Mitch Phillips

Nicolas Anelka's arrival at Chelsea in January last year hardly had the fans buzzing amid all the big-money signings since Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich transformed the fortunes of the west London club.

The peripatetic France striker seemed like a stop-gap and few expected him to be part of Chelsea's long-term future.

He had just spent 18 months at Bolton Wanderers after spells at Fenerbahce, Manchester City, Liverpool, Paris St Germain and, following the best piece of business in Arsenal's history, Real
Madrid who he joined for 23 million pounds.

At none of those clubs, however, did he really settle and deliver the regular match-winning performances that made him such a deadly proposition under Arsene Wenger at Arsenal.

His first half-season at Chelsea produced just two goals and, although he was far more prolific last term with 25 and some excellent displays, there was always the feeling he was second fiddle to Didier Drogba.

This season, however, Anelka seems to have stepped up a gear and gives the impression that not only is he enjoying his football, a rarity for a man nicknamed 'the incredible sulk', but he is increasingly the focal point of Chelsea's attack.

He headed the only goal on Tuesday in the Champions League win at Porto that secured top spot in Group D to maintain his record of vital goals this season having been the sole scorer in the home win over Porto and 1-0 victory at APOEL Nicosia.

He was also outstanding for France in the 1-1 playoff draw with Ireland that secured a World Cup berth, holding the ball up repeatedly with a sure touch and keeping possession despite some tough Irish tackling that previously might have seen him wilt.

"Not only in the Champions League but in all competitions Anelka is having a very good season," Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti said after Tuesday's win.

"He is a very important player, sometimes playing as a striker close to Drogba, sometimes helping the midfield. His position is very important for our play."

On Sunday Chelsea face London rivals Arsenal, where Anelka made his name as a teenage tyro after being nabbed from PSG for a bargain 500,000 pounds by Wenger.

He scored there in last season's impressive 4-1 triumph and any sort of repeat would be a huge help in Chelsea's title push.

"It is a very good time for us and we have to keep this going because the players are in good condition, have a good mentality and want to maintain this momentum," Ancelotti said.

"We know very well that Sunday will be a very difficult match but we know that now is a very good time to play Arsenal," he added, with their opponents hit by a string of injuries.

Chelsea could be further boosted by an early return for Frank Lampard after a thigh strain. Ancelotti said the England midfielder was in full training and may be fit for Sunday.

PHOTO: Chelsea's Nicolas Anelka (R) is challenged by Liverpool's Daniel Agger during their English Premier League soccer match at Stamford Bridge in London October 26, 2008. REUTERS/Stephen Hird

Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst discovered that winning a World Cup as a player is no guarantee of success as a manager and Martin Johnson is beginning to feel the heat after a torrid first year at Twickenham.

His appointment as England "manager" was always going to be a risk, and one that he publicly accepted. Despite having absolutely no coaching experience Johnson was held in such high esteem by everyone in the game that it was felt by the RFU that his very presence would bring stability to the team.

The idea was that "Jonnho" would act as some sort of facilitator, and, as Clive Woodward did during England's most successful period ever, leave the coaching to others.

Former head coach Brian Ashton, sacked after reaching the World Cup final and achieving England's best Six Nations performance for five years, will no doubt be looking on and wondering just what progress has been made.

Attack coach Brian Smith has been added to the set-up and, as a man know for his inventive approach as a player and club coach, he must be stupendously disappointed with what England have served up under his tenure.

Forwards coach John Wells and defensive coach Mike Ford have been around for years, while scrum specialist Graham Rowntree admits he has been learning on the job after his rapid promotion through the ranks.

Johnson said he was frustrated by the amount of possession England kicked away against Australia and, particularly, Argentina, but surely the coaches influenced that tactic?

The backs would not have continually hoisted ineffective up and unders had Johnson and Smith sent them out with instructions to run the ball instead and many observers have said that England played as if they were waiting for instructions from the sidelines and terrified of making a mistake, let alone a decision.

