Scott Murray's Blog, page 30
July 29, 2023
France 2-1 Brazil: Women’s World Cup 2023 – as it happened
Wendie Renard’s late header settled an entertaining match between Group F’s two big hitters
3 min: France’s turn to show in attack. Perisset rolls a clever ball down the right to release Le Sommer into acres. Le Sommer can’t find Diani in the middle with her low cross, intercepted by Rafelle, but the flag pings up for offside.
2 min: Brazil are on the front foot early doors. Debinha feeds the rampaging full back Antonia down the right. Antonia whips in low. Peyraud-Magnin gathers easily enough, and it turns out the ball had gone out for a throw anyway.
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July 28, 2023
England’s bittersweet World Cup win and clamping down on happiness | Football Daily
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It’s been a mixed day for the Lionesses at the World Cup all right. A fine Lauren James pelt gave England the win over Denmark, and when she scored the goal she ran off all happy, experiencing the enjoyment emotion, smiling and waving and that, in a state of contented grace, stuff that will be NOT ALLOWED when the men’s game resumes next week according to new Ifab and the Professional Game Match Officials Limited celebration-curtailing diktats. An essential move to combat time-wasting, it says here. A clampdown on happiness, in other words. Fun? NOT ALLOWED. Entertainment? NOT ON OUR WATCH. The sensation of pleasure? GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN, SON. Imagine having the worldview of Howard Webb, though. Once a bobby, always a bobby. You can leave the force, but it never leaves you.
Continue reading...July 25, 2023
Football Daily | Are there no more worlds left for Wrexham to conquer?
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Attempts to rebrand a long-established product can prove a risky business. Take for example the questionable rechristening of Twitter, a name part and parcel of internet vernacular, with the meaningless nepo-baby-approved brand-awareness-junking letter X. Or how about the all-new Football Daily, which you may or may not have erroneously clicked on to expecting to find Max and Barry, but no this isn’t the podcast, it’s what The Fiver used to be, so sorry about that. Is this what you were after? Go if you must, we understand, we shan’t be offended.
Continue reading...July 23, 2023
The Open 2023: Brian Harman dominates to win first major championship – live
The Sky Sports commentator Ewen Murray has just described the skies above Hoylake as “leaden”. It has to be a hat tip, surely? Seeing we’re in their neck of the woods, it would be rude not to …
Rory McIlroy can’t make his birdie putt. Ah well, it was probably a pipe dream anyway. To be fair, there’s only been one birdie on this opening hole all day, and Scottie Scheffler needed to hole out from distance to make it. Rory’s -3.
Continue reading...July 22, 2023
The Open 2023: third round – as it happened
Opening birdie for Rory McIlroy! He wedges his second pin high, and rolls in the 12-footer that remains. Fuss-free. Textbook. If he can keep that going, huh. He’s -2. Meanwhile the ever-entertaining Tom Kim provides some excitement of his own, by rolling of a hat-trick of birdies at 4, 5 and 6. He’s up to -3 in short order.
A par up the last for Xander Schauffele. A 68 and the 2018 joint runner-up ends Moving Day at -1 overall. Meanwhile back-to-back birdies for English veteran Richard Bland, who you may recall making waves at the 2021 US Open, breaking records by leading after 36 holes as a 48-year-old. He’s -3.
Continue reading...July 21, 2023
The Open 2023: second round – as it happened
Hats off to JT, who must have been fearing the worst after that dismal opening shot. He then pulled his second into more trouble on the other side of 1, but class will out eventually, and he wedges from 75 yards to four feet, and tidies up for a nerve-settling par. He’s +11 and like we say, some weird miracle aside, won’t be here for the weekend play, but fingers crossed he gets something going today that will help him turn his form around. And yes that’s more of the sort of aforementioned sympathy he won’t appreciate as a proud pro, but what you gonna do? By the way, he’s going round with Viktor Hovland, who having salvaged a 70 yesterday with three birdies over the last eight holes, is still very much in the hunt … and the 25-year-old Norwegian makes an opening birdie to move to -2.
