'Discipline was right on the edge' - Man of Match Beirne
British and Irish Lions head coach Andy Farrell was full of praise for flankers Tom Curry and Tadgh Beirne.Both selections were questioned before the game because of their form on tour."Tom Curry and Tadgh Beirne were absolutely immense. Curry put in some shots defensively and Tadgh got the turnover very early doors. It didn't stop there," Farrell said."Conan's carrying was very much on the front foot. Those three guys I'm sure they'll be delighted with how they responded to being selected."Curry and Beirne are a man of their word and that's what they delivered."
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The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Oleksandr Usyk wraps Ukraine's flag around himself and his fists around Daniel Dubois
Perhaps the most striking part of the surge of controlled fury that ended this heavyweight title fight wasn't the short right or the clubbing left that took Daniel Dubois down midway through the fifth round. It was Oleksandr Usyk's smile before the second of those shots. More of a snarl perhaps, or a baring of the gumshield, as Dubois let his arms drop, giving Usyk time to freeze the moment, load up, take aim and unleash a fully extended left hand to the side of the jaw that made Dubois crumple, legs folding under him as his father, Stan, threw in the towel. This was always huge occasion for both fighters. For Dubois it was a chance to do something unprecedented, uniting the the heavyweight belts on British soil in front of 90,000 people. For Usyk it was another opportunity to assert his own greatness, to walk in with three belts and leave with four, and at the same time complete his constant secondary arc of representing Ukraine in a time of war. Usyk is now the two-time undisputed heavyweight world champion. Most astonishing of all he seems to find with each of these fights new depths of will, control and finishing venom. Perhaps the best part here was Dubois got to execute his own gameplan, to look sharp, edge a couple of rounds and leave with his reputation, if not enhanced then at least preserved, and to do all this while also being violently outmatched. Facing Usyk at this level must feel like being battered off your feet while being simultaneously triple check-mated, thrashed at Cluedo and losing a game of dominos. At the end, Usyk said: 'I want a rest.' He didn't look like he wanted a rest, or needed one, or even really understands what one is. He mentioned Tyson Fury, Derek Chisora and Anthony Joshua. Do them all in one night, Oleks. In different ways. With a different walkout, and maybe just a single toilet break. This was another night when Riyadh season came to Wembley. Fight nights have a kind of festival vibe here, the pitch lassoed into a series of zones and stages, gangways thronged. The crowd was starry in the plush seats. Here is Jake Paul doing a peace sign. Here is Jason Statham in sunglasses. Closer to the ring it was the familiar royal court of influencers, oddballs, showmen faces, movers, shakers, Mr fix-its, Mr pay-for-its. As the main event approached Wembley had the feeling of a vast, humid, tropical shed, seized with an ever-rising field of event-glamour and title-flash. It felt like a blend of Vegas and a mass celebratory Saturday night out, Sweet Caroline, pints in the air, and all of this mixed with legacy issues, hall-of-famer ascent, the flags of war, the $200m purse, the Saudi project staging. Michael Buffer appeared, gravely tuxedoed, to do his town crier act. Nadya Dorofeeva, a kind of Ukrainian Cheryl Cole, sang a very affecting champions anthem. God Save the King got the full singalong treatment. Wembley looked magnificently alive, light show thrilling, crowd bobbing along to Chase & Status as Dubois emerged to flames and fireworks, dressed in a stark black T-shirt cut to reveal the vast expanse of his neck, swarming up from the foothills of his tiered and slabbed shoulders. Dubois waved a fist and looked focused. But there is always going to be a basic imbalance in the energy fields around these two fighters. Usyk is a one-man cause. He's a battle standard, a living embodiment of his nation's defiance of the Russian invasion. No boxer has ever represented his country to this degree, travelling the world draped in the flag while a bloody invasion continues in real time. It is an extraordinary state of being. What does Dubois represent? How does he confront this one-man instrument of war? What is his narrative? Even Tyson Fury manage to concoct a kind of base, a following, the mental-heath activism, the deep male, Iron John, man-of-the-forest vibes. Dubois can't be the bad guy. He's a nice guy. He is in effect a one-man project, a sole trader. He represents hard work, clean living and paternal control. He represents the ability to do five thousand press-ups. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Usyk emerged to boos from the home crowd and cheers from his Ukrainian followers. He doesn't actually need music and storytelling. He just needs to exist in the middle of all that noise, a cold, still centre, with a beautifully contained sense of menace just in the way he moves. At the weight in Dubois had flared his neck muscles like a giant salamander. Usyk just stood there, 16lb lighter in his jewellery, all legacy, presence, certainty. Dubois started as promised, taking the centre of the ring, working behind his jab, following it in a little more. It was an even start, and thrillingly intense from both men. Dubois was working hard, making Usyk think. This is always a high-wire act. Usyk is learning you while you come forward, decoding your moves, building his own own set of counter-patterns. Dubois brought challenger work rate and disruptive aggression. But there was also a sense of a fighter expending his energy, of Usyk absorbing it, and moving into ever-more dangerous territory. By round five Dubois had slowed. He was being encircled clockwise, picked off with combinations. Usyk is a small heavyweight by modern super-sized standards (he is the exact same dimensions, height and weight, as Muhammad Ali), but the mistake is to see this as a disadvantage, as opposed to his defining super-strength, bringing with it with it speed, agility, startling power. Here it was the viciousness of his finishing, the sense of a little genuine champion anger, that really stood out. Dubois deserves credit for being willing to fight everyone in front of him. There is a kind of freedom in this. Defeat here will still leave him in the top tier, with other pathways back towards this level. Usyk, meanwhile, remains in his own distinct space, endlessly adaptable, physically undiminished, a man fighting with a kind of light around him.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Ann-Katrin Berger follows up biblical miracle with penalty heroics for Germany