The performance against Argentina was one of their worst for years and even Johnson had no complaints about the crowd booing his team off at halftime.

The 2003 World Cup-winning captain has had very little Press criticism despite winning only six of his 13 games and copping some record defeats along the way but that will not last for ever.

"Fortress Twickenham" has instead become somewhere for the Tri-Nations teams to fill their boots and with the All Blacks next in town on Saturday there seems little prospect of any immediate change.

The RFU have said Johnson is their man up to the 2011 World Cup and he is unlikely to be sacked anytime soon but that does not rule out the prospect of him making the decision for them.

As a player the mighty lock was the last man to walk away from a challenge but his love of England comes well ahead of his ego and if he feels that the team would do better without him he would surely have non qualms about stepping down.

It would be desperately sad to seem him go as it just feels right to have him around the England set-up but something is not working at the moment and something needs to change quickly if they are going to turn things round to become World Cup contenders in two years.

PHOTO: England's coach Martin Johnson looks to the sky before the Argentina game at Twickenham, November 14, 2009. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

Thursday update: Nothing to do with this incident, of course, but worth noting that Ferguson has been banished to the stands, receiving a two-match ban and a fine of 20,000 quid for the comments he made about Alan Wiley in October.

So, the FA has decided to get tough with the United boss. Are they right to do it? Read the full story here.

You might think Alex Ferguson would have realised, after half a century in the professional game, that the view from the manager's dug-out is rarely objective or entirely accurate.

And if a referee does happen to make a mistake, which he is bound to do in the high-speed hurly-burly of a Premier League match, the Scot might also have come to the conclusion that venting your spleen at the powerless fourth official is a waste of everybody's time.

But no, it seems not. Week after week, month after month, season after season, barely a match passes without Ferguson complaining about something that didn't go United's way.

On Sunday, when he might have been questioning his decision to play only one striker in a cautious approach to the showdown with Chelsea or berating his walkabout defence for failing to defend the key free kick, he found three reasons why John Terry's goal should not have stood.

The initial foul on Ashley Cole by Darren Fletcher should not have been given, he said. Wes Brown was impeded in trying to defend the subsequent Frank Lampard free kick and Didier Drogba was offside and obscuring Edwin van der Sar's view of the ball when it went in.

Of the hat-trick, the initial one appeared to have the most merit but any number of aggressive tackles are deemed fouls these days and Cristiano Ronaldo used to benefit as much if not more than anyone else in that regard.

The marginal contact between Drogba and Brown is also small beer in the current climate where wrestling in the box ahead of free kicks and corners has become an established part of the game. Rest assured that when Steve Bruce was patrolling the centre of United's defence he would not have allowed himself to so easily be taken out of the game at a vital moment.

TV replays were inconclusive over Drogba's position and, even if all three moans were justified, people have surely just stopped listening.

"You lose faith in refereeing sometimes, that's the way the players are talking in there -- it was a bad one," he said, with Wayne Rooney chipping in by apparently mouthing "12 men" at a TV camera as he trudged off at the end.

PHOTO: Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson reacts during their English Premier League soccer match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in London November 8, 2009. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh

Newcastle United fans have put up with a lot over the years but selling "naming rights" for James' Park might be the final straw for some fans.

At 10pm on Tuesday the club announced that Chris Hughton would be made full-time manager and that owner Mike Ashley would no longer be selling and instead would inject 20 million pounds this week.

Slipped in among the back-slapping was the news that the club would welcome bids for the naming rights of the ground the club has occupied with pride since 1892.

Newcastle fans have had years of fun abusing Sunderland for what they consider the pretentious "Stadium of Light" which replaced Roker Park 12 years ago and now their fiercest rivals are poised to return the favour when one of the most famous and atmospheric grounds in the country becomes an advert.

