Six Nations, Super Bowl: what a weekend

There is surely no better sporting weekend than the first one in February.

First off, the Six Nations. My favourite annual sporting tournament, even (as this year) when Wales look set to struggle. A combination of rivalry, passion and high quality rugby makes for a wonderful seven weeks.

And it got off to a pretty good start, at least for the neutral. Wales-Ireland was a thriller, the ultimate example of the proverbial sporting rollercoaster. For a few fleeting moments, England-Scotland looked like it might be close, but in the end the hosts put on a masterclass.

Ireland beat Wales at the Millennium Stadium

And yesterday, Italy-France. The French were poor, certainly, but Italy were excellent, and in areas like defence and at outside half which have often been such an Achilles heel. Both their tries, but particularly Sergio Parisse’s, were magnificent – this was no fluke.

It is good to see Italy progress. It’s just a shame the sport is taking so much longer to develop in other emerging nations (notwithstanding Kenya’s incredible performance in the Wellington 7s this weekend), but it hasn’t been helped by the IRB. That decision to award the 2011 World Cup to New Zealand instead of Japan still rankles.

Wellington 7s, 2008

The other part of the sporting weekend was, of course, the Super Bowl. And what a game it was. I have to admit, I was close to switching off and heading to bed just after the start of the second half, when Baltimore extended their lead to 28-6. Nobody has overturned such a deficit in the Super Bowl (a stat which still holds true), but San Francisco could barely have come closer to doing so.

It was a fightback not dissimilar to Wales’s against Ireland, and made for compelling viewing. The battle between the head coaching brothers, John and Jim Harbaugh, took a back seat as the 49ers ate away at the deficit, possibly helped by the momentum-changing 34-minute power outage during the third quarter. If the Niners, who were eventually defeated 34-31, had completed the comeback, it would have ranked among the most amazing sporting turnarounds. Still, it wasn’t to be, but the Super Bowl again proved to be compulsive viewing – since I started watching the NFL in 2007, only one Super Bowl has been won by more than a single score.

And, to cap off the weekend, Newcastle won. Yes, I’ve admitted football’s headed towards the backburner in terms of my interest of late, but it was very satisfying to see le Toon come from behind to beat Chelski.

The Harbaughs: the latest great sporting siblings

The Baltimore Ravens’ upset win over the New England Patriots in Massachusetts on Sunday night not only allowed Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh to exact revenge for a painful loss there at the same stage last season.

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh. Photo: Flickr, Keith Allison

San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh. Photo: Flickr, Football Schedule

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It also meant he would take his side to arguably the biggest game in sport – the Super Bowl. Their opponents? The San Francisco 49ers, coached by a certain Jim Harbaugh.

For the Harbaugh brothers’ parents (continuing the alliterative theme, their names are Jack and Jackie), this squabble, in what has already been dubbed the “HarBowl”, could be hard to contain.

But it is hardly the first time siblings have lined up against each other on the biggest stage of all:

Venus and Serena Williams

It must be hard to be upstaged by your younger sibling, but that is what Venus, herself a legend of the sport, has had to endure. Serena, younger by a year and three months, has won 15 grand slams to her sister’s seven, and has triumphed in six of their eight encounters in grand slam finals. But they get on well enough as perhaps the most successful doubles pairing of all time, adding a third Olympic gold to their collection at London 2012.

Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee

The sight of the Yorkshire brothers sharing the top step of the London 2012 triathlon podium warmed the hearts of Team GB fans, after a hard-fought triathlon in which Alistair, the elder brother, won gold, with Jonathan claiming bronze (after collapsing at the finish, much to his brother’s obvious dismay) behind Javier Gomez of Spain.

Jonny was then crowned world triathlon champion in New Zealand in October, although Ali was unable to take part.

Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko

When Wladimir, the younger by nearly five years, beat Britain’s David Haye in July 2011, it ensured the Ukrainian brothers held all four major belts – those of the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO – between them. Vitali is often regarded as a better fighter than Wladimir, but the theories will not be substantiated: the brothers have vowed never to fight one another.

