Booth ready for ‘biggest game of his career’
Full-back sets up both goals for Guardiola’s men in win
CALLUM Booth is looking forward to the biggest game of his life as St Johnstone prepare for the Betfred Cup final against Livingston on Sunday.
The 29-year-old left-back started his senior career at boyhood team Hibernian after coming through the Edinburgh club’s academy but has yet to play in a major final.
Ahead of the trip to Hampden Park, the former Partick Thistle and Dundee United player acknowledged the magnitude of the occasion against Scottish Premiership rivals Livi.
Booth said: “I have never played in a national cup final so it doesn’t really get much bigger than that.
“I have been around a bit now and there have been a few big games in my career, but thinking about it, a national cup final at Hampden, it would be the biggest game of my career.
“It will mean a huge deal to me. It is absolutely massive and to win a trophy would be amazing.”
Booth is hoping his second experience of a Hampden Park final is far better than his last one.
He was part of the Hibs squad which reached 2012 Scottish Cup final where he sat in the stand and watched a harrowing 5-1 defeat to Edinburgh rivals Hearts.
Booth said: “I was in the squad for Hibs when we famously got beaten 5-1 by Hearts.
“I was there but wasn’t stripped, thankfully. That was a really bad day. Growing up as Hibs fan as well it was a really tough day.
“That was in the Scottish Cup. I don’t think I have even played a semi at Hampden, I was on the bench against Hibs in the Betfred Cup semi-final.
“So, I have not been to Hampden too often, so obviously a final is something to look forward to, a massive occasion. Hopefully we can go and win it.
“It is about a year since we played in front of fans which is crazy to think about, but, with all the doom and gloom, it would give the fans and full city a huge lift if we could win the trophy.”
B M’Gladbach Manchester City
BERNARDO SILVA and Gabriel Jesus struck as Manchester City put one foot in the Champions League quarterfinals with a comfortable
2-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach.
The impressive Joao Cancelo created both goals with deft crosses in each half as the Premier League leaders outclassed their German opponents at Budapest’s Puskas Arena.
The victory in the last-16 first-leg encounter was City’s 19th in succession in all competitions.
It has been a formidable run and manager Pep Guardiola now looks assured of another crack at the quarter-finals – the stage which has proved his side’s undoing in the past three seasons.
Guardiola decided not to start Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Aguero after their recent fitness issues, naming both on the bench, but such are City’s confidence levels there is no urgent need for either player.
They were comfortable from the outset in the Hungarian capital, fizzing the ball around and giving the German side little time on the ball.
The only frustration may have been the lack of clearcut chances created, but Monchengladbach rarely looked capable of punishing them.
Phil Foden had their first serious opportunity with a low long-range shot that was saved by Yann Sommer while Raheem Sterling broke into the box only to be thwarted by a fine Ramy Bensebaini tackle.
City were given a warning when Stefan Lainer got behind the defence but his ball for Alassane Plea was cut out by Kyle Walker.
City felt they should have had a penalty when Sterling went down under a challenge
from Bensebaini but nothing was given.
Walker’s presence in the side meant the influential Cancelo was switched to the left and it was from the former Juventus man, who typically pushes into the midfield, the opener came after 29 minutes.
Monchengladbach gave the ball away from the edge of the area and almost invited Cancelo to run at them. He first headed left but then cut inside and delivered a superb curling cross to the back post where Silva rose to head past Sommer.
Cancelo threatened a second as he flashed a shot over the bar and Foden also missed the target while Matthias Ginter made a timely intervention to cut out a Walker cross.
City’s dominance continued after the break and Jesus should have scored the second after an error by Bensebaini but the left-back recovered to tackle the Brazilian.
There was an awkward moment when, out of the blue, Plea managed to flick a shot narrowly wide of City’s goal with his back towards goalkeeper Ederson but it was a rare opportunity.
City responded immediately and doubled their lead after 65 minutes, with Cancelo and Silva again combining, this time to tee up Jesus.
Cancelo picked out Silva with another deep cross but this time his fellow Portuguese headed back across for Jesus to slide in and apply the finishing touch.
A similar move then saw Ilkay Gundogan nod down a floated Cancelo cross but Foden shot over.
With the job done, City eased off in the closing stages and Aguero was given a late runout for his first appearance since January 3.
Elsewhere, Real Madrid struggled to break down an Atalanta side who played 73 minutes with 10 men before winning 1-0 with a goal four minutes from time from leftback Ferland Mendy.
