… but England are proving to be more than a match for Australia in the first 25 minutes.

Australia have just dropped another scrum, they’re making silly mistakes and England are dominating the offence.

Of course, we’ve seen this all before and experienced the disappointment as England lose focus but at this point in time England are giving Australia a right seeing to!

Jonny Wilkinson’s penalty at 25:26 has just made him the world record holder for penalty kicks in the rugby World Cup.

Edit #1:
England are still dominating but an Australian try means we’re still a point behind.  Jonny seems to have picked up an injury and his mojo looks to be fading.

Edit #2:
I thought the authorities were supposed to be cracking down on cock-eyed line outs?

Edit #3:
Australia are making so many mistakes.  England should be lifted by Australia’s poor performance.

Edit #4:
Yyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!  I’ve never been so excited by a rugby match in my life!  England played like world champions again.

Technorati Tags: England, Rugby, Australia

No Mandate Brown found time in his busy schedule to phone the manager of the Scottish national football team, Alex McLeish, to congratulate him on Scotland’s victory over France.

He didn’t get round to phoning Steve McLaren to congratulate him on England’s victory over Russia thought because he was too busy although when asked, a spokesman said he was sure that Britishness Brown would be congratulating England as well and that a letter would probably be written during the day.

Twat.

Apologies to those of you who have no interest in Shrewsbury Town or football in general but I just have to mention Shrewsbury’s second game of the season – Tuesday night’s game against Championship team Colchester which Shrewsbury won 1-0.  It was very nearly 1-1 in extra time but the goalkeeper managed to save a penalty kick.  Only down side is, he’s Scottish.  Never mind, even league 2 clubs have foreign players nowadays.

Which leads me nicely on to the fate of Derek Asamoah, the Ghanian international who currently plays for Shrewsbury.  Or rather, did play for Shrewsbury until he signed for the French team Nice today.  Lucky for him that they wanted him, though, because he went awol 3 weeks ago claiming to be ill but was actually undertaking a 3 week unauthorised trial for Nice in France!  The club have said that if he hadn’t been signed by Nice they’d have sacked him and even had the support of the players union which is unusual.  Still, they got £50k for him which is £10k more than I predicted when the rumours first started flying about a couple of weeks ago.

The Tartan Army have taken time out from buying football shirts for every team England might play in the next 12 months and learning the words to Irish republican songs and have set up a website opposed to the creating of a British football team.

The No Team GB website has the support of the Association of Tartan Army Clubs, the Football Supporters Federation, the Welsh Football Supporters Federation and the Green and White Army.

Watched Shrewsbury get beaten by Bristol Rovers today on Sky Sports in the League 2 play-off finals.

Shrewsbury scored within 3 minutes and dominated the game – especially in the second half where they had approaching three quarters possession and twice as many attempts on goal as Bristol.  But it wasn’t to be.  Bristol played really well and went 2-1 up and somehow managed to keep the ball out of the net despite the best efforts of Asamoah.

The final nail was put in the coffin when – for some bizarre reason – with a couple of minutes of extra time left, the Shrewsbury Town goalie came up to the Bristol penalty area for a Shrewsbury corner.  Bristol got possession and had a clear run to an open goal.

Genius …

Shrewsbury Town 2 – 1 MK Dons

Just to show you that I can talk about something other than politics, let me just give a brief mention to the passing of an institution – the Gay Meadow.

No longer will English football have a resident fisherman ready to retrieve lost footballs from the River Severn and football addicts will have to find a new candidate for most sniggered at football ground for today marks the end of an era – the last game ever has been played at Shrewsbury Town’s Gay Meadow stadium.

The game against MK Dons – televised on Sky Sports 1 – ended in a 0-0 draw and a good old fashioned pitch invasion.  Not the best score for the last ever match at the ground but it wasn’t a defeat.  The second leg is on Friday at Milton Keynes.

Only one ball was lost during the match – the resident fisherman legged it through the side door with his net and pole to try and get it back but it succumed to the currents of the swollen River Severn which laps at the doorstep of the stadium.

The New Meadow will be ready for next season.  It’s located on the outskirts of the town so it will once again be safe to enter Shrewsbury when Wrexscum are paying a visit and it’s nowhere near the river so that should save a few quid on replacement balls.

A fortnight ago I reported that our masters in the European Federation wanted to replace our national football teams with a single British football team.

There was some scepticism in the comments which is perfectly understandable but it’s reassuring to note that the dead tree press have finally caught up with this article in the Birmingham Post.  When Mike Natrass tried to tell the papers two weeks ago they laughed at him and told him it wasn’t April Fools Day for another couple of days.

England play Ireland today in the Rugby Six Nations at Croke Park, the site of the killing – by British soliders – of 12 members of the public.

The killings took place 87 years ago and were followed by a series of reprisals by IRA terrorists.  Despite this all having taken place outside of the living memory of all but a handful of nonogenerian Irishmen and women, there have been calls for God Save the Queen not to be played because it’s a painful reminder of British occupation and attrocities, etc., etc.

Let’s just put this into context – in 1920 the Irish Free State still didn’t exist, terrorists were running amock and Ireland was still part of the UK.  What happened 87 years ago we don’t know with any real accuracy – there probably isn’t a person alive now who was actually there.  The shooting of innocent people by soliders is, of course, a sad thing but it was 87 years ago.  We don’t ask the Italians not to play their national anthem because of what the Romans did to us centuries ago, we don’t ask the Germans not to play their national anthem because of the two world wars they stated which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people and nor should the Irish demand that God Save the Queen isn’t played.

To be honest, I would be delighted not to have to listen to God Save the Queen.  I am a monarchist and I wish no ill of the Queen and if there is, indeed, a god then I would certainly ask that he save her.  However, it is not the English national anthem and the English team is not representing Britain.  Northern Ireland is part of the Irish rugby team which means playing God Save the Queen gives them two national anthems – a little unfair don’t you think?  Jerusalem is played before England matches now but the British national anthem is always played afterwards (because the Princess Royal is the RFU’s patron was the excuse I was given).  Jerusalem is the most popular choice for an English national anthem and should be played instead before every sporting event which England takes part in.

But getting back to my original point – the Irish are being unreasonable, plain and simple.  It’s almost worth having God Save the Queen just to prove a point.

Well, predictably we got mullered by the kiwi’s today.

To be fair to England, the second half was pretty evenly matched and if we hadn’t been so desperately behind coming out into the second half they wouldn’t have got the opportunities that allowed them to consolodate.

Out of 29 matches between England and New Zealand, we have won 5, drawn 1 and the kiwi’s have won 23 with today’s scorrline being not only the biggest England-New Zealand scoreline but the biggest winning margin as well.

A disappointing result obviously but a good game nontheless.

Click here for my traditional whinge about the British national anthem being played at the start of the match and being called the English national anthem.

How can the 4th ranked team in the world lose 2-0 to Croatia?  Fair enough, Croatia are a decent team but England is … well, England.

Bring back Sven and Beckham and lets start winning again.

The only consolation is that Ukraine beat North Britain 2-0 as well.