It's hard to catch my breath at the minute, and before you start, no I've not got asthma or nor am I suffering from Covid, it's because the weekend gone by has been extremely busy.
A Saturday spent back on the Fylde coast, working may I add, saw Fylde rugby union make it a perfect eight from eight at home this season with a hard fought win over Huddersfield.
The weekend previous they had to dig deep to beat a strong Loughborough Students team, and for a long time in the game they had to do the same against Huddersfield, as the match report suggests.
Chris Briers and Alex Loney will have their sights firmly set on the spots above them in the table now, and in the upcoming weeks they face stiff tests at the Woodlands, with 4th placed, and unbeaten at the time of writing this, Rotherham visit, before Sedgley who are 2nd head there on February 19th.
Joe Bedlow stepped in well for the injured Scott Rawlings, and he could be a useful asset for the club on dual registration from Sale in the upcoming weeks.
Briers knows all about what Bedlow is capable of after coaching him earlier on in his career, and he already fitted right in at centre, with the hard running Henry Hadfield on the outside, and I do mean hard running!
Sunday was a return to touch judge duties so I had to catch up on Bob Ollinger's demolition job afterwards.
He jumped well, as expected of course, but with no My Drogo to face at Cheltenham he's certainly looking for challengers for that festival in March.
All we've heard from the masterful trainer Nicky Henderson the last few week has either surrounded discussions on whether Shishkin will run against Energumene and Jonbon and Constitution Hill.
So far, Shishkin is going to run in the Clarence House this week and set up the mouth watering clash with the Willie Mullins trained horse, and it was Mullins who through his hat in the ring as you will for this whole Supreme Hurdle come March.
Dysart Dynamo cruised clear in good style in the Grade 2 at Punchestown, and even though the obvious focus has been on the Henderson pair and who he'll run, Mullins has a live contender here that's for sure.
Meanwhile back in the UK Stag Horn showed in the Leamington at Warwick he's not just a flat horse.
His jumping from the front was impeccable and when he was asked to lengthen on the turn in for home, he did, and continued to find when asked by Nick Schofield.
I'm sure his winning this season is far from over, and hopefully Archie Watson can find another decent race to put him in to test him and see just how good he is.
I did watch the first race from Kelso on my way to the match, and I was glad I did, you may remember a while back I did an interview with jockey Nathan Moscrop and Rebecca Menzies, and Moscrop produced a very good ride to get the nine-year-old Scottish Accent back in the winners enclosure.
Moving on then to the final topic of this week's blog, I'm sure another Cheltenham race preview will be out in the not so distant future though, football.
Manchester City have continued to be impressive with their slick style of football which keeps on beating teams.
Their win over Chelsea showed one important lesson on the whole I think, to be the best you've got to take your chances, and that's what City did.
At times Chelsea cut open the City backline like a hot knife through butter but they failed to take their chances, and when Kevin De Bruyne got the ball on the edge of the box in the second-half you knew there was only one place that ball was going.
You don't usually see a player from the losing team take the headlines, but when James Ward-Prowse produced his stunning 35 yard free-kick on Saturday against Wolves, how could you not?
A dead ball specialist who would give David Beckham a run for his money, Ward-Prowse is now captain of Southampton and I can't believe a club at the top end of the table haven't taken him yet because he has so much in his locker.
That's enough for another quick round-up though in the blog, like I said, another Cheltenham race preview will soon be out, even though we have the Winter Million to deal with this week at Lingfield and also Ascot on Saturday so, plenty of big racing to happen before the festival yet that's for sure!
See you in the next one as always...
Comments