Rugby Mad Blog

EDF Semi-Final 1 – Leicester Tigers vs London Wasps (34-24)

As a neutral watching the game, it was a very entertaining 80 minutes, with the lead changing hands several times, often against the run of play.

I had travelled to the Millennium Stadium with the Saraacens supporters. We had seats in the East stand, about 4 rows back. Good in theory, but pretty bad for the first 40 minutes on a sunny afternoon with the roof open – couldn’t see a thing with the sun straight in our eyes. Eventually it dipped below the stadium roof, and I was able to get some half-decent photos. Paul Sackey scored a great try in the first half, and the teams went in 13-12 at half time.

[Paul Sackey is enveloped by Andy Goode and Harry Ellis, looking sharp for the Leicester defence]

Things opened up a little in the second half, with the Tigers putting more points on the board than Wasps. Sackey managed another touchdown in the second half, along with team mate Danny Cipriani. Whilst for the Tigers, Seru Rabeni, Dan Hipkiss and Martin Castrogiovanni all crossed. No-one was more surprised than the Prop himself, when Castrogiovanni found himself in space, ball in hand and the line 20m away. He lumbered forward and no-one was at home to defend. He did the most exuberant belly-flop to get his try that I’ve ever witnessed. Didn’t realised Props bounce quite that well!

[Martin Castrogiovanni belly-flops his way to a try]

In the end, Leicester were the deserved winners, and will go into the final with confidence after that performance. See more match photos from the game.

Floating Up The Table
Saracens kept up a good home record at the weekend by beating Leicester Tigers 22-16, in a fast, exciting game.

Sarries attacked right from kickoff and kept up the pressure throughout the game. Admittedly, the Tigers were without some of their regulary guys who away on international duties, but they still put up a good fight.

[right, Tom Varndell gets some unwelcome attention from Richard Haughton]

See more of my photos from this game at rugbypix.com. Sarries are now 6th in the Premiership table, the highest they have been placed since about this time last year. Let’s hope they can remain bouyant!

That Sinking Feeling?
Heading the other way, there is much talk of Andy Robinson‘s position in light of the recent loss against Argentina. Seems he has a stay of execution until after the South Africa games are done. Messers Guscott & Healey would have him go now. They make some compelling arguments, in my view.

Let’s face it, if the squad chosen for the first SA game doesn’t deliver the goods, I reckon Robbo’s in a pretty untenable position. And we haven’t got much time to stop the rot before the World Cup now! The Sprinboks will be fired up after their defeat last weekend, and if England do go down, it would be there worst run of results, ever. Not a good thing to have on your coaching CV, Mr Robinson…

Andy Robinson appears to have picked an exciting team to face Australia on Sunday. I really hope they can make an impression, it would be great to have more options come the World Cup.

The two Toms are on the wing – Voyce and Varndell – and both have bags of pace given enough room and the ball in hand. Just to prove a point, here’s a photo of Mr Varndell scoring under the posts after just 28 seconds of the match between Leicester and Bath at Welford Road last season. He doesn’t hang about!

Not rugby related, but I was browsing the silliness on the Halfbakery earlier, and two fab ideas stuck in the mind – first one was a suggestion to change the Eurovision Song Contest rules and make everyone sing in Esperanto. Genious! And the other one that caught my attention was the “I’m Not Crazy” sign for people talking on their bluetooth headsets on the phone. Some of the annotations to that one are priceless.

I was really pleased to read Sale Sharks have won the Guinness Premiership Final against Leicester Tigers today. Good on them, they deserve it! Apparently they are the first team to top the league AND win the subsequent playoffs, since the end of the season system was rearranged.

The Tigers must be a tad gutted, but from all accounts, Sale outplayed them quite comprehensively. The lovely Mark Cueto scored a try for Sale in the first ten minutes. You may recall my mention of him as a suitable hors d’ouvres in a previous post (Feb 24th, Á La Carte Menu). But I didn’t provide a full-length picture – so here you go: Cute-O [sic] taking a fluid break during the Sarries vs Sharks game back last September.

Great to see Sale achieving a place in the Guinness Premiership finals, with a win over Wasps at the weekend. They deserve to go all the way as they have clearly been doing very well this season, and finished 6 points ahead at the top of the table. Wasps will have to lick their wounds and regroup for next season.

And poor old London Irish got a drubbing at Welford Road, being beaten by the Tigers 40-8, Irish’s only points coming from Olivier Magne’s try and Mike Catt’s penalty.

And talking of Catty, he makes the trip down under as part of the Enlgand squad to tour Australia in June. Glad to see there’s life in the old dog yet (or Catt, in this case). Here’s a gratuitous picture of him to fill up the blog a bit.

My good intentions of regular postings here have obviously gone by the wayside somewhat, since its about 5 weeks since I last bothered! Slap my wrists.

One of the things that prompted my renewed interest was seeing a friend over the weekend who was delighted with her shiny new blog. I’ve got one too, I said. So I gave her the address, and she has been posting comments here ever since! I’ll get you back when I figure out where yours is, Mrs!

Anyway, to maintain the rugby theme (there was one originally, remember?), here’s a link to the photos I took from the very exciting game I went to last Friday night, Saracens vs Leicester Tigers. The Tigers just edged us out 13-12, but Sarries kept up the pressure till the last, with a 12-phase passage of play finishing just short of their try line about 2 minutes after the “timesup” had passed. Hey ho.

I’m off to see the last game of the season next weekend, London Irish vs Sarries in Reading. A daunting prospect since Irish managed to put a staggering 9 tries past Wasps last weekend! Yikes.