Supporters have become less sensitive about names of new or rebuilt stadiums since the days when Millwall's Den was imaginatively named "The New Den" and selling the naming rights to a new ground, such as the Emirates Stadium, is no longer that controversial.

Slapping a new name on an established ground, however, is another matter entirely.

Manchester United, never slow to miss a commercial opportunity, would surely never consider losing "Old Trafford" even though the sort of fee they could command for such a deal would dwarf anything Newcastle could hope to raise.

Imagine Liverpool's players trotting down the tunnel and reaching up to pat a sign reading "This is the ACME Co Stadium", with the world-famous Anfield relegated to the club museum.

Such decisions are exactly why Ashley is so disliked and distrusted by the rank and file Newcastle fans, something that cannot be changed by donning a replica shirt and downing a few pints amongst them.

The forum of the city's Evening Chronicle newspaper website was overflowing with comments from angry fans on Wednesday.

Though some fans said it was not a major issue and that the money would be welcome, the overall feeling was very opposed. "Magpie5uk" led the way with the following heartfelt pros:

"This completely detached buffoon has to be stopped. He is unscrupulous, and will not stop until he has taken everything that not only fans, but people of Newcastle in general, appreciate. He is systematically destroying everything that means anything to the fans.
For instance:
1...Our Premier League Status.
2...Our top players.
3...Kevin Keegan.
4...Alan Shearer.
5...Our dignity.
6...Our humility.
7...Our enjoyment of Saturday Afternoons.
8...(AND POSSIBLY THE WORST OF ALL!) Our heritage, with this DISGRACEFUL decision to sell the name of the ground!!!
This man MUST be stopped!!"

PHOTO: Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley (C) at St James' Park, Feb 1, 2009. REUTERS/Nigel Roddis

So now we know which European teams are in the World Cup playoffs and we have a pretty good idea of the seedings, though FIFA's updated rankings out at the end of the week will provide confirmation ahead of Monday's draw.

It looks like Russia, France, Greece and Portugal will be the seeded teams with Ukraine, Ireland, Bosnia and Slovenia playing them. After Argentina's qualification in the final match against Uruguay, it looks increasingly likely that all the big teams will be there in South Africa.

But four days on from my blog on Sunday, the decision to seed the Euroepan teams in the qualifiers doesn't look any fairer.

Doctor Mario, in a comment on that blog, said seeding was a reward for credits earned but it will take a long time for a new nation like Slovenia to earn enough credits to start a qualifying campaign on a level playing field.

That's one of the reasons why it tends to be the same old faces making it to the finals. If you are Italy, France, Germany or Spain you know that in your qualifying group will have no other "elite team", just a couple of second or third tier nations and some also-rans.

If you are someone like Wales, Israel or Finland you know you will have to pull off a series of upset wins even to finish second in your group. And if you do it your reward is to be seeded in the bottom half again in the playoffs.

How much help do France need? If they are not good enough to win a group comprising Serbia, Austria, Lithuania, Romania and the Faroe Islands where is the justice in giving them another helping hand in the playoffs?

They didn't make the World Cup in 1994 and I don't remember too many people complaining about a degraded tournament.

In fact Bulgaria, who qualified ahead of them and had a particularly woeful World Cup record, produced some of the most memorable moments of the finals as they went all the way to the semi-finals. Four years later, France won the World Cup.

The 1970 World Cup is many people's choice as the best-ever tournament -- it's hard to see how it would have been enhanced had Argentina been there.

There is no asterix alongside the results of the 1974 and 78 finals saying * Note: England failed to qualify.

Everyone is saying that Portugal, and Cristiano Ronaldo, should be there next year because the best players should be seen on the world stage, but Portugal have played in only four of the 18 World Cups. They are hardly a fixture.

And where was the help for Ryan Giggs, George Best or George Weah, whose lowly-seeded teams never made it through.

And anyway, it's not the point. It's FIFA's unexpected introduction of the seeding that has so angered so many people. If they thought that was the fairest way then they should have enshrined it in the regulations at the start of qualifying, shouldn't they?

