Six Cups

Yesterday I went to the pub for a double header of sport - I was watching both the Wales v. England Six Nations Rubgy match and the Watford v. Chelsea FA Cup 5th Round match at the same time (there were side-by-side screens showing the games). Neither match went the way of my hoped for results (i.e. England and Watford wins), but they were both enjoyable nonetheless.

In the rugby the fact that England were beaten by Wales wasn't a surprising or unexpected result, but the way England played was the most surprising aspect of the match. We actually played a decent game! We played some good rugby with movement and attacking options and managed to score two rather decent tries, and if it hadn't been for giving away too many silly penalties and getting players sin binned we could have taken the game.

In the football the excitement mainly came in the form of nail-biting tension as Chelsea pummeled the Watford penalty area, but without managing to score (for the first 75 minutes at least). And then Watford got a surprise break and a goal to take the lead! We obviously got the goal too soon as we then managed to concede a hat-trick to Anelka, but it was very nice while it lasted. Chelsea deserved the win, but we at least made them work for it in the end.

Seven of one and half a dozen (plus one) of the other

Today I went to watch some Rugby Sevens at the AWD-Arena in Hannover. Now rugby isn't a sport I'd expected to see when I came out to Germany, but when I saw that they were hosting the final leg of the European Rugby Sevens Championship I thought why not go along. The event was over two days, but I only went for the final phase games today. It was a good afternoons worth of rugby and I probably saw about 12 games over four and a half hours. There were some pretty bad matches (the poor Belgian's could score a single point,) but also some decent ones, with the Georgians, the Spanish and the Russians all putting on decent shows. The atmosphere in the stadium definitely became livelier when Germany were playing and they did reasonably well. The generally well established rugby nations of Wales and Ireland, despite getting to the highest Cup stage of the competition today, both looked distinctly poor. The one problem that does come with Sevens matches is that they only last 14 mins, so each game doesn't really have time get a character of its own. You don't get the ups and downs, and major incidents, that come with a full length game.

All-in-all I enjoyed the afternoon as I haven't been to see any live sport in ages (I think the last time was a Scotland vs. England six nation match three or four years ago!) I think a few of us might consider going along to the AWD-Arena again to catch a Hannover 96 Bundesliga game - their first home game is over the weekend of 22-24th August again FC Energie Cottbus (which just leaves me to say, in a Scouse accent, "FC Energie Cottbus! Who are they!?", "Exactly".)

Back on top

The rightful order has been restored as yesterday saw Watford regain their place at the top of the league by beating Ipswich away 1-2. Prior to the game Ipswich had had an unbeaten home record for the season, so the results went against the form books. However our away record for this season has actually been a fair bit better than our home performances, with 10 wins away compared to just 6 at home. That said our recent performances have been somewhat inconsistent after the great start to the league, meaning that our once mighty 9 point advantage over the other Championship high-fliers has completely disappeared, and our current position is only thanks to other teams around us slipping up. It's still very tight at the top with four teams separated by only two points. It's definitely going to be a scrap until the end of the season for the two automatic promotions places.

In the world of rugby England just about managed to hold on to a win against Italy today, but did our absolute best to try and give the game away again! We just can't play for a full 80 minutes apparently! Hopefully some players will have new arseholes well and truely ripped and we'll learn how to hold on to the ball for a bit.

Away win

We've done what's eluded us so far this season, we've got an away win in the league! Yes, you heard it, the mighty Hornets went to deepest, darkest East London and bested West Ham 1-0. Apparently we were deserved winner, but I'll have to watch the highlights on MOTD this evening. It's the same score line we beat them with to get through to the next round of the FA Cup (in which we're playing Ipswich next Saturday by the way). This bring us to a glorious 18 points (I know we're still bottom of the table), only 7 points behind Wigan in the tantalising 17th spot. I can see us staying up I really can (ok that's just a fevered fantasy, but I'll live it for a few minutes).

[Update: I just watched the match highlights and it game was pretty eventful. There were two penalties: the first one was for us, and in reality was a fairly soft foul, but Henderson slotted it home; the second was for West Ham, and maybe should have earned Gavin Mahon a red card, but the Hammers missed it. Phew! There were a few other near misses from both sides. Mackay cleared/deflected a goal bound Tevez shot, and Foster had to make a great save to keep us ahead. Foster did, however make a bit of a blunder when he dropped the ball in his area whilst Zamora was hassling him, luckily he somehow managed to snatch it back off Zamora before he could get a shot on. I'm just happy we got the win.]

In England rugby news we got a 20-7 win against Italy today. It was however a rather dull game compared to last week's Six Nations opener, so there's not really much to say about it.

One man army

After a year (well a bit more than that actually) of utterly dire play the English rugby team have finally put a smile back on their fans faces. We started off the Six Nations with a 42-20 victory against Scotland at Twickenham. This was thanks in a large part to one man - Jonny Wilkinson. Now there's a lot of hype surrounding Jonny's return to the England set up and it risks being blown out of all proportions, but his performance today was just great - and this is from someone who's been out injured and not played for England in three years, and who's only played 40 mins for his club this season! I think this injury factor makes people feel for Jonny a bit more than other players and adds to the hype. There's also the fact that he was one of our World Cup heros, which means in England fans eyes he's something of a legend. I can imagine it was a fair risk including him at all, but I think he showed why he can be so important to the team. Just talking about Jonny does a disservice to the rest of the team like Harry Ellis, but as I don't follow rugby much except for internationals I don't really know who the majority of the team are, so I can't talk much about them. One match can't tell everything though, so we'll have to wait and see if the team can keep it together and build up to something decent in this World Cup year.

And yes, I know that Jonny's try shouldn't have counted.