Saturday clockwatch | Rob Smyth

• Send all your thoughts to rob.smyth@guardian.co.uk • Press F5 to refresh this page or use our auto-refresher • Click here for all the latest league tables and stats • All the latest from across Europe on our live scoreboard 3pm David Wallace has been stretchered off; it looks like a knee problem and first impressions are that he will probably be out of the World Cup. O’Gara has made it Ireland 6-10 England, while a try from Jeff Lima has put Wigan 10-0 ahead of Leeds at Wembley. 2.58pm My eyes hurt. The scores haven’t changed in the two rugby matches. It’s Ireland 3-10 England and Leeds 0-4 Wigan. But David Wallace looks in a worrying amount of pain after a tackle from Tuilagi. 2.54pm “Perhaps players can wear scented gold hotpants and a salary cap,” says Ian Copestake. 2.51pm Ronan O’Gara scored the Ireland penalty, but Jonny Wilkinson has since made it Ireland 3-10 England . 2.50pm “One change to save football?” says Gary Naylor. “Listen to Michel Platini. Anyone who unites so many in English football against him must be doing something right.” 2.48pm Ireland have scored a penalty in Dublin, which means it’s Ireland 3-7 England . It’s also Leeds 0-4 Wigan in the Challenge Cup final. I’d love to give you more detail, but I’m trying to watch eight different screens at the same time and I’m only just sure what my own name is, never mind anything else. 2.46pm Will Jefferson slog-sweeps Gary Keedy into the crowd, and Leicestershire have beaten Lancashire. They will play in tonight’s final, which we’ll be OBOing, and Paul Nixon – who will retire after today – runs onto the field to celebrate. Great stuff. 2.46pm Will Jefferson has belted the first two balls of the Super Over for four, and Leicestershire are on the brink of the final. They are 9-0 after three balls, needing 14 to win. 2.44pm There’s a Super Over in the Twenty20 semi-final between Lancashire and Leicestershire. Lancashire have made 13 in theirs, and now Gary Keedy is going to bowl. 2.42pm Manu Tuilagi swerves decisively through the Ireland defence to score an early try for England in Dublin, and Jonny Wilkinson extends that lead with an expert conversion. Ireland 0-7 England . Swansea v Sunderland team news Swansea: Vorm, Williams, Taylor, Caulker, Rangel, Britton, Sinclair, Dyer, Routledge, Graham, Agustien. Subs: Moreira, Tate, Dobbie, Lita, Moore, Allen, Gower. Sunderland: Mignolet, Bardsley, Brown, O’Shea, Ferdinand, Cattermole, Larsson, Gardner, Colback, Gyan, Sessegnon. Subs: Westwood, Wickham, Richardson, Vaughan, Ji, Bramble, Elmohamady. Referee: Mark Halsey (Lancashire) Chelsea v Norwich team news Chelsea: Hilario, Bosingwa, Ivanovic, Terry, Cole, Ramires, Mikel, Lampard, Drogba, Torres, Malouda. Subs: Turnbull, Mata, Lukaku, Ferreira, McEachran, Alex, Anelka. Norwich: Ruddy, Barnett, De Laet, Whitbread, Naughton, Hoolahan, Bradley Johnson, Crofts, Tierney, Holt, Chris Martin. Subs: Rudd, Russell Martin, Morison, Jackson, Pilkington, Fox, Bennett. Referee Mike Jones (Cheshire) 2.24pm Wigan have beaten QPR 2-0, an excellent win for them that in their battle to stay up on the final day. Blackburn v Everton team news Blackburn: Robinson, Salgado, Samba, Givet, Olsson, Emerton, Nzonzi, Dunn, Pedersen, Hoilett, Roberts. Subs: Bunn, Formica, Petrovic, Rochina, Goodwillie, Hanley, Lowe. Everton: Howard, Neville, Jagielka, Distin, Baines, Osman, Heitinga, Arteta, Barkley, Fellaini, Anichebe. Subs: Mucha, Hibbert, Bilyaletdinov, Beckford, Cahill, Vellios, Baxter. Referee Lee Mason (Lancashire) 2.18pm On a serious note – because sometimes the laughter has to stop – football is in a right state. It’s a disgrace. But it might not be too late to save it. So if you could suggest one idea to save football, what would it be? It can be anything you like: an unseeded knockout in the European Cup, all players to wear scented gold hotpants, a salary cap, whatever. 