PHOTO: Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo reacts after being injured against Hungary during their 2010 World Cup qualifying soccer match at Luz stadium in Lisbon October 10, 2009. REUTERS/Marcos Borga

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and for every FIFA marketing slogan there is a subsequent decision that can make fans wonder if world football's governing body is being serious.

"Fair Play Please" is the current favourite but how, exactly, does that square with the decision to make the European zone World Cup playoffs a seeded affair?

Nowhere in the acres of pre-qualifying regulations was there a suggestion that the playoffs would be seeded but now the good people of Zurich have realised that some of the biggest names in the game could be involved in the November home and away matches, the new rule has been presented as a fait accompli.

So the eight teams in the playoffs will be seeded according to their FIFA ranking -- conveniently avoiding the prospect of France playing, say, Portugal and one of the continent's big guns being forced to miss out.

Unsurprisingly, the decision was not welcomed by the likes of Ireland -- into the playoffs but likely to be seeded in the "bottom half".

Bosnia were too busy celebrating making the playoffs on Saturday to worry about their structure but wouldn't they be right in thinking they deserve as much a chance of facing, say, Greece or Slovenia as Russia or France?

The nine group winners got their reward in automatic qualification. Shouldn't the best eight second-place teams (Norway look set to be the unlucky ninth-best runners-up who will miss out altogether) be left to take their chances having, in some cases, overcome tough seeding in the group the first time round to make it this far?

The arrival of bright new teams, and the chance for unfamiliar players to make names for themselves on the biggest stage of all, help keep the World Cup fresh and exciting. If the rules just make it more likely that the Big Boys always make it, the worry must be that the game and the tournament will end up being the loser.

PHOTO: Ireland's Liam Lawrence reacts after their 2010 World Cup qualifying soccer match against Italy at Croke Park Stadium in Dublin October 10, 2009. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Rarely can a defeat, and such a heart-breaking one at that, have been greeted with so much enthusiasm by the losers as Manchester City's 4-3 reverse at Old Trafford.

Sports professionals are forever banging on about "taking the positives" from setbacks but for everyone connected with City, their performance and the whole occasion on Sunday showed that they really will be a force to be reckoned with over the next few months and years.

Despite being shorn of several of their best players and going behind after two minutes, City hung on to United like a terrier with a mouthful of trouser.

Every time United shook them off with a goal, they came back with a tighter bite. Even when the champions were peppering their goal during a period of dominance in the second half, City stayed in the game.

They were felled by Michael Owen's 96th-minute winner, sparking wild scenes on the touchline and some enjoyable jousting from the managers.

Current England rugby manager Martin Johnson has said that he felt sure England would win the 2003 World Cup final after seeing how Australia celebrated their semi-final win over New Zealand and United's joy, even allowing for the dramatic nature of the finale, was a few notches up on anything seen in a derby win for decades.

"They seemed quite excitable at the end which shows you what this win means to them," said Mark Hughes. "It was reminiscent of some of the scenes with Brian Kidd and Alex Ferguson in days gone by and I saw Gary Neville running on the pitch like a lunatic."

A smiling Alex Ferguson said: "Sometimes you've got a noisy neighbour and you have to live with it. You can't do anything about them and they keep on making noise."

Hughes responded by saying his former boss had better get used to it. "We are not going to go away," he said.

Ferguson, for once, decided not to pass comment on City's spending power -- which was probably a good idea given the fact that his team on Sunday cost an estimated 126 million pounds to the 122 of City.

But he knows that the funding City have will keep them on an upward trend and that performances and occasions like that on Sunday - for all the defensive frailties on show - will help attract more big names next time the transfer window opens.

"We are disappointed to leave here with nothing, but that shows how far this club has come," said Kolo Toure. "We showed to everyone today we have the qualities and the spirit to mix it up with the big boys."