Others

To be honest, these were pretty much the first three pairs of siblings who came into my head when thinking about sporting success. Since, I’ve thought of a few more who might deserve a paragraph or two of their own:

Steve and Mark Waugh

Michael and Ralf Schumacher

Peyton and Eli Manning

Bobby and Jack Charlton

Rory and Tony Underwood

Mauro and Mirco Bergamasco?

Gavin and Scott Hastings??

Denver’s loss to Baltimore analysed in diagram form

In fact, I was so annoyed yesterday I decided to illustrate my frustration at the game-tying touchdown – thanks, Rahim Moore – in pictoral form. Pretty stylish, I’d say.

From left: Jacoby Jones, Rahim Moore, Brandon Stokley, Bill Vinovich, Joe Flacco

Every gut-wrenching defeat should be followed by a good rant

On Saturday I wrote about a sporting fixture I was looking forward to immensely. One problem: it ended in heartbreaking fashion: probably the worst in that regard other than Wales’s 9-8 loss to France in the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Here’s a post I wrote for a new American football blog the day after the painful night before:

They say it was Denver’s most painful loss since being defeated by Jacksonville at the same stage of the 1996 season.

The morning after the devastating night before, I am still in shock. I have not quite come to terms with the Ravens’ 38-35 double-overtime win at Mile High.

As I write this, I still don’t know the San Francisco-Green Bay score. I watched the first quarter, frozen in my seat, and saw some people in red and gold running around a pitch being chased by people in white and yellow.

What a thing to admit for someone writing an NFL blog: I just couldn’t bring myself to care.

Denver has wasted home-field advantage all the way to the Super Bowl. An all-round team choked. How?

Rahim Moore’s catastrophic misjudgement

It’s not as if safety Rahim Moore won’t be feeling bad about himself anyway, but wow. That was spectacularly, devastatingly, career-stainingly terrible. Denver had a seven point lead in regulation; Baltimore had to go 70 yards in 41 seconds with no timeouts. It was third down, the clock was ticking. Joe Flacco (Joe Flacco!) launched a bomb downfield which Jacoby Jones chased after; Tony Carter, playing zone coverage, watched Jones zoom away into what should have been Rahim’s territory.

The split second before seemed to go in ultra-slow motion. I, like every Denver fan, could absolutely see Moore had totally misjudged the flight of the pass. Jones had to break stride, but Moore was three yards upfield. He leapt desperately to get a finger on the ball. Missed. Jones romped in for the score. Stunned silence.

Champ Bailey being bossed

The final seconds of the first half had also seen Denver give up a long touchdown to Flacco’s arm via Torrey Smith, which tied the game at 21-21 (a minute earlier Matt Prater shanked a long field goal which would have put the Broncos 24-14 up).

Smith got a worrying amount of separation from future-hall of famer Bailey all evening. The changing of the guard? It looked like it. Smith already had an even longer TD, and should have had one more but was overthrown by Flacco, again when he was miles ahead of Denver’s cornerback. Champ was failing to deal with Torrey at the line of scrimmage, allowing the youngster to skip past him downfield. It ended with Denver’s corners dropping five to 10 yards deep at the line of scrimmage, allowing the Ravens receivers to pick up short yardage at crucial points – such as when they were sat deep in their own half on third down in overtime.

The play calling

I am a big fan of John Fox and his coaching team. But who’s bright idea was it to pass on the opportunity of a possible game-winning field goal late in regulation, after Jones scored?

Justin Tucker smashed the kick-off through the end zone, giving the Broncos a touchback. Denver had two timeouts and 31 seconds. BUT PEYTON TOOK A KNEE? Excuse me? We only had to get to the 40-yard line to give Prater a chance to equal his season-long three-pointer. That’s 40 yards needed, in 31 seconds, with two timeouts, with Peyton Manning, with a superb receiving corps of Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker, Jacob Tamme, Joel Dreessen and Brandon Stokley, perhaps the Broncos’ standout player yesterday. I just fail to comprehend the strategy of preferring to take your chances in overtime. Sure, it’s easy to say in hindsight – but it was also easy to say at the time.

