Worldwide Sports News
A legal battle looms between Rugby Australia and the consortium who planned to save the Melbourne Rebels, with the Super Rugby Pacific club to be shut down after 14 seasons.
Five months after the Rebels entered voluntary administration, Rugby Australia broke the news before players boarded a plane to Fiji for the final round of the competition.
Continue reading...A derby victory over Manchester City at Wembley helped Erik ten Hag’s team gain some self-respect after recent domination by their closest rivals
Some days, you wonder just why the FA Cup seems so embattled. Saturday’s final felt like a throwback: a sunny spring day, a sense of subplots coming together in an occasion that genuinely mattered, drama on the pitch and ultimately a shock. Perhaps it wasn’t quite Sunderland beating Leeds in 1973 or Southampton beating Manchester United in 1976 (or even Wigan beating Manchester City in 2013). But United finished lower in the league this season (eighth) than Wimbledon (seventh) did when they beat champions Liverpool in 1988. The status and histories of the clubs shouldn’t disguise what a shock United’s victory over City was.
For United, it was a great occasion. For them a first FA Cup in eight years and just their second trophy in seven, a step-up on the League Cup they won under Erik ten Hag last season. But more than that, they stopped City becoming the first club to win the Double in successive seasons. It’s not just about succeeding; it’s about the failure of others, especially your closest rivals.
This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition
Continue reading...Manchester United have endured crisis after crisis this season but their head coach will always have Wembley glory
It was one of the great shows of ego and defiance, pure theatre, pure Louis van Gaal. As another embattled Manchester United manager from the Netherlands found himself in the same position, it was impossible to ignore the echoes. Erik ten Hag’s delivery was different, more measured and understated. But, like Van Gaal before him, he had entered the arena for a fight. He made his punches count.
“I show you the Cup,” Van Gaal said in 2016 after leading United to victory against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final as he headed for the sack; he was informed of the decision 24 hours later. Van Gaal strode into the Wembley press conference room with the trophy, which he set down on the end of the desk before repositioning it bang in front of him after he took his seat.
Continue reading...Ducati Lenovo’s two-time defending world champion, Francesco Bagnaia, won the Catalunya Grand Prix to close the gap on the championship leader, Jorge Martín, who finished second, while Ducati’s Marc Márquez was third despite starting 14th on the grid.
Márquez repeated his heroics from the Saturday sprint when he finished an astonishing third from 14th, keeping the polesitter, Aleix Espargaró, at bay until the chequered flag and finishing five-hundredths of a second ahead to take third.
Continue reading...Erik ten Hag refused to give any answers on his future as Manchester United manager after his side beat their local rivals Manchester City 2-1 to win the FA Cup. Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo scored in the first half to give United victory over an uncharacteristically poor City side but Ten Hag was unmoved when asked about his future. 'When they don't want me I will hear it,' he said after the match. 'When I took over it was a mess at United. We are on out way to constructing a team for the future and that will go with ups and downs.'
Manchester United win FA Cup after Garnacho and Mainoo stun City
Erik ten Hag reminds Manchester United of what could have been
While today is a celebration for domestic football in Australia, it is impossible to overlook what has been another chastening season for the A-League.
The APL remains in omnicrisis, bungling its budget and communications as it fails abysmally at converting the promise of independence. And while there’s not a lot they can do about fan misbehaviour or the alleged conduct of players, it’s hard to avoid the creeping feeling of the competition succumbing to another doom spiral.
Continue reading...A rampant Luke Littler beat Michael Smith and Luke Humphries to become the youngest major winner in darts history
Littler 3-1 Smith No nine-darter – he managed seven perfect darts before missing T19 – but more importantly he has broken Smith already. He pinged his bestie D10 to complete a 12-darter, and now Smith is effectively two breaks behind.
Littler is six darts into a nine on the Smith throw…
Continue reading...A South African schoolboy rugby player has gone viral after he carried his opponent 20m backwards in wild scenes during a recent match.
Waratahs coach Darren Coleman was given credit for navigating “three challenging seasons” but won’t get a fourth after the battling Super Rugby outfit confirmed he wouldn’t be offered a new contract.
Before entering business, O’Reilly played rugby for Ireland and the Lions and could have been ‘one of the world’s greats’
Tony O’Reilly has died aged 88 and this week’s business pages will pay tribute to a titan of the corporate world who struck commercial gold with Kerrygold and built a hill of beans with Heinz. It is a sign of a life remarkably well lived, then, that his name will also always have a place in the pantheon of Irish sporting heroes and prompt a wry smile whenever rugby union’s classic old-school anecdotes are retold.
As a player good enough to have been selected as the youngest Lion in history when chosen to tour South Africa as a teenager in 1955, O’Reilly might have reached even loftier heights in the game had his burgeoning business career not intervened at the age of 26. There was to be one last impromptu hurrah, however, when he was famously recalled seven years later to face England at Twickenham.
Continue reading...A tearful Michael Smith put friendship aside to win his Premier League shootout with Nathan Aspinall and qualify for next week’s playoffs at the O2 Arena.
The 2023 world champion beat his good friend Aspinall 6-3 in the quarter-final of the final round of the league phase in Sheffield to join Luke Littler, Luke Humphries and Michael van Gerwen in London.
Continue reading...Jorge Martín of Pramac Racing, the MotoGP championship leader, won the French Grand Prix on Sunday to complete a weekend double while Gresini Ducati’s Marc Márquez finished second with a final-lap overtake of Francesco Bagnaia, the reigning champion, at Le Mans.
Bagnaia led for most of the race before Martín, having started on pole, regained the lead and powered to victory following an intense battle while Márquez, who started 13th on the grid, and finished on the podium once again after Saturday’s sprint.
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Continue reading...Teenage darts sensation Luke Littler is to make his debut in Australia when he headlines the country’s biggest event in Wollongong in August.
The 17-year-old English phenomenon, who has flourished as the sport’s biggest attraction since becoming the youngest ever world championship finalist at 16 in January, will feature in a star-studded line-up at the Australian Darts Masters in August.
Continue reading...The experiences of the world’s leading players are key to understanding snooker’s current unpredictability
Ostensibly, sport aims to answer one question: who is the best? Humans being humans, we naturally invest it with meaning beyond that – the teams we support are ours forever, a fixed part of our identity representing values and a way of life. We keep coming back because we have no choice.
Individual sports, though, are different, players necessarily transient, so what keeps us coming back is the competition itself. And for that reason, there is greater onus on it to provide a satisfying outcome: we want our world championships won by the best player in the world, and Kyren Wilson, snooker’s newly minted king – a terrific talent and worthy winner – is, on the face of it, no such thing.
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