Ferguson photo by Phil Noble

Many Arsenal supporters spent half of last season, and most of Saturday's match, screaming abuse at Emmanuel Adebayor. On Saturday, he scored and dared to run the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of them.

"Outrageous" and "shocking" screamed just about everyone. Obviously he should take the blame for the visiting fans' subsequent eruption of hatred and vitriol. It was clearly his fault that some of them threw missiles on to the pitch and he is obviously culpable for the City steward being knocked unconscious in the melee.

He got booked for his troubles - for "incitement" - and now there is talk of him being banned.

What tosh.

Crowds abusing players, whether it is the polite booing of a former member of their club or the increasingly nasty attacks of recent seasons, has always been part of the game. When a player has the temerity to reply with a "shush", or a finger on the lips, hand cupped to ear etc those same fans appear outraged.

Look at the photographs from Saturday's game as Adebayor slid towards the visitors' section. The furious hatred, the hand signals, the abuse shown by some fans - ground bylaw offences by the bucketload and enough to have the perpetrators thrown out of the ground should the stewards have chosen to act.

Mitch Phillips, London

So, once again, England qualify in style. The garages can start stocking up on plastic flags of St George, the breweries can breathe a sigh of relief and the tabloids can start their gradual shift from cautious support to the crescendo of expectation that will accompany Fabio Capello and his squad to South Africa next year.

But is there any evidence that "this time, more than any other time, they'll do it right"?

Do England really have a team capable of getting beyond the quarter-finals, let alone winning the thing?

Points in favour:

1. The rest of the world aren't so hot at the moment. Brazil, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands are going along pretty nicely but Argentina, France, Portugal and even Italy have got problems. None of them looks unbeatable.

2. Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. These are players truly deserving the "world class" tag and when fit and on form provide England with a deadly attacking triangle capable of undoing the very best of defences.

3. Capello. The Italian's calm authority has permeated a squad previously drowning in its own self-satisfaction. There shouldn't be any idiotic selections and once in South Africa this squad will be focused solely on the task in hand -- and that won't be accompanying their wives on shopping trips to Sandton.

4. A winter World Cup. England haven't played in one since 1962 in Chile. For all the high-tech kits they roll out ever two years and for all the efforts and intervention of foreign coaches, England's all-action approach is not suited to boiling temperatures.

5. It's about time.

Points against.

1. The number one problem. Capello says David James is his first choice goalkeeper but even if the 39-year-old year old regains fitness and has a great season his history of high-profile calamities will be in the back of everyone's mind as England advance.

England have suffered previously from hanging on too long to ageing goalkeepers, with the concrete boots of Peter Shilton (1990) and David Seaman (2002) leaving indelible images of inaction.

The back-up cast of Robert Green, Paul Robinson, Scott Carson, Ben Foster and Joe Hart all have their talents but none inspires total confidence.

2. Second striker. Emile Heskey seems the current first-choice partner for Rooney but few teams win a World Cup with a forward who is allergic to goals. Jermain Defoe has staked an early claim to replace him but sharp finisher though he is he does not link well. Carlton Cole is surely not the answer. Peter Crouch offers all sorts of options, scores goals, has great control and an incisive pass and defenders don't like playing against him. However, he does not seem to be Capello's favourite, which leaves an extraordinary amount of pressure on Rooney.

3. Defence. Ashley Cole is superb and the John Terry/Rio Ferdinand partnership has proved reliable, even if showing worrying signs of positional wanderings of late. However, Glen Johnson looks like a winger forced to borrow a number two shirt and opposition coaches will attack him mercilessly.

4. Strength in depth (lack thereof). England, without Rooney in Portugal and Germany, were a team heading home. Another injury or red card for the maestro will again end their hopes at a stroke. The squad players generally look a short on class and World Cup finals are rarely won with the 11 players a manager would have pencilled in at the start of a tournament.

Maybe Capello has enough about him to craft a team able to triumph in 10 months' time but, as ever, it looks an extraordinarily difficult task.

