My Sporting Weekend 25-26th June 2011:
Warm-Up's:
Engage Super League (Rugby League):
Wigan Warriors V Huddersfield Giants,
Wigan opened the scoring on minutes when some expansive play left the Huddersfield defence chasing shadows as Sam Tomkins touched down. But the Giants responded soon after with winger David Hodgson going over after a Sam Tomkins mistake gave the Giants field possession from a goal-line drop-out. But off the restart full-back and goal-kicker Scott Grix fumbled the ball and, from the resulting field position, Sam Tomkins went over for his 2nd try, after a good run.
The Warriors 3rd try then came on 17 minutes, after another Huddersfield error gave away possession, and Thomas Leuleuai went over from dummy half, with the markers out of position.
Both teams carried on making errors, with Wigan's Paul Deacon fumbling the ball twice, but it was fast hand from him that got the ball away from the ruck quickly, before Brett Finch flicked on to Tomkins who released George Carmont to go over on 25 minutes. The Giants defence did improve but they couldn't keep out Pat Richards as he went over on half time and extend their lead to 22 points.
Huddersfield had a slow start to the game, which may be attributed to their coach breaking down and their late arrival to the ground, but Wigan were playing well, and it was both teams that were making silly errors, but it was Wigan who made the most of these errors.
The 2nd half had a closer scoreline, but Wigan still dominated as Huddersfield couldn’t get any moment going forward, and Josh Charnley and Lee Mossop got the 1st 2 tries of the half for Wigan to seal the victory.
The Giants did get a consolation on 71 minutes when Danny Kirkmond went over, but it was Wigan who got the final score when Sam Tomkins went over to complete his hat-trick, on 75 minutes, after a good meandering run.
Gareth Hock made his return to the Wigan team after a 2 year drugs ban, coming off the bench to a resounding cheer from the Wigan faithful, and although he didn't make that much impact on the game he looking in good condition, and this is a good time for him to come back into a Wigan team looking to win another Super League title.
UEFA Euro U21's Final (Football):
Switzerland V Spain, A 2-0 victory for Spain, over Switzerland at the Aarhus Stadium, Denmark, has meant that they have been crowned European Champions at the under 21 level.
Spain had another good game, with lots of dominating possession, but like in previous games they didn't really create that many good chances, at least until they scored the 2nd goal, and after that point they never looked like losing.
Switzerland did play well in patches, but they never looked threatening as they moved into the final third of the pitch, although Fabian Frei did have a good volley in the 1st half to force a save from Spanish keeper David De Gea.
Overall it wasn't the most entertaining match to watch, but it did show that Switzerland's programme to bring players through a system to make the senior national team more successful is potentially working, although they did seem to have quite a lot of foreign born players, now if they have lived in Switzerland most of their lives that is fine, but if they are going out poaching foreigners then surely that negates the system put in place to bring through good young talent to improve the senior team.
Also as Spain look to build on their current international success at senior level this shows that there are players coming through that can slot into their team, so that they can become force that can genuinely complete at every tournament for the foreseeable future.
FIFA U17 World Cup (Football):
England V Uruguay, both sides were already through to the next round but their was still something to play for with the winner going on to play a 3rd placed team from another group, and the loser playing a 2nd ranked team.
The 1st half was pretty uneventful, apart from when England took the lead in the final minute, with Nathaniel Chalobah heading in off a corner, after being left unmarked by the Uruguayan defence.
For the 1st 15 minutes of the 2nd half England looked a bit shaky in defence, with the Uruguayans having move of the ball in the final 3rd, and drawing a couple of fouls. But England held on and they got their 2nd goal on 58 minutes when Max Clayton slotted in after a good weighted cross from Hallam Hope, as the defence just stood and watched him run through.
This goal sealed the victory for England as they dropped back and allowed Uruguay to have more possession, but they never looked like scoring, and the game finished 2-0.
England now meet Argentina in the next round, and one would assume that they will defiantly be a step up in class and prove a much tougher task than their 3 opening group games. And one of the areas they need to improve on is Jordan Pickford's goalkeeping, as he seems to have a tendency to come out of his net easily, and normally at the wrong time, but he did seem to recover well, so just needs to improve his discipline.
Iowa Corn Indy 250 (IndyCar Series):
The oval season continued with its 4th race of the season, and 8th race overall, and with Will Power and Dario Franchitti being tied at the top of the championship ladder this was an extremely important race for somebody to take control of the lead.
The Versus coverage started with Robin and Dan Wheldon doing a grid walk before the start of the race, which was a good feature and gave good insight insight before the start of the race, as well as a new dimension to the coverage of the race.
The Iowa race is always good to watch, with the short, tight, nature of the track leading to constant action and overtaking, as well as the ability to run 3 wide and quick laps.
The 1st caution came out on the 24th lap with James Jakes losing control of his car in dirty air, and hitting the wall, putting him out of the race. During the caution Power was released into Charlie Kimball's path, damaging the nose cone, and putting him to the back of the field, but fortunately for him he didn't lose any laps.
2nd caution on lap 46 with Ana Beatriz losing control, and collecting Mike Conway, as she went into the wall, as well as showering the track with bits of carbon fibre.
Unfortunately for Will Power his weekend got worse when he spun out and hit the wall, bringing out the 3rd caution of the day, on lap 93, ending his race in 21st position, and putting Franchetti to the top of the championship ladder, and then on lap 115 Sebastian Sevadra brought out the 4th caution as he spun out in the same place of Power.
