating good goal scoring chances, and with Andy Carroll finally making is Liverpool debut, they could potentially form a good partnership, depending on what formation is played around them. Man U had a bit of a patched up team with Wes Brown and Chris Smalling starting at center halves, but this shouldn't be an excuse as Smalling has been playing well and Brown has lots of experience at the highest level. Also with both Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes starting Man U didn't have any impact players on the bench that they could bring on, apart from Javier Hernandez who replaced Nani, that would make a difference.
Cool-Down's:
Eric Cantona was back in the UK media this week with his interview for Football Focus, where he mentioned that the karate kick was his career highlight, but his position of Director of Soccer and the future of the New York Cosmos is of more interest to me. At the moment all that New York Cosmos is a name, they want to join Major League Soccer (top tier in the US), but they currently do not have a first team. They teamed up with 2 existing clubs, Blau Weiss Gottschee, based in Queens, NY and Los Angeles Futbol Club, based in Pasadena, CA, (who have recently severed ties with the Cosmos and changed their name), but all they have done is change the names of the youth teams and gave them nice shiny new kits. Yes they may have put money into these clubs to help with running costs and other expenses, but surely they should be starting their own youth teams from scratch, and develop it into their own style of academy, and not just jump on board a club that may already has a good setup and take the credit for it. Another issue I have is that recent teams that have joined, or are joining, the MLS, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver and Montreal, ran teams at lower levels of the American professional structure to build up fan bases and links with the local community, as well as developing their own stadiums and training facility's, but the Cosmos do not have any plans to join lower levels of the American structure, or build their own facilities. There is precedent set with teams joining the league without playing at a lower level, Philadelphia is the most recent, but Cantona talked in his interview about academy players playing professionally in 5 years time and surely for a club to grow this way they need to be fielding teams at a lower level than the MLS before stepping up so that they know the standard of player they need to be producing. After looking around for the Cosmos future plans I have found virtually no information, apart from that they want to play in the MLS and that they want to produce their own players. Now there are lots of different teams, in different sports, in America that come and go each year all thinking that they can establish themselves and at least break even, but the Cosmos have the history of their name and hopefully they can establish themselves as a viable team in the US, and are not just owned by someone looking to make some quick cash off a historic name in American soccer.
Sheffield Wednesday were back to losing ways this week with a defeat to bottom club, (albeit because of a 10 point deduction for going in to administration), Plymouth, and it seems nothing has changed over the last few years. Excuses such as players are not interested, manager is not good enough, it is to intimidating to play at Hillsborough, board/chairman don't know what they are doing are becoming boring, maybe we should all support someone else and their would be no complaining then.
Recent Results:
Challenge Cup (Rugby League): Sheffield Eagles 82 Leeds Met 0
Npower League 1 (Football): Sheffield Wednesday 2 Plymouth 4
Evo-Stik League South Division (Football): Sutton Coldfield Town 4 Sheffield FC 2
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