Incidentally, just before the Ravens’ brief possession which resulted in Jacoby Jones’ score, Peyton had a third and short where a first down would have won the game. It was handed off to Ronnie Hillman rather than give Manning the chance to pass. Interesting, the lack of faith in the likely NFL MVP.

Peyton Manning’s late interception

Still, the second pick Manning threw, towards the end of the first overtime period, showed the veteran up. Scrambling right from a disintegrated pocket on third down, he attempted a John Elway-style throw across his body towards his safety blanket Brandon Stokley. But Stokley, who had caught a fine TD pass in the first half and had an even better catch from a poor Peyton pass to keep alive an earlier overtime drive, was unable to get in front of Corey Graham, who nabbed his second INT of the match. It was already in long-field goal range, and handed Baltimore the win. What possessed Manning to try to make that throw is perplexing to say the least.

The officiating

I don’t like criticising officials, but find me someone who thinks they took charge of this game well. “Led” by Bill Vinovich, some of the decisions were dubious, some downright absurd. Denver fans will argue Eric Decker was impeded on Manning’s first interception, a pick six; Baltimore supporters will say it was a “bang bang” play and contact came just about at the same time as the ball arrived. Still, you’ve seen them called. In any case, a clear DPI which impeded Demaryius Thomas was missed earlier in the drive.

And I’m sorry, but what was that call on Champ Bailey in overtime? Defensive pass interference for that? You have got to be kidding. And in third down in overtime. What a killer. Talking of which, how can that Anquan Boldin “catch” be ruled a completion? If the ground didn’t help him hold on then I’m a Dutchman (and I’m not).

The third quarter lasted nearly an hour and a half, by the way. That was in part down to the officials taking about 20 minutes to sort out a five-yard illegal hands to the face penalty on Baltimore. I’m not saying the delay was engineered to give the flagging Baltimore D a break, but…

Peyton Manning’s fumble: when exactly is the tuck rule supposed to come into play? I’m no fan of it, obviously, and is Tom Brady the only person ever to benefit from it?

And one more thing: Justin Tucker came onto the field to practise a long field goal in the break between the two overtime periods. There’s no penalty against it, but officials are not supposed to let it happen. How did they all manage just to watch him warm up and fail to intervene?

If the replacement refs had been as poor, they would have been absolutely crucified.

Finally, a sports game I can look forward to watching

This blog likes to support lesser sports, grassroots competition and those teams who don’t always find their way into the public eye. In other words, sport at its most pure. But at the same time it is impossible not to be swept up into the frenzy which elite sport brings with it.

The only problem is that I have gone right off football since the summer: I think it was mainly because there was a void after the Olympics and Paralympics which the ref-abusing, foul-mouthed, diving, pampered footballers (who are nevertheless worshipped by the likes of Sky Sports News) just couldn’t fill.

Since October, I have watched just one football match for more than about half an hour – MK Dons v AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup, and that was only because I was interested in the back story more than the game itself.

The new Mile High stadium, home of the Denver Broncos. Photo: Flickr, rphelan

By contrast, I have watched club rugby on a greater scale than before. It helps that I now live in a rugby-supporting part of England, and have easy access to watch Northampton Saints and Leicester Tigers home games. I enjoy cheering for the Saints and whoever the Tigers are playing, but I still can’t get fully into it because I’m still an outsider here (I don’t wear tweed to the rugby and I have no idea why Northampton are called the “Jimmies”).

And being a Welsh rugby fan has not been easy this season: whitewashed in the autumn internationals, pessimism ahead of the Six Nations and a club game which is haemorrhaging players to richer clubs and which has continued to recede in Europe.

So for the first time in months, I am properly excited about watching a elite sports match tonight. It’s in the NFL, as the Baltimore Ravens take on the Denver Broncos (my team since a chance encounter with the squad at Denver International Airport in December 2005) in Colorado.

I hear what people say about American football being rugby for people who need full-body pads and a break every 20 seconds, but it is more than that: it is an intricate, complicated game which requires great nous; it is not just fat men pushing each other (you might be thinking of sumo wrestling).

Nearly 80,000 spectators will pack into the Sports Authority Field at Mile High for the game this evening. It will be snowing, it will be -12C, it will be exciting and I cannot wait.