The Dollop | UK sport video blog

Brilliant India expose England

First things first - this was a quite brilliant game of cricket. With the backdrop of the Mumbai bombings and all the conjecture that when with it, both teams are to be applauded for putting on a great spectacle.

For England, they came so close but ultimately couldn't put away an Indian side that seemed to grow in confidence as the test match progressed. Before the game there was much talk of how England would react to playing in such a difficult environment.

Everyone assumed that the Indians would continue unaffected but in fact it was England who got off to a flyer with India seeming a little off the pace. This was all to change as the match went on.

Who will be England's full back for the 6 nations?

For anyone who watched England's autumn internationals, the question of who should be England's full back come the 6 nations, would appear to be an odd one.

Having been thrashed by the 3 southern hemisphere nations, there wasn't much to cheer about but the one constant ray of sunshine throughout all the games was Delon Armitage, the man who as it stands owns the England no.15 shirt.

At the start of the season few people would have predicted that Armitage would have made the England starting line up. Matthew Tait seemed the obvious choice and Josh Lewsey was his back up in the elite squad. However, with Tait's injury and Lewsey's loss of form Nick Abendanon was called up and seemed a dead cert to get his chance, until that is he got injured.

Why Keane should go on to bigger and better things

Roy Keane's resignation as Sunderland manager yesterday was sad on a number of levels. Keane is one of the premiership's great characters. Always blunt and direct, he is an engaging man with a fierce demeanour. He has terrified the opposition both as a player and as a manager for years and the league will be a less colourful place without him.

Sunderland on paper are a big club. They have a big fan base, a massive stadium and in recent years have ploughed a lot of money into buying players. And I guess therein lies the reason for Keane's resignation.

World cup groupings are a farce

This week the groups for the next Rugby world cup were announced. With the tournament still 3 years away, it seems ridiculous that the groupings, which are based on the current world rankings, have been allotted.

As it stands the top 4 in the world are New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and Argentina. You wouldn't argue with these countries retaining these positions come 2011 but with the northern hemisphere struggling to come to terms with the new ELVs surely a later draw would have been appropriate. This would have given the European teams more time to adjust, which the southern hemisphere has had, and closer to the tournament we would have had a far more accurate representation of who are the best teams in the world at that time.

After 2 test drubbings, how can Martin Johnson's England move forward?

The Autumn Internationals are now over and Martin Johnson will have much to ponder. England played 4, won 1 and were humiliated in 2. If nothing else, Johnson will be left in no doubt as to what sort of squad he has inherited and that is one which consists of a young, naive group of players, some of whom are not good enough and others who will take time to bed in.

In their post match interviews all the England players delivered the normal piffle about taking "positives" out of the game. I can't bear this, media training seems to have taken over and each and every player spouts the same nonsense that has been drilled in to them. I'd much rather see some raw emotion and feel that these guys are genuinely hurting at having been beaten so convincingly at home.

Why are England still no good at one day cricket?

For a long time now England's one day side has been pretty average. While the test team looks reasonably good, one never has much confidence when the one dayers arrive.

So it might seem odd then that I felt pretty optimistic as England headed off to India for the 7 game one day series. OK, we were shocking in the Caribbean during the Stanford series but prior to that, in the summer, we had handed a very good South African side a fairly comprehensive beating.

Is Cesc a captain?

In FourFourTwo magazine this month there is a list of the 100 best footballers of this year. I was staggered to read that Cesc Fabregas was number 12, ahead of players such as Carvalho, Essien, Arshavin, Buffon, Lampard, Senna etc. It is about this year (2008) the year in which Senna was player of the tournament when Spain managed to finally deliver a major trophy. Fabregas of course played a part for Spain (a very good sub appearance v Russia) but he was never a starter until an injury to David Villa and then he was removed after a very dissapointing final display after only 60 minutes.

England: a developing team which lacks true quality

It was only 5 years ago that England had the best team in the world and our side was littered with world class players. The England Manager, Martin Johnson, was one of them but you could also put Lawrence Dallaglio, Richard Hill, Neil Back, Matt Dawson, Jonny Wilkinson, Will Greenwood and Jason Robinson into that category.

Sir Clive Woodward was lucky to have such resource available to him and his former captain Johnson now finds himself sadly lacking in the world class department. The really sad thing to me, which was so apparent on Saturday when we were destroyed by South Africa, was that we were outplayed in every deparment. They were faster, stronger, bigger, more aggressive and higher skilled.

WAG of the week: Hayley Holt

If you live in England you will know Hayley Holt as the unlucky ball room expert who got lumbered with Mark Foster on Strictly Come Dancing. However, if you come from New Zealand, you will know her as the girlfriend of All Blacks skipper and best player in the world, Richie McCaw.

Here she is in action:

Today's Funny: Latest ARC video

Here's the latest video from Jedi at The Alternative Rugby Commentary. In today's clip he previews the England v All Blacks game on Saturday. It seems he doesn't give us much of a chance.

I fear he might just be right....