Cubalaya Blog UK

England Defeats Australia - Again..

Even though our usual focus is e-commerce and shopping, with the excitement of the Rugby World Cup yesterday we can't avoid but putting some of our sporting thoughts down on paper...

Australia had come out looking to avenge the 2003 World Cup defeat on home-soil, but England had other ideas.   Led by Andrew Sheridan and Jonny Wilkinson, the English side brought down the heavily favoured Wallabies with a smashing performance.  The four penalty kicks made were enough for the English side, even without scoring a single try.

And if this wasn't enough of a surprise yesterday, the French side knocked out the cup-bound All Blacks,  with an outstanding second half.  Who in their right mind would have expected an English-French semi-final?  Betting on such an outcome Saturday morning would probably have been worth 100 to 1 odds, if not better.  It seems that Australia and New Zealand can beat their respective opponents anytime except for in World Cup play.  Or maybe it's just that England and France have the right attitude to step up and defeat their supposed betters when it counts.

The last four years for the English side have been mostly downhill, with 17 defeats at the hands of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and France.  There was also a slip in world rankings from first place to sixth.  Add to this a shutout loss to South Africa and an appalling performance against the USA in the group stage last month, which made hopes for another title absolutely disappear.

But England have done it, with a combination of strong discipline, perseverance and Jonny's left boot.  The following is a video of two of Jonny's scores yesterday, which gave him the lead in all-time World Cup points rankings too.

A Weekend Of Sport To Remember

Summer finally arrived and if you like your sport what a fantastic weekend it was. It all started very well by cranking up my BBQ on Saturday afternoon whilst watching the Womens Wimbledon Tennis Championship. As expected Venus Williams was unstoppable but it was a great final to get the weekend off to a flying sporting spectacle. However it did look awfully hard work out there and I'm sure at one point the Venus grunt would have been off the scale with the infamous 'gruntometer'. Much easier to confine yourself the the best tennis games available through the Virtua Tennis series, win a championship without raising  bead of sweat. Then Lewis Hamilton, the new young driving sensation pulls off a miraculous last lap in qualification to secure pole position in the British Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone. If like me you prefer 'armchair sports' then maybe you can buy one of the great Formula One racing games available on the games consoles like this Formula 1 Championship game for the PS3. In the cricket the West Indies were taking revenge upon England, swatting them like flies in the final one day international. Although Brian Lara no longer plays his name still adorns the best of the cricket game franchises available on all the consoles, Brian Lara International Cricket.

Over the 2 day weekend London also witnessed the start of the Tour de France with the first day based on time trials around the capital city London. The second day from London to Folkestone, through picturesque Kent looked remarkable and may force me to buy an indoor exercise bike so I can feel a bit more involved whilst watching the pros in action.

On Sunday the weather was just as good and although Lewis Hamilton couldn't recreate the heroics of yesterday he finished third to claim a record 9th podium finish in a row in his rookie season. The tennis provided the high with the mens final featuring the two undisputed top ranked players in the world in Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. A classic five setter with contrasting styles ended with a record equalling fifth straight win at Wimbledon for Federer with the current record holder Bjorn Borg in attendance. I was moved at the end of the game to go online and find myself a pair of new tennis shoes. Not the ones used to play but the more fashionable ones I can wear about so at least I look the part. As Sunday came to a close I sat back, exhausted but content, flicking through my Sunday paper I completed a perfect sporting weekend by reading about all the football news and gossip. Maybe it's time to get the latest FIFA Sports Football game or should I go with PES 6, to make sure I get enough pre-season training in.