Sports & Casinos UK

Four-time MVP led Pittsburgh to division title in 2025Rodgers reunites with ex-Packers coach McCarthyAaron Rodgers is running it back with the Pittsburgh Steelers.Two people with knowledge of the decision told the Associated Press that the four-time NFL MVP agreed to a one-year deal to return to Pittsburgh on Saturday, ending a protracted decision-making process. The people spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal had not been announced. Continue reading...

Home hope surges to six under thanks to round of 68Rahm among five on four under; McIlroy is three underThe leaderboard was spinning like a tombola at Aronimink on Saturday, where at one point or another just about every player in the field had a birdie putt to take a share of the lead and then a bogey putt to let go of it again. When the drum finally stopped turning, Alex Smalley, a 29-year-old from North Carolina who has never won a professional golf tournament, was top of the leaderboard on six under, two shots clear of a five-way tie for second. No disrespect to Smalley, the world No 78, but the field are queued up like bowling balls on the rack waiting to take a run at him on Sunday.Philadelphia loves an underdog, but it’s probably best if the trumpeter waits another day before he strikes up the opening notes of the Rocky theme. Continue reading...

The Wolves probably won’t win a title without big roster changes, but their postseason run made their case as one of the league’s most entertaining teamsThe Minnesota Timberwolves are out of the NBA playoffs. It’s a miracle it took this long. In their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets, they saw two starters and another key reserve suffer significant injuries. The Nuggets entered the series on a 12-game winning streak and were favored from the jump. After somehow winning that series in six games, finding Denver’s weak points and pummeling them until they broke, the Wolves met an even more daunting opponent in the San Antonio Spurs. Though they’d have been forgiven for tiredly accepting a sweep, the Wolves swiped Game 1 on the Spurs’ home floor, then a close Game 4 at home. After that, the tank finally ran empty. But even in the losses – including Friday night’s in Game 6 – the Wolves found ways to frighten. They’d go down 18-3 and then tie the game by the end of the first quarter. They’d tighten a 29-point deficit to 12 entering half-time. The tenacity and spite they played with was a finite resource, but at times this postseason it was potent enough to convince me otherwise.The Wolves were not the deepest team in these playoffs, nor the most consistent. They may lie closer to the bottom of those categories than the top. After their elimination, coach Chris Finch and players alike admitted they’d failed to take the regular season seriously enough, failing to set themselves up well for the high-stakes games of April and May. (My old teachers probably shared a similar sense of disappointment in me before finals.) And yet this odd bunch regularly play some of the most soulful basketball in the NBA. Anthony Edwards can take over a game at any time, either by shooting deep threes or acrobatic layups. French albatross Rudy Gobert anchors the defense, which the team plays with astonishing vigor at its best. The best athletes are sometimes so clinical that they produce a rather emotionless watching experience, but certain passages of Timberwolves basketball inspire in me feelings of pure glee. Continue reading...

Ben Aitchison and Jamie Porter did more than hold up an end, while Tom Abell kept up his fruitful start to the seasonAnd the second Yorkshire centurion goes, flicking his bat in annoyance, caught at first slip for 141.“Now then Tanya!” Hello Tim Maitland. Continue reading...

Ukrainian wins final in Rome 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-2Jannik Sinner to face Casper Ruud in men’s finalWhen facing the toughest opponents in the world, there were too many occasions in Elina Svitolina’s past when she would simply play not to lose. In the decisive moments of her most important encounters, Svitolina was often punished for her tendency to simply put the ball in court rather than attacking freely.With time, age and many tough losses behind her along with her great successes, however, the 31-year-old has come to truly understand the importance of playing on her own terms. She has evolved into a much bolder, more decisive player, and showed her progress by taking another massive step forward in a resurgent season, defeating Coco Gauff after three bruising and attritional sets to capture her first significant title in eight years at the Italian Open with a stellar 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-2 win. Continue reading...

Forward doesn’t fit the mould of a classic Pep signing, but we have all come a long way in the past decade of Manchester City successOne way or another, this was always going to end up being a Pep day. At the final whistle Pep Guardiola didn’t punch the air or really celebrate at all. Instead he walked quite slowly over to the scorer of the only goal, Antoine Semenyo, and vigorously triple-patted his buttocks, then meandered around the edges of the bobbing huddles on the Wembley pitch.There will be a temptation to look for clues here. Nobody really knows if Guardiola is leaving Manchester City at the end of the season. Contract extension brinkmanship is nothing new, although not with quite so much whispered chat about assistants on the move and leaked replacement plans. Continue reading...

There needs to be a zero-tolerance approach to stealing other clubs’ secrets – Kim Hellberg’s emotional response shows just how deep this goesKim Hellberg was clearly upset and his press conference after Middlesbrough’s defeat at Southampton in the Championship semi‑final playoff second leg became unexpectedly moving as a result. In football, the Boro manager said, you accept that some teams have greater resources than others but where the coach of the less well-off team can gain an advantage is in the “tactical element”; it is in effect the only weapon he has. And if that weapon is made less effective by an opponent cheating, it is understandable that Hellberg should feel that his profession, the skillset he has developed to test himself against his peers, has been betrayed.That disgust is, no doubt, genuine enough, and it is perhaps difficult for those of us who do not work in that world fully to grasp how frustrating it must be if strategies and ploys carefully conceived and practised are rendered ineffective, not by the in-game acuity of an opponent, but by espionage. But it is admittedly hard to square that righteous anger with the image published in the Mail this week of a sheepish young man lurking behind a tree with a phone. Continue reading...

3rd ODI: England 181-7; NZ 141-4. NZ win by 17 runs (DLS)Play halted with tourists ahead on DLS – series drawn 1-1New Zealand shared the series spoils – and the ICC Championship points – after winning the final one-day international at Cardiff on Saturday by six wickets (DLS method).Lauren Bell had initially reduced the tourists to 40 for three, before giving everyone a scare ahead of next month’s World Cup when she took a blow to a hand in her follow-through and briefly left the field. But stand-in captain Charlie Dean confirmed this had been merely precautionary: “She took a bit of a hit on her left thumb [in practice] yesterday, and it was a bit bruised and sore. When Maddy [Green] hit one back at her it was salt in the wound.” Continue reading...

Club demand action over scenes at end of title-deciderHearts say authorities must protect ‘integrity of the game’Hearts have issued a statement castigating the “shameful” and “disgraceful” scenes which marred the conclusion to the Scottish Premiership’s title race at Celtic Park. The Edinburgh club has emphasised “deeply disturbing” treatment of players and staff. Celtic’s last-day victory had secured their fifth title in succession.Callum Osmand’s goal for Celtic, the third in a 3-1 win, fuelled a mass pitch invasion which saw Hearts players antagonised and confronted. Those who entered the pitch were audibly booed by those in the stands. Continue reading...

Harlequins 41-24 ExeterHosts score 34 unanswered points in bonus-point victoryAnother Prem match, another comeback win. So common are they these days that it hardly needs mentioning that this one had Harlequins overturning the 17-point deficit by which they trailed after little more than half an hour, only to score 34 unanswered points in the next 50 minutes. Their interest in the playoffs ended some months ago, such has been their form, but their hopes of European rugby have been helped no end by this romp at the big stadium across the road.Exeter are still interested in those playoffs, but if you were to tell them after that first half-hour they would be coming away with only the bonus point they had just secured they might not have believed you. After their vital win over the champions, Bath, last Sunday, the legs of their heavy forwards started to look weary, as the six-day turnaround started to tell. Exeter remain in fourth, but they could have put themselves all but out of reach of the chasing pack. Continue reading...