CSB - Jon Norman - UK correspondent

Heading to the land of hope and glory to talk all things UK sport.

• Euro 2024
• Cricket World Cup
• Rory's choke at the US golf open.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Whether it's gun boots or rugby boots.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Country Sport Breakfast has you covered on gold Sport,
your home of live commentary. After the Land of Hope
and Glory, we go now to catch up with Well
Talk Sports Johnny Norman, of course, also cricket editor and
presenter of the follow on Cricket podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Morning John, Good morning to BK Hope you will mate.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yep, all good? Is it raining there still?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Actually no, we've had about three or four days of sun,
so no, it's for the first time is six months
or so? So well a lot of them actually the
first talk about nine months. But no, you've actually been
quite bald, quite nice, quite pleasant.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Excellent, All right, enjoy Summer Euros. Let's talk about the
Euro's contrasting starts to the tournament for the England team
and Scotland.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, England against Scotland. It's been a recurring theme this
week in football and cricket. England not coming up against
Scotland in the football but opening weekends. I mean, I'm
not sure how much attention is taking place on the
Euros in New Zealand, but it's the biggest show in town.

(01:10):
I think it's the third biggest sports tournament in the
world after the World Cup and the Olympics in terms
of audience and money generated. And you know, this first
few first we've started on Friday, so we've had four
or five days of it. It's just been you know,
pac Stadia, brilliant football. And it started off with that

(01:31):
with Scotland playing in their first major tournament since nineteen
ninety eight. There was four percent of the population of
Scotland was in Germany for that first game against the hosts.
Four percent of the population of Scotland was there and
Scotland got absolutely battered five to one. And even the Scottish,

(01:56):
who traveled much like the English, but with more of
a smile on their face, even they were looking pretty
crestfallen by halftime, three nail down, down to ten men,
and you know all the talk coming into the tournament
a bit about just getting four points and qualifying for
the knockout stages, Well that is going to be difficult

(02:18):
because you know, they went down to a defeat, which
is no disgrace in itself coming up against a good
German side at home, but their gold difference took such
a hammering. Then they're going to do well to qualify,
so that was a bit of a doomer gloom start
for the Home Nations. Wales and Northern Ireland haven't made it,

(02:39):
but England took to the field Sunday night against Serbia,
most people feeling this is the toughest assignment in the group.
First half, I mean, we're all thinking England, we're going
to win the Euros one nail up, Rude Bellingham performing
you know, wonderfully well, and then it was a kind

(03:00):
of throwback performance in the second half. England unable to
control the ball, inviting pressure on and admittedly Harry Kane
did pull off the save of the round which would
have made it to New England, but in the end
they were hanging on a bit by the end, and
there's been a fair bit of criticism about the performances

(03:23):
Phil Foden, the negative way that England went about things
in the second half and the inability to hold onto
the ball. So yeah, it's contrasting emotions between England and Scotland,
and contrasting points as well, three for England and none
for the Scotts.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Winter England playing again.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
They played Denmark on Thursday five pm UK, So what's
that that's I think it's eleven hours difference between us
at the moment. Yeah, it'll be it'll be middle of
the night, a bit like the T twenty World Cup.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeap, all right, Well, talking about the T twenty World Cup.
England scraped through past Scotland. But it was a near thing.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Well it was, and to be honest with you, with
England needing to win their final two matches against Ammon
and Amibia and then hoping that Australia you know, did
the honorable thing and you know, didn't go too easy
on the Scots after brushing aside of Man, it looked
like the rain was actually going to thwart England because
again that was supposed to start at six pm at

(04:24):
UK ended up starting at nine pm, three hour delay,
and actually for a large part of it many didn't
think that the England nor Ambia were going to take
to the field. As it was, they did an eleven
over game actually was a ten over in the Eggs.
There was another little rain delay and England did what
they needed to do. They got their run rate over Scotland's,
which meant that they could sit back and just hope

(04:47):
that Australia did beat the Scots they did. It was
a close game. Scotland played well and actually Scotland could
probably find themselves a little bit, you know, unfortunate. They'll
look at the Super Eights and think, well, we're a
bit better than some of those teams have made it through,
but they've they've been knocked out on the run rate.
England get through and yeah through to the Super Eights.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Done better than the black Caps.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, yeah, I mean least said about that the better, right,
The black Caps were in a much better or rather
a much harder, much more difficult group and you know,
coming up against Afghani start first up, I think that
was that was really difficult, especially with no warm ups
playing in the Caribbean, it was, yeah, and it was

(05:33):
just a massive uphill task from there. However, you know,
when you're when you've got to West Indies twenty five
for five or whatever it was one hundred and nine
for nine, you know you should be winning those games,
and they of course didn't. So yeah, it's just sad
way to bow out for the likes of Trent Bolton,
possibly came Williamson, but Luckie focuses figures against Papua New Guinea.

(05:57):
I'm not sure they'll ever get better than four over
four majors, not for three.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, absolutely incredible. And talking about bowing out in golf,
Rory McElroy didn't bow out with great honor out of
the US Golf Open.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Did he. Oh well, I mean it depends where you
sit with Rory McRoy. A personally big fan. I think
he's you know, he's got a lot of honor about him,
but there's it's just that meal around his neck. No,
no PGA Tour win for the best part of a
decade now, isn't it, And would have been his fifth major.
Two shots to the good with four holes to play

(06:34):
and and he just threw it away. And then you know,
just to compound matters, he didn't stick around long did
He didn't congratulate the champion, didn't do any media and
and off he went. So it's it's going to be
difficult for him to get back from that, that's for sure.
But yeah, very very painful for the for the Irish.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Absolutely the drama of sport. Hey mate, nice to catch up, John,
have a great week and we'll talk again next week.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, I look forward to it. BK. Hopefully the sun
is still shining