THE Tiger effect knows no bounds. During a trawl at social media updates and messages on my mobile phone as the news emerged of Tiger Woods’ frightful car crash on Tuesday, this scribe glimpsed a Twitter tribute to him from former President Barack Obama one minute and a text of concern for him from my dear mam the next. Woods truly does transcend sport like no other.
In a long line of tumultuous twists in the Tiger tale, this latest chapter of his incredible, endlessly fascinating story makes for harrowing reading. The damage to his legs is considerable. That he was, according to the LA county deputy at the scene, “lucky to get out of this alive” is a great mercy.
Woods’ career has been one characterised by extraordinary feats. Getting back on his feet again after this traumatic episode will require all the dogged, defiant, resilient strength of character and mind that has made him, arguably, the greatest golfer of all time.
In recent years, Woods, with a patched-up body that was crumbling like the Acropolis, would talk in superhuman terms. “I’m a walking miracle,” he said ahead of the 2018 Masters. When he won the Green Jacket a year later, his 15th major title and a first since 2008, he proved that miracles do happen.
During this sustained period of personal, professional, physical and psychological torment, Woods is often cast as done and dusted, down and out or dead and buried.
Career obituaries and gushing eulogies had all been trotted out as bad backs led to setbacks and comebacks were followed by more bad backs, setbacks and aborted comebacks. Through it all, of course, Woods retained a deep, unwavering motivation, a quite remarkable trait given all that he had endured in a life of epic, epoch-making triumphs, revelations of tawdry trysts and countless painful procedures before that rousing, redemptive Augusta conquest.
Where there was once invincibility, there would be many displays of fallibility and fragility. But where the focus used to be on exerting a tyrannical rule over the global game, the last few years have seen him liberated with much more emphasis on Woods the family man and discovering off course contentment with his two children.
Only last weekend, Woods, who had been recovering from a fifth operation on his dodgy dorsal, was being asked about the possibility of playing all four rounds of April’s Masters. “God, I hope so,” was his response. Whether he ever plays again is a question not even those golfing gods can answer. The most pressing priority, of course, is that he returns to good health.
In the frenzied aftermath of his terrible accident, widespread comparisons were, inevitably, being made to Ben Hogan, who suffered multiple, horrendous, life-threatening injuries when his car was hit by a bus in 1949 but recovered to win six majors from 1950.
Hogan was told he may never walk again. When he started walking, they said he’d struggle to play golf again. When he returned to golf, the doubters said he’d never play again. And when he resumed hostilities on the tour, the naysayers said he’d never win again. Hogan proved them all wrong. As for Woods? “You never give up, you always fight,” he said after his Masters win two years ago. “Giving up is never in the equation.”
THE last time Scottish Rugby made a public statement demanding that a match go ahead, the upshot was a £70,000 fine for bringing the game into disrepute. That was at the 2019 World Cup when the national team’s pool final fixture Japan was in doubt because of an approaching typhoon, and although in the end the match was played, the whole affair did nothing for the reputation of the SRU or its chief executive, Mark Dodson.
There may well have been some trepidation inside Murrayfield, therefore, when on Monday night another statement was issued insisting that Sunday’s Six Nations game against France should – health and safety permitting, of course – go ahead as scheduled. But this time either the strategy has worked or Dodson was pushing at an open door anyway, because yesterday the Championship’s Testing Oversight Group
(TOG) ruled that the match could proceed as planned.
Two daily rounds of negative tests within the French camp have convinced the
TOG that a situation which earlier, counting players and backroom staff, saw 15 positive tests for Covid returned is now under control, and the green light was given at lunchtime yesterday in a single-paragraph statement. “Further to a meeting of the TOG this morning to review the latest tests results of the French squad, the Six Nations confirm the plans to stage the France v Scotland match as originally scheduled this coming Sunday,” the statement read. “We continue to monitor the situation very closely and are in regular contact with both unions.”
While 11 players are unavailable to France after testing positive, a postponement by a week – which was the Six Nations’ preferred back-up option – would have denied Scotland coach Gregor Townsend a similar number of his players as they would have been on club duty. Options later in the year would have run into similar difficulties, according to most interested parties, hence Dodson’s strong desire that the game should go ahead this weekend. Hence, too, his feeling of vindication when the TOG agreed with him.
“We’re delighted that the game’s going ahead,” he said yesterday. “We made our case quite clear to the Six Nations about why we wanted the game to be played this Sunday. We look forward to a great contest.
“It’s important that we’re allowed to prepare properly for it. I was in [the Scotland squad’s training base at]
Oriam earlier this week, and preparations have been very good. All the boys want to play and the French want to play too.”