After getting to the front early on Franchetti then led until Marco Andretti made a good run, overtaking Takuma Sato and Tony Kanaan, before taking the lead on lap 157, but Franchetti got him back a few laps later as they battled for the lead, and as they both came into the pits for what would be their final stops Sato spun out, again at the 2nd corner. This brought out the 5th caution and luckily for them they got into the pits before the caution came out and Andretti led on the restart, after a quick pit-stop.
On the restart Kanaan and Scott Dixon joined the battle for the lead as Franchetti dropped back to, and finished in, 5th, and Andretti took the victory followed by Kanaan in 2nd, Dixon in 3rd and JR Hildebrand in 4th.
Andretti had a fantastic win, for the 1st time since Sonoma in 2006, and looked strong throughout the race as he made his way through traffic after qualifying in 17th.
KV Racing had a mixed weekend with Takuma Sato qualifying on pole, but crashing out and finishing in 19th, Tony Kanaan qualifying in 3rd, before finishing in 2nd and their 3rd driver EJ Viso finished in after having to run in his slower back-up car after crashing last week in Milwaukee and not being able to get it ready in time for this race.
And after a mistake in qualifying Scott Dixon started in 23rd, and had a fantastic race to get up to, and finish in, 3rd, team-mate Franchetti extended his lead in the championship to 20 points with his 5th place finish.
Grand Prix of European (Formula 1):
Red Bull locked out front row with Vettel taking his 7th pole, out of 8, for the season, and his dominance continued when he pulled away from the start, negating, team-mate Mark Webber's opportunity to use his DRS against him.
After a poor star dropping from 3rd to 5th, behind both Ferrari's, Lewis Hamilton was the 1st of the front 6 drivers to come in, from 5th, but after a couple of good laps he could only get past Felipe Massa with the undercut, after the rest of the leaders had pitted.
On the 2nd set of pit stops Mark Webber got the undercut, going back into 2nd with Fernando Alonso dropping back down 3rd, after Alonso overtook Webber earlier in the race.
Midway through the race Jenson Button lost his KERS system, and the 3rd set of pit-stops came and went with little effect and Vettel went on to easily take the victory.
Since it was added to the calender the Valencian Grand Prix has normally been quite a poor race due to it being incredibly difficult to overtake, leading to a 2 hour procession around the streets of the Valencian port, but this year race promised so much more with the introduction of DRS, and it was a truly disappointing race. Like normal their was very little overtaking especially in the KERS areas.
Main Event:
NatWest International T20 (Cricket):
England V Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to field first, and this seemed the right decision with openers Michael Lumb, for 2, and Craig Kieswetter, for 4, falling during the 1st 3 overs. But Eoin Morgan and Kevin Pietersen fought back with a partnership of 83 off 54 balls, until Morgan, for 47, was caught by Mahela Jayawardene, but not before Angelo Mathews dropped him deep in the field when he was on 23 and Thisara Perera's 1st over went for 24. Pietersen was then out in the next over, after a faster ball from veteran spinner Sanath Jayasuria, and England's innings stuttered to end end, with Samit Patel being out for a duck, Ravi Bopara for 19, Luke Wright for 9, Chris Woakes for 9 and new captain Stuart Broad being run out for a duck, as they only put on 35 in the last 7 overs for a final score of 136.
Sri Lanka will have been happy with their effort in the field to limit England to only 136, and if it wasn't for Morgan and Petersen's brilliant partnership the score could have easily been 20 or more less, and the Sri Lanka batters should have thought that they would be able to catch that score without too much trouble, meaning that England had to bowl well and take wickets.
England made a bad start, with some poor bowling, as Sri Lanka's opening partnership of Jayawardene and Jayasuria made 40 before Jayasuria was caught be Pietersen at the start of the 5th over. After the power-play spin was introduced to slow down the run-rate, and although Graeme Swan only gave away 19 off his 1st 3 overs, but Patel was more costly allowing 18 off 2 overs and was taken out of the attack, with Bopara replacing him, and in the 11th over Jayawardene reached his 50.
Jayawardene and Sangakkara then kept the run rate up with occasional boundaries, as England found it hard to take wickets, but it was lax bowling, giving away too many wides, 11, that cost England the game, as Sri Lanka quite easily reached the target set by England with 17 balls remaining.
During the 2nd innings Sri Lanka never looked fazed and looked like they could easily have chased down a higher score as the England bowling attack failed to put the Sri Lankan's under any pressure. And unfortunately for England this was a 1 match series so they don't have the chance to get any sort of revenge, but starting Tuesday is the 5 match ODI series and after this good performance Sri Lanka will be looking for another series victory.
Cool-Downs:
The Women’s football World Cup kicked off this weekend at a sold-out Olympic Stadium in Berlin with current world champions Germany taking on Canada, and even though the Germans dominated the match Canada did create a couple of good chances and actually scored the fist goal against Germany, in a World Cup Finals since the final of the 2003 tournament. But unfortunately for the Canadians 2 goals in the 1st half sealed the victory for Germany.
The English drew in their opening match, against Mexico, and this could be a big blow to their chances of getting far in the tournament as they will now probably come 2nd in the group and would, also, most probably face Germany in the next round.
Recent Results:
The Co-Operative Championship (Rugby League): Widnes Vikings 38-24 Sheffield Eagles
Friends Life T20 (Cricket): Warwickshire: 138-5 (18.0 overs)
Yorkshire: Did not bat
No result
Worcestershire: 183-7 (20.0 overs)
Yorkshire: 142 (18.5 overs)
Worcestershire beat Yorkshire by 41 runs
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