Warm-Up's:
Heineken Cup Final (Rugby Union):
Leinster V Northampton Saints, The Northern Hemisphere’s biggest club game of the season was back in Cardiff for the 6th time, (4th at the Millenium Stadium), and their was a brilliant atmosphere under the closed roof that gave the game an extra edge.
The Saints made the better start putting pressure on the Leinster scrum, with Phil Dowson scoring the opening try on 7 minutes, after going over out on the left wing, which was followed by a fantastic conversion from Stephen Myler out on the touch-line. Leinster then got themselves back in the game with a bit of territory, before Jonathan Sexton slotted over the 1st penalty of the game from 40 meters out. Myler extended the Saints lead on 21 minutes with a penalty from out on the left wing, but after some pressure on their defence Saints went down to 14 men when front-rower Brian Mujarti was sin-binned for pulling back Cian Healy off the ball. Although they had to reshuffle their forwards the Saints scrum was still dominant and they got their 2nd try on 31 minutes when Ben Foden went over after powering through the Leinster defence and Myler scored his 3rd kick from out on the left wing. Leinster got their 2nd score on 36 minutes with Sexton slotting over a 2nd penalty, won after a high shot, but the Saints got another try 2 minutes before half-time when Dylan Hartley powered over, and was given the nod by the video ref, to take a 16 point lead into half-time.
Northampton had a fantastic 1st half and going down to 14 men didn't faze them at all, but it was Leinster handling errors that cost them, giving away the ball too easy.
Leinster had a good start to the 2nd half with Sexton going over after some good work through the centre, and he then went on and converted his try, Sexton then carried on his scoring run with his 2nd converted try, on the 53 minute, after more Leinster pressure on the Saints defence. Sexton then scored another 2 penalties in quick succession, with the 1st one won from a scrum and the 2nd one after the Saints had their 2nd player sent to the sin-bin, with Phil Dowson going off for a deliberate, try saving, knock on. Leinster then extended their lead to 11 points when Nathan Hines went over and Sexton converted, as the Saints just couldn't keep up with their opponents, and on 68 minutes Sexton missed his 1st kick of the game. The Saints came back into the game a bit during the last 10 minutes, but Leinster had already blown them away and they never looked like scoring, with the game finishing 33-22 to Leinster.
Leinster had complete control of the 2nd half as Northampton disappeared out of the game, and they showed great steel to come back out after half time and put on a fantastic performance to win the match. Jonathan Sexton came away with the Man-Of-The-Match and truly deserved it after a fantastic game with the boot, as well as getting 2 tries to pick up 28 points during the match. Also after the match it was revealed that it was Sexton's half-time speech that went towards motivating his team to such a fantastic 2nd half.
Northampton will be extremely disappointed with their last 40 minutes of the 2010-11 season, but it cannot be forgotten how far they have come since getting promoted back to the Premiership in 2008, winning the European Challenge Cup, LV Cup, reaching the the Premiership play-offs twice, as well as this Heineken Cup final appearance, and if they continue to build it won't be long until the they have top-level European glory, or lift the Premiership trophy.
Santander Spanish Grand Prix (Formula 1):
Mark Webber started on pole but was swamped by Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel before he got to the 1st corner, Alonso made a fantastic start going from 4th to 1st after getting up the inside of the 1st corner, but it was Button who was the biggest loser after getting pushed out wide and having to take the long way round he lost 5 places.
Pit stops started early as teams looked towards 4 stop strategies with Vettel pitting twice in the opening 19 laps, and he got past Alonso with the undercut (ie pitting earlier and coming out in clean air), but it looked like Hamilton had a good real chance of getting past Vettel during the latter pitstops to give him the lead. During lap 37 Button used DRS to get past Webber before overtaking Alonso nearly straight away to get up to 3rd.
It was announced with about 20 laps to go that Vettel lost his KERS system, giving Hamilton, who was just over a second behind him, the encouragement to get past him and win, But 5 laps later it looked as if it was working again and even through Hamilton was able to catch him on the straight he never had the chance to get past him, leaving Vettel to win the race and Hamilton in 2nd, 35 seconds in front of 3rd placed Button. Webber finished in 4th and Alonso eventually finished in 5th, a lap down, after pitting early in a run to get the undercut left him in traffic later in the race.
After starting at the back of the grid, because he missed qualifying, Nick Heidfeld had a good race, finishing in 8th.
During the race their was a lack of overtaking, with the DRS system being virtually ineffective in helping this situation, but the 3 and 4 stop pit strategies did at least make the race somewhat interesting with the constant changing of positions.