2.14pm Some Challenge Cup final team news from the wires. Leeds gambled on the fitness of Kallum Watkins as they sought to end their losing sequence in Challenge Cup finals in today’s clash with Wigan at a sun-kissed Wembley. The 20-year-old centre had been a major doubt after twisting his knee against Harlequins a week ago but was named in the Rhinos’ starting line-up. Leeds, runners-up four times since lifting the Cup at the old Wembley in 1999, left out Lee Smith and Ali Lauitiiti from their 19-man squad while Wigan opted for Liam Farrell on the bench ahead of Gareth Hock. The Warriors, who won the Cup in Edinburgh in 2002, are back at Wembley for the first time since their shock defeat by Sheffield Eagles in 1998 and were once more hot favourites after going into the game on the back of an 11-match winning run. 2.13pm The teams for Zimbabwe v Kenya in the World Cup warm-up in Dublin. Ireland Murphy, Bowe, Earls, D’Arcy, Trimble, O’Gara, Reddan, Healy, Flannery, Ross, O’Callaghan, O’Connell, Ferris, D. Wallace, Heaslip. Replacements: Best, Court, Ryan, Leamy, Murray, Sexton, McFadden. England Foden, Ashton, Tuilagi, Tindall, Cueto, Wilkinson, Wigglesworth, Sheridan, Thompson, Cole, Lawes, Croft, Fourie, Haskell, Hartley. Replacements: Stevens, Shaw, Palmer, Simpson, Flood, Armitage. Referee Nigel Owens (Wales) 1.58pm It has finished Aston Villa 0-0 Wolves , so Wolves go back to the top of the Premier League for whatever that’s worth (clue: the square root of eff all). Meanwhile, Franco Di Santo has just made it Wigan 2-0 QPR . I had no idea that game was even going on until Iain Dowie starting shouting in my lughole. Pulitzer please! 1.54pm According to our French snout, Tresor, the South Korean captain and striker Park Chu-Young is about to join Arsenal from Monaco. 1.46pm Some rugby union team news cut and pasted lovelessly from the news wires: England number eight Nick Easter failed a fitness test on his tight calf shortly before today’s World Cup warm-up clash with Ireland. Easter was replaced in the starting line-up by Hendre Fourie, who is not a member of Martin Johnson’s 30-man squad for the New Zealand tournament, with James Haskell switching to No8 to accommodate the Sale openside. England fielded a new-look centre partnership of Alesana Tuilagi and Mike Tindall at Aviva Stadium, with Jonny Wilkinson featuring at fly-half. Brian O’Driscoll was missing for Ireland after sustaining a ‘stinger’ injury to his shoulder, while flanker Sean O’Brien sat out the match because of a knee problem. Preamble Hello. For the second successive Saturday we have only three 3pm kick offs in the Premier League. It’s an indefensible disgrace, which should but won’t shame those whose unashamed avarice has caused this situation. As names go, ‘the beautiful game’ is now about as apt as Tim Lovejoy, the Champions League and Louise Mensch. The plus side of such an anorexic Premier League fixture list is that is allows me to demonstrate my knowledge of rugby union and rugby league; the down side is that I have no knowledge of rugby union and rugby league. But I will at least attempt to update you on the two 1430 kick-offs: Ireland v England (rugby league World Cup warm-up) and Wigan v Leeds (rugby union Challenge Cup final). The three Premier League games are: Blackburn v Everton Chelsea v Norwich Swansea v Sunderland Absurd as it is to report so early in the season, four of those six sides will be the recipient of pelters from fans and media if they lose today. The exceptions are the newly promoted sides, Swansea and Norwich. It’s not fair, not remotely but that’s the game these days. Premier League Championship League One League Two Rugby league Rugby union Rob Smyth guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 27, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.