This weekend has been intense. It has required planning and stamina in order to make the most of the sporting contests available.
Friday offered the rugby league as ever.
Saturday evening started with the All Blacks-Ireland game in New Plymouth. As a contest it was ruined when Ireland had a player sent off after 15 minutes. My TAB bet on Ireland to win quickly went up in smoke at that point. The game turned out to be better than I thought, and just showed how it could have been if ‘rush of blood’ to ‘brain’ had not occurred.
Immediately following that game was Australia -England from Perth. England were shite. I do not know what came over me to think that they would be any better. Given that they were shite in the Six Nations, and that they were flattered by their placing, I should have known exactly how things would have panned out. Australia were fast, skillful and enterprising. england were ponderous, error prone and bereft of ideas. when will I learn?
Then it was up early (6-30) for England’s first game in the World Cup. It is hard to know from here how well they have actually played recently, and also difficult to keep tabs on the individuals in the team. Watching England is all about heartache, and so it turned out.
A dream start followed by the same limitations I have observed all my football watching life. An inabilty to control and hold onto the ball, route 1 attacks and nervous jitters at the back. The goalkeeping bloomers are a relatively recent addition to the scope of events. But what a classic.
Trying to be positive; I have seen worse at the start (and middle, and end) of major tournaments. If Italy can play crap at the beginning of tournaments and go onto win, then maybe so can the three lions.
Time to watch more football, read more news about the teams so that I can lose some more money at the TAB-as an expert.
I have been saddened to note that there has been insufficient recognition of the role of Brentford FC in the development of NZ’s new classy defender-Tommy Smith.
Come on you whites.