Ann-Katrin Berger is flying. The ball is flying. A few yards away, near the penalty spot, Clara Mateo of France already has her arms raised in celebration. A heroic German defensive rearguard is about to end in a misdirected defensive header, a looping own goal and a heartbreaking defeat. But a 34-year-old double cancer survivor, largely written off by her own country's media before this quarter-final, has other ideas. The mechanics of the save itself are easy enough to explain. Berger is about five yards out of her goal, and so has to back-pedal furiously while also keeping her eye on the flight. At the last moment, it looks like the ball is about to beat her. Which is the point at which Berger flings herself backwards and upwards, finding every last gram of strength, straining every last muscle, the sort of moment you spend a lifetime training for. She claws it away with her fingers. Falls heavily on her shoulders. Accepts the congratulations of her teammates, who look like they have just seen a biblical miracle. And, you know, perhaps they had. Was this the moment Germany wrote their destiny? It certainly didn't feel that way at the time. Twenty minutes still remained. France still had all the possession and an extra player. But maybe it was the moment when Germany's mission sharpened to the finest of points, when they determined above all that a save of such cosmic brilliance must not be for nothing. It had been an epic night, an excruciating night, and for the depleted, exhausted Germany a night of sheer refusal. Forced to play for almost two hours (including added time) with 10 players after the early dismissal of Kathrin Hendrich, boasting a passing accuracy of just 51%, they withstood one of the deadliest attacks in the tournament with their bodies and every last breath in them. By this point the game had long since ceased to take any recognisable form or shape: just two tired teams finding increasingly creative ways to collide with each other. At one point in extra time the sensational Jule Brand went on a dribble past halfway and, seeing three blue shirts congregating on her, basically changed her mind, let the ball go and decided to get back into position. As for France, it was a night for reverting to type. For confirming every pre-existing stereotype of them. For demonstrating why this team of such incredible individual talent have never been able to fulfil that talent as a collective. Forced to break down a team with no intention of giving them the space in behind they love to exploit, they were utterly devoid of ideas, of creativity, of passing guile, of any real strategy beyond giving it to the wingers and seeing if the next stepover might work any better than the last. Perhaps you could argue that Hendrich's red card for pulling the hair of Griedge Mbock actually simplified Germany's task. Even so, it would have taken a brave seer to predict anything but a French victory at that point, especially after an injury to Sarai Linder at right-back. But her replacement, Sophia Kleinherne was immense, as were the two big pre-match selections by Christian Wück: Giovanna Hoffmann up front and Franziska Kett at left-back. Kleinherne completed just two passes all night, Brand just eight. But of course these were not the key milestones. Try Rebecca Knaak's 13 clearances, Janina Minge's 11, the 16 tackles, Sjoeke Nüsken's first tournament goal. And of course there were nine saves from the hands of Berger, a goalkeeper who could have been cherry-picked for this assignment, one relying less on silky ball-work than on sheer, gravelly defiance. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion Berger had come in for considerable criticism after some misplaced passes in the 4-1 defeat by Sweden. And of course her old-school style sometimes feels at odds with the more progressive, possession-based kind of football the modern Germany want to play. But give her a goal and she will protect it with her life. She's beaten thyroid cancer twice. She can probably deal with your inswinging cross. As the minutes leaked away, as France had a goal disallowed, as Germany missed their own penalty, the German fans behind Berger's goal slowly began to warm to their task. Increasingly the French players were bearing forlorn expressions, negative body language, crushed by the burden of having to win this match several times over simply to win it once. Or perhaps not at all. Because after two hours and 13 penalties, Berger was flying again. Amel Majri had been the first to fail, then Berger had scored a penalty of her own, and now Alice Sombath had put her kick at a pleasant height, and once more Berger was the commander of angles and time. She palmed the ball away. Rose to her knees. And in the moments before her victorious teammates mobbed her, Berger was simply kneeling there: imploring us to adore her, a woman who through everything had never stopped believing in herself.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Eubank Jr-Benn rematch 'dead'
A rematch between British rivals Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn is "dead", says promoter Eddie beat Benn in a unanimous points decision at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in April.A second bout had been agreed for 20 September, however, it was revealed earlier this week the contest was unlikely to take who promotes Benn, told BBC Sport his fighter was now looking to move away from the rematch, with eyes instead on a world title shot."At the moment the fight between Eubank and Benn is dead," he revealed. "September 20th was the date, now I believe there is some kind of conversation about a November fight."Benn isn't interested in being messed around or waiting around. He would love and arguably prefer a shot at the world title. "If that presented itself, then we would definitely look at that option."Benn, 28, has also claimed to be looking at alternative options, with a move back down to welterweight on the cards. He told BBC Sport: "We signed a two-fight deal, we were ready to go. The date was announced straight after the first fight for September, done a lot of negotiations in terms of venues, dates. "They had all agreed September 20th, then Eubank came out and said he wasn't ready."Asked if Benn was prepared to wait until the end of the year, Hearn added: "So we have to give them a chance."We just appeal to Eubank, if you're not ready to go back to war with Benn and you'd rather sit at a poker table in Las Vegas, good luck to you. But let us move on.""We're ready to move on, drop down to 147 and get a world title," said first fight was organised by Ring Magazine, which is owned by Turki Alalshikh, and it was thought the rematch would also fall under the Riyadh Season on Saturday's broadcast before Oleksandr Usyk's win over Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium, Alalshikh said the Eubank-Benn bout could still happen and suggested January or February as potential alternative has not commented on the situation himself, and it is unclear when an official decision will be 35-year-old was fined £10,000 earlier this month by the British Boxing Board of Control over "misuse of social media" in the build-up to the first contest.
