Martin William’s finds that life sometimes just ain’t fair!
Picture from BBC Sport.
Yesterday’s match had power, passion and exceptional skills, this match had all the drama as Leicester held their nerve to win a tense penalty shoot out after 100 minutes of play. This certainly was an exciting weekend of rugby!
As you would expect, when a Guinness Premiership team is involved, the game quickly became a war of attrition as the bigger Premiership pack tried to wear down their opponents and for 70 minutes the stifling play and “professional” tactics of the English side looked to have the game sown up. However, with two Leicester players in the sin bin, Cardiff finally managed to cut loose and scored two tries in the last ten minutes to bring the score to 26 all.
With the game going into extra time Cardiff looked to have the upper hand but they quickly ran out of puff and Leicester managed to regroup and the extended period petered out with neither side managing to add to the score. This took us to the much anticipated and eagerly awaited penalty shootout.
Oh how I wish it had got down to the stalwards of the front row, I would have loved to see Castrogiovanni or Jenkins having a punt but alas it was not to be. Unfortunately, the finger of fate pointed at Cardiff stalwart Williams who hooked his attempt and Leicester No. 8, Crane, stepped up to chip his over and win the game. This was particularly hard on the distraught Williams as no player had done more to get Cardiff to the semi final in the first place.
Finally, I can’t let the review of the semi-finals pass without mentioning the Sky Sports coverage! Sky have done a great job with the Heineken Cup and with rugby in general but they really, really need to understand that there is more to rugby in the UK and Ireland than the Guinness Premiership and Munster.Yesterday it was amusing as Barnes rolled out every cliché of the day on all things Munster for the first twenty minutes of the game only to have to backtrack on everything he said throughout the second half as Leinster ripped them apart but today it was annoying as he gave a 90 minute eulogy on, a fairly average, Tom Croft as he went all out to pimp him as Quinlan’s replacement for the Lions tour. However the gaffe of he weekend must have been Paul Wallace’s “he’ll go down like the Belgrano” quote about Contepomi. Oh dear! Oh dear! Expect a long stint on Setanta after that one!
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