Youth Is The Key, Supposedly

My Sporting Weekend 17-19^th June 2011:

Warm-Up's:

Engage Super League (Rugby League):

St Helens V Wigan Warriors, The Warriors made a good start, keeping the Saints pinned back in their own half with a good kicking game that the Saints could not diffuse, and at the the half they were leading 20-0. And although the Saints played well to absorb long periods of Wigan attacks, they did little going forward and Wigan took control of the match when they went from a lead of 6 to 20 within a 6 minute period when Pat Richards got a penalty goal, on 25 minutes, followed by a try out wide after a good Paul Deacon kick, and Joel Tomkins then went over after the Saints defence didn't deal with Richards high kick.

Wigan then virtually secured their victory early in the 2nd half when Brett Finch forced his way over, after breaking through a couple of tacklers, but the Saints did come back with a pair of their own trys, with Tony Puletua and Thomas Makinson going over, as the Wigan defence lapsed . Wigan then completed the scoring when Jeff Lima got his 1^st try for the Warriors after being the 1^st to a loose ball in the Saints in goal area.

Wigan played fantastic as a team, dictating the speed of the play of the ball, pinning St Helens back in their own half, as well as scoring some great trys and Jeff Lima and Brett Finch probably had their best games since joining the club. Although it wasn't reflected in the scoreline St Helens actually didn't play that bad, especially in defence, it was just a case of Wigan executing their game plan so well, and if Wigan were playing a weaker side they would have probably put at least 60 points past them, but going forward St Helens found it hard to get any momentum going, and their kicking game was pretty much non-existent.

FIFA U17 World Cup, Group (Football):

Rwanda V England, I only saw the 2^nd half and England made a good start creating a few chances, but as the game settled down Rwanda came back into the match and had more of the ball, creating a few chances of their own. But England were just physically stronger, and this showed with their 1^st goal, with Everton's Hallam Hope out muscling a Rwandan defender after a quick break, before fooling the keeper with a shimmer, and then lifting the ball over him.

England then sealed the victory with 4 minutes to go when Liverpool's Raheem Sterling scored with a curling right footed shot from outside the area.

England should now easily qualify for the next stage, and hopefully they can put on some good performances and go deep into the competition. And realistically English football needs their national youth teams to do well in, in this, and all tournaments if they want to build towards winning major honours at senior level, and hopefully the media can give this tournament the coverage and respect it deserves.

Milwaukee 225 (IndyCar):

After dominating the start of the race Dario Franchitti, leading the 1^st 130 laps or so, he fell behind Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves as they came to the front of the field. But fortunately for Franchitti, Kannan spun out with 25 laps to go, ending his race, and during the caution Castroneves had to come in for an unscheduled pit-stop, because of a potential flat tyre, leaving Franchitti to easily take the victory.

After starting in 17^th Will Power did well to make his way through traffic, and eventually finished in 4^th, but due to Franchitti's 1^st place finish he is now on equal points with him at the top of the championship standings.

This wasn't the most entertaining race ever, and the main issue was that more than a quarter of the race was run under caution conditions, after 6 yellow flag periods, and this led to no pit stops being taken during green flag conditions, which normally shakes up the positions, meaning more overtaking. But it was not to be and it was good too see Franchitti win again and go to the (joint) top of the championship standings.

Main Event:

UEFA U21's European Finals, Group B (Football):

England V Czech Republic, A disappointing loss for English team has left them finishing 3^rd in their group, and out of the tournament, as the Czech team progressed to the semi's with a 2-1 victory, after 2 late goals from Jan Chramosta and Tomas Pekhart. To an extent England played well again, keeping the ball and looking to play from the back, as the Czech's just looking to break on the counter, but they seemed tactically naïve as the 2 defensive midfielder's sat too deep, compacting the space between them and the the 2 centre halves. And as well as sitting deep the 2 centre midfielder's were also too static when they got the ball, not moving forward to support each other, or to support the more attacking players, and as the Czech's defended deep their was not really much use for 2 defensive midfielder's and I think that England would have been better off pushing Jordan Henderson further forward to give the defence and Fabrice Muamba a better outlet.

Kyle Walker, surprisingly, had a quiet game, after 2 good performances against Spain and Ukraine, as he didn't really get in the game and make many good runs down the wing, and was mainly used as an outlet, before mainly moving the ball along to Daniel Sturridge.

The only midfielder to come out of the game with any real credit it Henri Lansbury, who, after coming on as a 2^nd half sub, wanted the ball, and helped bridge the gap between midfield and attack.

Throughout this tournament I feel that Stuart Pearce has been tactically naïve and inflexible by sticking to his 4-2-3-1 formation, that was too defensive at times, and left a large gap between the 6 defensive players and the 4 forward players, as the 2 centre midfielder's sat too deep, and didn't really push forward to support the attackers. This also meant that their was a lot of long balls played forward as the gap was too big to play short, fast, passes on the floor, and although Danny Welbeck is a good header of the ball their wasn't really any support for flick ons and he found it hard to hold on to the ball. As games went on England did improve, but normally after substitutes were introduced, so were the players coming off not good enough, and if so why where they starting, as Scott Sinclair, Henri Lansbury and Jack Rodwell did more coming off the bench than starters Jordan Henderson, Tom Cleverly, Michael Mancienne and Danny Rose did.

Overall this was a disappointing tournament for England and I expected them to get through the group stage, and even through they were missing both Jack Wilshire and Andy Carroll, I didn't think that it would make a difference, but Carroll has the ability to hold up the long ball that England were playing, and Wilshire would have probably been more creative in the defensive midfielders position than Jordan Henderson.