11/07 The Sports Pages

The Sports Pages

While not on the sports pages there’s an interesting piece in the Irish Daily Star Sunday about Howard Webb, the English referee who will take charge of Sunday night’s World Cup final between Holland and Spain.

Webb, 38, will have the entire force of the police on his side for the game of his life – because he’s a boy in blue too.

The paper tells us that a senior police source in Johannesburg said, “Obviously any referee for a World Cup final will be closely guarded but because Mr Webb is one of us he will get extra special attention. Police always look after their own and it would be a terrible embarrassment if anything were to happen to Mr Webb while his safety was in our hands.”

Hmmm. Or, rather, ho-hum.

Dion Fanning in the Sunday Independent is clearly hoping for a Spanish victory at Soccer City stadium in Soweto. “If it is van Bommel’s destructive talents or the hard running of Dirk Kuyt that are the most influential factors in a Dutch triumph,” he writes, “then Spain and the lovers of football to whom Vicente del Bosque dedicated their semi-final victory will be distraught.”

Another different angle to the World Cup final is the story on the back of the Star suggesting Wesley Sneijder, Holland’s number 10 who will be attempting to add the World Cup crown to the Champions League and Italian Scudetto he won with Inter in May, is keen on a move to Manchester United, who have been linked with a £25m move for the 26-year-old playmaker.

Into hurling, and the Sindo tells us that Waterford are sweating over the fitness of star man Eoin Kelly ahead of the Munster hurling final against Cork, which takes place at Semple Stadium at 4pm today.

You can follow that game, plus the Meath-Louth Leinster football final, with our GAA MatchTrackers from 1.30pm.