Elsh rugby stars in agic milestones?
Former Taff ’s Well boss aims for Euro glory
attacking wiles.
He will start the campaign late after his commitments with the Lions, but he will have a fresh tank of confidence and is still very much on top of his game.
Expect Webb to bag this one.
6. Ken Owens climbing to the top of the pile as Wales’ mostcapped hooker.
The figures suggest this one is unlikely in the months ahead.
Owens has 50 Wales caps, meaning he needs 11 more to overhaul Matthew Rees as Wales’ mostcapped No. 2.
There are four autumn series games to be played and five Six Nations Tests, plus a probable couple on Wales’ summer tour. It would take a lot for Owens to feature in every match.
The odds are against this season. 7. Alex Cuthbert reaching his half-century of caps. It is hard to imagine any Welsh player has been more maligned than Alex Cuthbert. He has taken a fearful kicking on social media and the mainstream press haven’t exactly applauded his every effort, either.
Undoubtedly, his form for much of last season was poor; indeed, for a number of years he has looked a shadow of the player he was when he broke into the Wales side.
But he has slowly been rebuilding his game, with his reward coming in the shape of a recall to the national squad for the southern hemisphere tour.
He justified his selection with a picture-book try against Tonga before injury did for him and he had to return home.
The challenge for the 6ft 6in wing in the months ahead will be to continue to improve.
The emergence of Steff Evans and Keelan Giles has given Wales extra options out wide, while Hallam Amos will be fit in the new campaign and George North will want to prove a point after his disappointing Lions tour, while Liam Williams and Leigh Halfpenny seem likely to nail down two of the three Wales backthree spots.
Cuthbert faces an immense task just to get into the national squad, then.
But at his very best – and that is something we haven’t seen enough in recent seasons – he could still be a more than viable option for Gatland.
Four more caps will give him 50 for Wales.
If he gets there, he will have done so the hard way and surely there will be cheers all round, which would be something of a novelty for the 27-yearold.
Again, injuries will go a long way to determining whether there is cause for celebration here, but before he can think about playing for Wales this autumn, Cuthbert needs to consistently show up well for Cardiff Blues. ENGLAND boss Mark Sampson said he was “proud” to make history after England reached a second consecutive major tournament semi-final – then challenged his team to win Women’s Euro 2017.
Former Taff ’s Well manager Sampson, who took over from Hope Powell in 2013, led England to a third-place finish at the 2015 World Cup.
England’s Lionesses defeated France on Sunday for the first time in 20 attempts to set up a semifinal with hosts the Netherlands.
Since 1974, England had endured a relentless onslaught from their closest rivals on the international stage, suffering the agony of defeat at the last three major tournaments.
Now though, the Lionesses have found their hero. A fifth goal of the tournament for Jodie Taylor after 60 anxious minutes was finally enough to crush the French resistance. As would be expected of a clash between two football giants, the match was destined to come down to fine margins. The teams cancelled each other out to the last nought and managed to finish the first half without any shots on target despite some high-quality exchanges.
The French ensemble had made much of their technical superiority going into the game but ended up mirroring England’s long ball method. However, their finishing proved their downfall and they will rue late misses by strikers Marie-Laure Delie and Eugenie Le Sommer.
Taylor, on the other hand, made no mistake with her first shot of the match following a lightning counter-attack. Lucy Bronze drove forwards from the halfway line and timed her pass to perfection for the Arsenal striker, who angled her shot past a helpless Sarah Bouhaddi.
After kicking off the campaign with a hat-trick in their 6-0 thrashing of Scotland and adding to her tally against Spain as Mark Sampson’s side grafted their way to three group wins, no male or female player has scored more goals for England at the European Championships.
A nervous passage of play followed as France sprang into life. Man City goalkeeper Karen Bardsley had to take evasive action after several misplaced clearances and hobbled off after sustaining an injury in the goalmouth scramble. Yet England never let France breathe as Liverpool’s Siobhan Chamberlain stood in for the closing stages. Then came their turn to exhale.
Whoever prevails between England and the Netherlands in Enschede on Thursday (7.45pm KO) will go into Sunday’s final at the same ground as strong favourites to win their maiden European title.
Denmark will take on Austria in the first semifinal earlier in the day (5pm KO) after knocking out eight-time winners Germany. Both matches will be live on Channel 4.