And There It Was Gone
The weekend has come and gone along with our hopes of being crowned World Champions in at least one high profile sport.
I and millions of others sat down to watch England try and become the first side to retain the Rugby World Cup, on Saturday only to see the Springboks prove to strong. Funnily enough the talk before the game was of the mistakes that the South Africans had been making throughout the tournament and how Jonny would be able to take full advantage of them. Unfortunately it was the English boys, who made the mistakes, and always right in front of the posts to make it an easy conversion. That coupled with not being able to win our own line outs in kep positions, meant we only ever looked like scoring a try once and that was taken away by an Austalian - poetic justice there I guess - where are the Russian linesmen when you need them?
In the end though it was the South African’s defence that win the match for them and although we all felt disappointed we should remember that England started the World Cup as 80/1 to retain it and did well to get as close as they did. Let’s hope they can build on the experience and turn it on in the 6 NAtions next time around.
Then there was Sunday. At least we could rely on Lewis Hamilton to restore some pride! Wrong again. I missed the start and tuned in with 20 laps to go and Hamilton 40 plus seconds behind the 5th place he needed to be. Ironic that his car should elt him down at the last hurdle but strangely satisfying that Alonso didn’t pip him to it, or is that just me? There is of course the appeal that McLaren will launch but I wont hold my breath and I wouldn’t like to see him win like that, especially after the other scandal that has dogged the sport this year.
The FIA have to be careful - there are so many rules and regulations that they are in danger of turning people off the sport. It ceased to be about the best driver years ago, but it should certainly not be about which team has the best lawyers.
All in all not the best week for British Sport, especially with the the Football team looking likely to drop out of Euro 2008. If that happens I might need to go off on holiday for a month next year. Somewhere away from all Television.
On the upside at least the Pompey boys won away from home again to maintain there 5th spot in the Premiership, although it was yet another controversial weekend for referees. FIFA should definitely look at the use of video technology to avoid such controversy….