Saturday was a good day for English sport with both the national football and rugby teams triumphing over their rivals. But first rugby, England beat France 14 – 9 at the home of French ball based sport The Stade De France. But England found themselves behind 6 – 5 at half time and 9 – 8 down with 20 minutes left to play. But it’s that man again, Johnny Wikinson kicking England in the final five minutes that sent England into the final showdown against South Africa. The Springboks beat England comprehensive in the group stages scoring 36 points without reply. Let’s hope that England can step up to the challenge, it’ll be a tough game, but I believe that England can beat South Africa if they play with the same determination they have played with since the group stages, I’ll certainly have my fingers crossed watching it on the big screen at work, I expect it to be a quiet night in work I’d say!
In football England beat Estonia as expected at Wembley, although 3 – 0 is a little disappointing given that England were 3 – 0 up at half time after an inspired performance. Shaun Wright-Phillips opened the scoring in the 11th minute neatly tucking the ball between Mart Poom’s legs from an improbable angle. Wayne Rooney ended his 3 1/2 year goal drought for England with a turn and hit effort that got a handy deflection off an Estonia defender to deceive Poom to double Englands lead. Taavi Rahn scored a brilliant goal for England with superb nod past the keeper; shame that he is an Estonian player defeating his own keeper. England took their foot off the gas in the second half and sat back more, which has been the undoing of England on many occasions before. But England were too strong for the Estonian’s to make any sort of challenge to Paul Robinson’s goal let alone challenge for the win. But you have to feel that if England kept their foot on the gas it could have been 6 – 0 or more. England currently sit in second in the group E table three points behind Croatia and will need to beat Russia on Wednesday to definitely qualify, it’s looking unlikely that England will win the group but its possibly should Croatia slip up against Macedonia.
This weekend hasn’t been so good personally, I have been ill all weekend progressively getting worse, having a really annoying cough from Friday and this morning it suddenly got a whole lot worse, woke up at 11am with really bad stomach pains, I spent most of the day running to the bathroom with diarrhoea and throwing up, definitely one of the worst days of my life. Even now I dare not eat anything as everything I eat and drink comes straight back up. I have been drinking loads of water today so when I did throw up I had something in my stomach to throw up, throwing up stomach acids isn’t a pleasant experience.