Challenge Cup (Rugby League):
Bradford Bulls V Wigan Warriors, After getting some good crowds this season the attendance was pretty pitiful, just short of 6,000, and although these low attendances are far too common for the Challenge Cup I don't think much can be done, apart from a major revamp of the competition which I don't think would be a very good idea. This game was played in very windy conditions which swirled around high up, but did favour one team, and it was the Bulls who played into it in the 1st half. The Warriors Pat Richards had an early try attempt wiped off for dropping the ball, before Elliott Whitehead got the opening try for the Bulls on 11 minutes, after a long video ref delay. From the kick off Richards put it straight out of play and this put the Warriors on the back foot as the Bulls had some more good possession, but it was the Warriors who scored next with Richards going over down the left wing, on 18 minutes, after some good accurate passing, and the Bulls sliding defence not being able to get across. Sam Tomkins got Wigans 2nd try on 30 minutes, but as he went over the line he was hit in the head and knocked unconscious by Gareth Raynor, who was subsequently sent off. 5 minutes later the Warriors lost a player of their own with Jeff Lima being sent to the sin-bin for persistent contact to the head.
Although they went down to 12 men Bradford were only trailing by 4 points at half-time, and playing with the wind in the 2nd half gave them a chance to get back in the game, as long as their kicking game was good, and they kept their discipline, which is what Wigan had lacked, at times, in the 1st half.
The Warriors Brett Finch got the opening try of the 2nd half, on 43 minutes, after trapping the ball under his foot and running half the length of the field virtually unchallenged, from a poor kick through from Kyle Briggs, and 2 minutes later, after a good offload from Darrell Goulding, Richards went over for his 2nd try of the game. Patrick Ah Van gave the Bulls a glimmer of hope when he went over down the right wing, on 48 minutes, and his conversion brought them back within 10 points. Then on 64 minutes Michael Platt made a good break to get the Bulls down the pitch and Shad Royston scored after retrieving a grubber kick through from Briggs, the momentum was then with the Bulls and the home crowd could be heard for the 1st time in the game getting behind their team. But Liam Farrell seemingly secured the win for the Warriors with 5 minutes to go, stretching out and getting the ball down after finding a gap in the Bulls defence, Ah Van did get a consolation out on the right wing with the final play of the game but the final score was 26-22 in Wigan's favour.
Bradford played well to keep themselves in the game after the sending off, but I don't think that they had that much going forward against a strong Wigan defence, both teams had a lot of errors in their game with Wigan just switching off after getting the 2 early tries in the 2nd half. This was not the best game to watch with neither teams defence or offence being outstanding, although Briggs and Royston had good games for Bradford.
Main Event:
Challenge Cup (Rugby League):
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats V Castleford Tigers, with a place in the quarter final at stake this 5th round match attracted a decent crowd for the big Calder derby. The Tigers got the opening score on 6 minutes, after Dale Morton lost control of the ball just short of the goal line, Brett Ferres collected it and dived over, but the Wildcats drew level 10 minutes later when Julian Rinaldi chipping through and Glenn Morrison touching down. The Wildcats then took the lead on 32 minutes after Josh Veivers slotted over a penalty, won after Willie Isa blocked Stuart Howarth after he kicked through from about 20 meters out.
The 1st half was pretty even, but most of the play was down the Wakefield end, due to the wind helping the Castleford kicking game, but neither team really made use of it to put either the back line under pressure with high bombs.
The Wildcats extended their lead at the start of the 2nd half with another Veivers penalty on 44 minutes, and another try on 48 minutes when a grubber kick came off the post and Tommy Lee touched down during the confusion, but the Tigers came back with their own try after Rangi Chase threw a couple of dummies before breaking through the goal-line defence and touching down. On 56 minutes a high kick worked when the Wildcats Josh Griffin lost the ball to Danny Orr who went over to level the scores, but with 10 minutes to go Veivers kicked his 3rd penalty, conceded by Nick Fozzard for an attempted head-butt, for the Wildcats to take the lead once again. On 77 minutes the Wildcats gave away a penalty 20 meters out for a high tackle and Kirk Dixon converted to set up golden point extra-time, and the inevitable drop-goal competition.
The lead in the 2nd half tooed and froed between each team with neither team really taking control of the game, but by playing the safe option of kicking the penalty's instead of running the ball Wakefield kept the scoreboard ticking over, and themselves in the game.
During extra-time both teams had some pretty awful drop-goal attempts as game plans disappeared when they reached the 5th tackle and wild kicks came from all over the pitch towards goal, instead of looking to pin the opposition back as close to their goal-line as possible and force the error. After 10 minutes, just as the half time hooter sounded, Morton was penalised for a 2-on-1 ball steal to give Dixon the opportunity to win the game for the Tigers, which he did with a curling kick from out on the left wing.
This was a tense game with a exciting, but slightly disappointing finish, (due to the awful drop-goal attempts), and eventually ending with a penalty, maybe 'Golden Try' would be a better option to find a winner in cup games if replays are out of the question.
Recent Results:
The Co-Operative Championship (Rugby League): Halifax 14-12 Sheffield
LV County Championship (Cricket): Lancashire: 329 & 121-4 (14.2 overs)
Yorkshire: 141 & 308 (130.3 overs)
Lancashire beat Yorkshire by 6 wickets
CB40 (Cricket): Worcestershire: 155-9 (40.0 overs)
Yorkshire: 156-3 (36.3 overs)
Yorkshire beat Worcestershire by 7 wickets
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