Three birdies on the bounce for Brian Harman! The result of yet another 20-foot putt. That flat stick is nigh-on molten. The leader stretches his cushion at the top to two strokes. Meanwhile a much-needed birdie for Emiliano Grillo at the par-five 5th. He arrests his morning slide by repairing a third of the damage done. He’s back to -3, alongside Alex Noren, the Swede having made three birdies and three bogeys across his first eight holes.
Continue reading...The Open 2023: round two – live
A nice steady start for Adrian Otaegui. Six pars, and he remains one off at -4. The 30-year-old Spaniard – a disciple of Jose Maria Olazabal – has four DP World Tour victories on his resumé, the most impressive of which being the final edition of the Andalucia Masters at Valderama, which he won last year at a canter after shooting 64-68 over the weekend. He’s got a couple of big second places to his name this season as well, at the Dunhill Championship and the KLM Open, so he’s an in-form player who knows how to get round some tough tracks in Europe. A stretch to think he’ll prevail this week, though you never know … but first things first, and we can surely say that barring a complete meltdown, he’ll be making the cut, something he failed to do at Portrush four years ago on his only other appearance at an Open.
It hasn’t taken long for one of the overnight leaders to hit a bump in the road. In light rain, Emiliano Grillo finds a pot bunker guarding the front of 2, then overhits his chip out. His ball skitters across the dancefloor and disappears down the other side. He putts back up from the swale, but weakly, and can’t make the ten-foot bogey putt he leaves himself. And just like that, the 30-year-old Argentinian topples off the toppermost of the poppermost.
Continue reading...July 20, 2023
The Open 2023: first round – as it happened
Neither Brooks Kopeka nor Patrick Cantlay can find the 1st green from their positions wide left of the fairway. The former sends his second to the right, short-siding himself behind a bunker, and ends up with an opening bogey; the latter however makes an outrageous birdie, having sent his second down a swale to the right, before whistling an undulating putt up, down and up onto the green, then in. Had it not been bang on line, it would still have been travelling today. And people say he’s slow. He’s -1.
A huge roar at the 1st as another local lad, Tommy Fleetwood, takes to the tee. But before he can hit, the world number one Scottie Scheffler has a crack. He receives a warm ovation as well, the Open gallery recognising game as it always does. Scheffler becomes the latest to tug his opening shot into the rough down the left … then Fleetwood and the third member of a stellar group, Adam Scott, follow him in. Nobody wants to find either of the bunkers down the right of the fairway, that much is clear. The 2011 Masters champion Charl Schwartzel earlier illustrated exactly why: he found one of them and ended up with a double-bogey six.
Continue reading...The Open 2023: first round updates – live
… the 22-year-old South African amateur Christo Lamprecht! Playing in his first Open, as reward for winning the Amateur Championship last year, he’s birdied 3, 5 and 6 to hit the top of the famous yellow leaderboard. And here’s a funny thing: Lamprecht studied at Georgia Tech, as did the legendary Bobby Jones, one of only two other men from the Georgia Institute of Technology to win the Amateur Championship. Jones won the Amateur as part of his famous 1930 Grand Slam season … that also included winning the Open at Hoylake. It couldn’t be written in the st… no, it’s not even 10am on Thursday morning, we can’t start thinking like this.
-3: Lamprecht -a- (6)
-1: Jordan (11), Herbert (10), Larrazabal (9), Reed (8), Pieters (7), Oosthuizen (6), Cink (5)
May 27, 2023
Luton promoted to Premier League after beating Coventry – as it happened
Luton Town, who finished seventh in the Conference Premier ten years ago, made it to the Premier League after a shoot-out victory in the Championship play-off final
2 min: As Mark Robins expected, Luton are on the front foot quickly, pressing hard, all over the pitch. A hectic, shapeless start to the game as a result.
Luton get the ball rolling … and immediately launch it long through Horvath. Bell drives down the left but can’t barge his way into space. Coventry get their first touch.
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