Having been privileged to be sitting a few metres from the finishing line as Usain Bolt shattered his own 100 and 200m world records in Berlin - and having also witnessed his double in Beijing, I got to wondering where those performances ranked in my personal bag of live events.

So, here is my list of contenders, followed by my podium. I've included only events I have attended in a professional capacity as a sports reporter as memories of some others I've enjoyed as a "punter" might be clouded by beer.

In chronological order:
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Jonathan Edwards soars in the triple jump, 1995 world championships, Gothenburg
OK, it was "only" the triple jump but the entire stadium was looking at Edwards when he set off down the runway for his opening jump. He seemed to defy gravity as he sailed 18.16 metres to become the first man to legally break the 18-metre mark. Twenty minutes later he went even further with 18.29 - a record that still stands.
----
England beat Netherlands 4-1 in Euro 96, Wembley
The moment when Terry Venables' side really looked as if they were going to deliver a big prize after "30 years of hurt." England's best display for decades tore the Dutch to shreds as the Alan Shearer/Teddy Sheringham strike force suggested that football really was coming home. It all went wrong in the semi-finals with a penalties defeat by Germany.
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Michael Johnson completes 400 metres/200 metres double, 1996 Atlanta Olympics
The organisers re-arranged the programme so Johnson could have a crack at the unusual double and he did not disappoint, taking both titles with crushing displays. When he posed by the scoreboard showing a world record 19.32 seconds for the 200, clutching his golden spikes, it seemed his bizarre upright style might re-write the rules of running. Then came Bolt.
----
Zidane scores twice to lead France to victory in 1998 World Cup final
Zidane had bestrode France's bumpy journey to the final on home soil and though not renowned as a great header it was him who twice connected with corners to set up the emotional 3-0 win over Brazil. It earned his country the trophy for the first time and injected some much-needed fresh blood to a tournament so dominated by Brazil, Argentina, Germany and Italy.
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Australia come back from the dead to win 1999 cricket World Cup semi-final on last ball
Australia were down and out midway through their semi-final against South Africa but through the bowling of Shane Warne and the sheer willpower of captain Steve Waugh, they got back into the game.

Even so, South Africa got to the last four balls needing one run to reach the final. That was when last pair Lance Klusener and Alan Donald had a collective panic attack and the Australians, calm, ordered and organised ran out Donald to secure a tie that sent them through on the basis of their Super Six record.

Wisden described it as the greatest-ever one-day international and Australia went on to beat Pakistan in the final.
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Tiger Woods tames St Andrews in 2000 British Open
Woods went into the Open as a huge favourite but his display on the most famous course in golf stunned even his biggest fans.

During four days he guided his ball round the links course with such precision that had he walked it and placed the ball with his hand he would have been hard-pressed to improve his situation. He avoided every bunker on the course, on every round -- when the best of the rest were coming to grief on a regular basis -- and finished 19-under par to win by eight shots. Rarely since the days of Don Bradman could one sportsman be so far ahead of the rest of the pack.
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Wilkinson wins rugby World Cup for England with extra-time drop goal, Sydney 2003
A superb England side should have had the game wrapped up in normal time and again in extra-time but Australia kept pegging them back with penalties.
  
In the last minute of extra-time they set up and perfectly executed a lineout followed by a break by Matt Dawson. Captain Martin Johnson, showing the clearest of thinking in the most pressurised moment of his career, took the ball closer to allow scrumhalf Matt Dawson to resume his position.

One pass to Wilkinson who, on his wrong foot, dropped the goal that won the trophy for England for the first time.
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Czech Republic 3, Netherlands 2. Euro 2004 group game, Aveiro, Portugal
Probably not a match that most people would think of when asked for memorable clashes but this makes my list simply by being the best game of football I have ever seen.
   
The Czechs came from 2-0 down to win 3-2 with an 88th-minute winner from Vladimir Smicer and qualify for the quarter-finals.