The threat of postponement that had been hanging over the France game is just the latest of many pandemicrelated problems to be dealt with by the SRU and is sure not to be the last. The governing body themselves provided a reminder earlier this week of how far away we still are from a return to how things were before, when they confirmed that next month’s Championship matches at home to Ireland and Italy will take place behind closed doors, and the loss of revenue from the lack of crowds has been tough for the organisation.
“The hardest thing is not being able to plan properly,” Dodson added. “The situation can change in an instant. It can change from one month to the next for different reasons, and what we’ve got to do is keep our players as safe as possible and make sure we abide by all the protocols.
“But it is always at the back of your mind that you never know what might happen. It is fragile. But touch wood, we’re ready to go on Sunday.
“The Six Nations behind closed doors is something we planned for given the impact of Covid. But it does make a substantial hole in revenue. We’ve had a material grant from government that has allowed us to repair our balance sheet to a certain extent and that has been enormously helpful. We’ve also done some refinancing, and the business is in a strong position going forward now.”
The grant of £15million from the Scottish Government has now been received, and there is also a loan facility of £5m that the union can draw on.
In addition, there is the imminent prospect of a substantial fee from private equity company CVC, who are close to buying a stake in the Six Nations itself.
“The conversations are going really well,” Dodson said. “We’re at the tail end of those negotiations now and I expect a successful outcome. Again, it’s just it’s a hugely complex deal. There’s six unions and four tax jurisdictions and we need time to get that thing in place. In real terms, talks are progressing well.”
The money from Holyrood, the prospect of more from
CVC, and the expectation that crowds will be allowed back at matches from the start of next season have all encouraged Dodson to believe that the SRU can emerge from the pandemic in pretty good shape. Perhaps most importantly, they are factors which should help him adhere to his stated aim of holding on to all staff who want to stay.
“This financial year we’re not expecting to make any redundancies,” added Dobson. “We’ve made the appropriate cost savings we said we’d make – in fact we’ve exceeded those as well. The government grant has helped tremendously.”
All the boys want to play and the French want to play too
EVEN though France have been deprived of some of their best players, Richie Gray still believes Scotland will have to play even better than they did in the Calcutta Cup if they are to emerge victorious on Sunday.
Finn Russell is currently the only member of Gregor Townsend’s squad to play his club rugby in France, but Gray plied his trade there for eight years from 2012 and arguably knows the mentality of French players even better than the stand-off does. And, while acknowledging that the loss of captain Charles Ollivon and scrum-half Antoine Dupont among others has to make a difference, the second-row forward is all too well aware of the strength in depth available to replace those two and the other nine who are unavailable after testing positive for Covid.
“The challenge will be just as tough,” said Gray, who came off the bench in Scotland’s two previous Six Nations games, the win over England at Twickenham and the home defeat by Wales which followed. “French rugby has got crazy depth.
“A good example of that is the England game in the autumn, which was against what was dubbed the French third team. But they went over to Twickenham and almost pulled off a victory.
“They can call on a lot of players - there is a lot of talent. Any time you play France in France it’s going to be a really tough challenge, so we need to be prepared for it.
“It’s a few years since we won there - 1999 was the last time - so it’s a great opportunity to go over there and produce a performance and hopefully get a win but everyone is aware of how tough it will be. We certainly have the talent in the squad to do it, but it will be a really tough encounter and we have to be at our best to win.
“We have to go up a gear from that Twickenham game, and we’re aware of that. We need to keep improving. Everybody was chuffed to bits. People were saying how proud we made them. That was really important to us and we hope we can do that again.”
Down the decades France have invariably been able to call on some inspired players, but inconsistency has often come with that inspiration. Under head coach Fabien Galthie and defence coach Shaun Edwards, however, they have added a lot of solidity to their approach while still being able to rely on some of their star names to produce a piece of magic.
“They have struck a really good balance,” Gray continued. “They play smart rugby and get out of their half really well. They are quite structured, but within that structure they have their x-factor players who are able to do it in the big moments. They have the balance really well between structure and using players’ abilities to their best.”
For whatever reason, Scotland have not used Gray’s abilities in recent years. His two caps this month were his first for three years, and his last start was further away, in 2017.
But he insisted that he never lost his desire to play for his country, and that, at 31, his appetite for further involvement has been whetted by the recent improvements made on the field. “The appetite has always been there. When I got back into the squad environment it has grown and grown and I want more and more.
“Things can change very quickly. It’s a cliché, but I play every game as if it’s my last.”