The Sporting Highs and Lows of the last 8 days…
After being at Welford Road 8 days ago to witness the Leicester Tigers out maul, out play and beat a strong South Africa side 22-17 I was looking forward to England doing the same against Argentina yesterday… How wrong could I be? Even taking into account the fact that there was an entire starting XV on the injury table I was expecting more! There was no passion, very little skill, no invention and at all costs kick the ball first. However, two players did stand out or a mention; Dylan Hartley and Lewis Moody. Both of them showed pride for the shirt (even if it was purple!). Argentina played well but they made a lot of mistakes, a good side would has capitalised on those mistakes and put points on the board. I don’t even want to think about what will happen next week when we take on the All Blacks, why can I see a cricket score coming…
So it seemed like Groundhog Day but that wasn’t the only time in the last week I have felt it! Last Saturday I was at the “Theatre of Crisps” to watch Leicester City take on West Bromwich Albion, now I am a Leicester lad but I support Liverpool, however, I do have a soft spot for my hometown club. To my dismay I learned that I was to be sitting in the West Brom end… I should have expected this as it was part of stag weekend where the stag was a Baggies fan! I saw a close game with West Brom deservedly taking the points 2-1. It could have gone either way but the Baggies had that little bit extra in the middle of the park. This brings me onto yesterdays debacle in Doha, England taking on Brazil in a meaningless (money grabbing) friendly, again the team had been ravaged by injuries but the players that came in just weren’t up to or ready for international football. Brazil only won the game 1-0 but they hardly got out of second gear. There was none of the passion I had seen from Leicester the week before, they were 2-0 with 10 minutes to go and fought like troopers to get back in the game and got the goal they deserved. England had nothing, they could still be playing now and still not have scored, and it doesn’t bode well for the World Cup next year if this is the strength of our back-up players.
Perhaps it was just the occasions, or the locations, or the timing of the games but I expect more from my national teams!