The bare numbers, however, cannot begin to do justice to a match that both sides played with a total commitment to attack. They hammered the woodwork continually, forced both goalkeepers into endless saves, had no time for faking injuries or diving as they were all too busy trying to set up the next attack.

It is no exaggeration to say it could have been 8-8. A reminder why, when played like this, soccer is the sport that dominates the world.
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Bolt dances across the line to win Olympic 100 metres in world record time, Beijing, 2008
It was supposed to be a three-way showdown between Bolt, Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay but it turned into an extraordinary one-man show.

Bolt flew down the track and, knowing the race was his 20 metres out, crossed the line thumping his chest in celebration. And yet he still broke the world record.
  
He followed up with victory in the 200, going all out for the line this time to break Michael Johnson's "untouchable" world mark in the process, then rounded it off with a third gold and third world record in the 4x100 relay. After years of destruction by dopers, athletics had the hero it so desperately needed.
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South Africa secure series win over the Lions with last-minute 53-metre penalty, Pretoria 2009
It was not so much the iron nerve of 21-year-old Morne Steyn as he landed the penalty from within his own half to win the second test that made this special, but the entire match.

Trailing 1-0 in the series, the Lions delivered one of the most ferocious, aggressive displays seen in modern rugby to charge into what should have been an unassailable lead. World champions South Africa reeled, retreated, dug in and fought back.

For 80 minutes the two teams hammered at each other on and off the ball with staggering hits. Five Lions and three Springboks ended up in hospital.

The scores were level until local hero Steyn, on as a replacement, settled it.
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Bolt does it again at world championships, Berlin 2009
Sprint world records are supposed to be nudged and nibbled but not once, but twice, Bolt took enormous 11 hundredths of a second chunks from his own marks with two astonishing runs on the iconic blue track of the Berlin Olympic Stadium.

It took me a long time to take in the "7" when Ben Johnson first posted 9.79 in the Seoul Olympics. Bolt's 9.69 from Beijing was still settling into memory banks a year on and suddenly the scoreboard was reading 9.58. It had to be impossible but I'd witnessed it with my own eyes, from about 10 yards to his right. I'm still not sure I believe it.

Four days later he did it again. 19.19 for the 200 metres. Running the bend, from a standing start, in 9.92 and the straight in 9.27.
   
For good measure he again topped it off with a relay gold, but had to settle for only the second-fastest time ever.
----
So, the podium. It's a tough one. For variety I'm not going to award Bolt two medals, he's got enough already.

Bronze: The 1999 cricket World Cup semi-final. It had everything -- a massive turnaround in fortunes, unbearable tension and victory for the team who kept their heads under crushing pressure -- thanks to the leadership of one of the all-time great captains from any sport - Steve Waugh.

Silver: Jonny's last-minute drop goal. Pure, unscriptable drama yet, as with the cricket, the extraordinary was built by doing the ordinary under pressure. Wilkinson takes the medal but, as he is always the first to acknowledge, the team's the thing.

Gold: It has to be Bolt. But though I never thought I'd live to see someone run the 100 metres in 9.6something, let alone 5something, it is his Beijing display that is my fondest memory.

It is the Olympics, the pinnacle of sport and the 100 metres is the pinnacle of the Olympics. You just don't win it laughing, dancing, celebrating, in a stunning world record.
  
But Bolt did, I know he did, I watched it and I'll never forget it until the day I die.

PHOTO 1: Usain Bolt of Jamaica (2nd R) crosses the finish line ahead of Wallace Spearmon of the U.S (R) and Alonso Edward of Panama (2nd L) to win the men's 200 metres during the world athletics championships at the Olympic stadium in Berlin August 20, 2009. Bolt won the race in a time of 19.19 seconds to set a new world record. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

PHOTO 2: England's 2003 Rugby World Cup player Jonny Wilkinson holds up his MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) award after being presented with it by Britain's Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace in London, December 10, 2003. REUTERS