Dolphins lost 3-1 to Heartland at the Rojenny Stadium on Sunday in the Nigeria Professional Football League.
Heartland, playing at their adopted home ground went ahead as early as the 4th minute when Collins Nwaneri latched in on a rebound from a freekick.
The Dolphins wall and back line had left keeper Ayalogu exposed after he punched the freekick down.
The first half ended 1-0 in favour of the home side.
Ghanaian, Godbless Asamoah drew Dolphins level in the 53rd minute and at this time, it seemed the visitors would get a result.
Bright Ejike, who had a relatively quiet game, put the homers 2-1 up in the 78th minute.
A throw in from the flanks was not cleared out of danger by the Dolphins defence and the ball fell to the feet of Ejike, who took his time to curl the ball beyond the reach of the goalkeeper.
Three minutes later, Godbless Asamoah was sent off for a second bookable offence as he raised his leg too high for a challenge.
With two minutes of added time to play, Emeka Ogbuh buried a cross from the left to round up a miserable day for Dolphins.
Heartland’s coach, Berthel Orji said after the game that he started Bright Ejike deep in midfield but after Dolphins equalized he rang some changes.
“I had to push Ejike forward after I made two changes. I brought in a striker and an offensive midfielder. It was from his (Ejike’s) position upfront that he scored the second goal of the game,” Orji said.
Coach Stanley Eguma, Coach Dolphins fc
Dolphins coach, Stanley Eguma blamed loss of concentration and the red card for the loss.
“We started well, but I must say the red card caused our problems and again my players lost concentration,” Eguma said.
Dolphins now return home to play against Shooting Stars on Wednesday at the Port Harcourt Liberation Stadium
The 2015 World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland gave insight into crews that could perform well next month at the World Rowing Championships.
Medals were spread across 21 countries with New Zealand earning the top place on the medals table. The New Zealand team ended the regatta with 11 medals, six of them gold. The gold medal success included Sophie Mackenzie and Julia Edward in the lightweight women’s double sculls. The World Champion duo were silver medallists last month at World Rowing Cup II, but went one step better this time. Olympic Champion Mahe Drysdale won the men’s single sculls in commanding style over Mindaugas Griskonis of Lithuania. Olympic bronze medallist, Alan Campbell of Great Britain took third.
Hamish Bond and Eric Murray (NZL) recorded their 57th win at a World Rowing event. Bond and Murray finished first in the men’s pair ahead of Great Britain and Serbia. New Zealand showed strength in the women’s and men’s boat classes, finishing the day with medals in both the men’s and women’s eight.
LIGHTWEIGHT MEN’S PAIR, HEAT 2, START, 2015 WORLD ROWING CUP III, LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND
Second on the medals table was Great Britain. The most consistent crew for the British this season has been Heather Stanning and Helen Glover. Stanning and Glover continued to be a class act in the women’s pair. The World Champion British men’s eight had a gold medal result when they held off Olympic Champions, Germany in the final sprint.
Germany showed dominance in the quadruple sculls by winning both the men’s and women’s race. Their two gold medals helped put them into third on the medals table just ahead of Australia in fourth. Australia also earned two golds. Kim Crow is the most successful rower currently on the Australian team. She has raced twice this season internationally, both times winning the women’s single scull by large margins. Taking the lesser medals behind Crow at Lucerne was Olympic Champion Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic and Genevra Stone of the United States. Australia’s second gold came in the men’s four. The four outraced Italy to finish first with Romania taking bronze.
Lucerne marked the final regatta of the World Rowing Cup series for 2015. At the conclusion of the series of three, New Zealand had the highest number of World Rowing Cup points with 117. Germany was just behind in second with 115 and Great Britain rounded out the top three with 107 points.
LASSCHE, CURTIS RAPLEY (S), NEW ZEALAND, GOLD, KASPER WINTHER (B), JENS VILHELMSEN, JACOB BARSOE, JACOB LARSEN (S), DENMARK, BRONZE, LIGHTWEIGHT MEN’S FOUR, 2015 WORLD ROWING CUP III, LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND
The next World Rowing regatta is the World Rowing Under 23 Championships. This takes place from 22-26 July 2015 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The World Rowing Championships will then take place from 30 August until 6 September 2015 in Aiguebelette, France. It is also the qualification regatta for the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The World Rowing Cup series was launched in 1997 and consists of a series of three events. The overall World Rowing Cup winners are determined after the third event. This year, the three stages of the series included Bled, Slovenia (9-10 May), Varese, Italy (18-21 June) and Lucerne, Switzerland (10-12 July).
Kenya added more to the African showpiece at the international level after they won gold at World Grand Prix Group 3 after Egypt earlier won the same stage at the 2015 Men’s World League. Kenya arrived in Canberra this week predicting they would surprise people, and they were true to their word by beating Peru 3-1 (21-25, 25-17, 25-22, 25-23) in the FIVB Group 3 Grand Prix final.
Victorious Kenyan team Claim Gold At FIVB Group 3 Grand Prix Finals
After dropping the opening set to Peru, 21-25, Mercy Moim and Ruth Jepngetich led Kenya into recovery, dominating Peru to take the second set 25-17.
The third set went point-for-point, until the Kenyans pulled away late 25-22.
With the title and a return to Group 2 slipping from their grasp, Peru threw everything at the Africans in the fourth set, and opened up a 3-point lead at the midway point.
But the Kenyans were not to be denied, winning several long rallies and applying pressure on the South Americans, taking the final set 25-23.
Kenya Claim Gold At FIVB Group 3 Grand Prix Finals
The fifteenth edition of the World Gymnaestrada, the International Gymnastics Federation’s (FIG) flagship event of the non-competitive Gymnastics for All discipline, kicks off with the Opening Ceremony in the Helsinki Olympic Stadium today.
Held once a quadrennial, the World Gymnaestrada is an international Gymnastics festival that attracts the largest number of active participants of any FIG event. Participation is for everybody, regardless of gender, age, race, religion, culture, ability or social standing.
Gathering nearly 21,000 participants from 53 different countries and representing all continents over the course of seven days, the World Gymnaestrada is being held for the first time in Finland, and is, in terms of international participants, the largest event ever to be held in the country.
With its delegation of nearly 4,000 gymnasts, host Finland will field the largest group of World Gymnaestrada participants, with Switzerland just behind at 3,855, followed by Germany with 2,027 and Portugal with 1,059 participants, respectively.
Although groups from all five continents participate, the World Gymnaestrada is especially popular among European Gymnastics enthusiasts, where Gymnastics for All has a longstanding tradition. While Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have all participated at every single edition since the inaugural event in 1953 in Rotterdam (NED), newcomers for 2015 are Azerbaijan, Belarus, the Dominican Republic, Mozambique, Peru, Puerto Rico and Zimbabwe. All are sending participants to a World Gymnaestrada for the first time.
The official World Gymnaestrada programme includes Opening and Closing Ceremonies, National Evenings, Group Performances, Large Group Performances, City Performances and the FIG Gala.
Specific to the 15th World Gymnaestrada Helsinki 2015 is the “Midnight Sun Special,” which is set for Wednesday, July 15 at the Olympic Stadium and has been incorporated by the Finnish organisers to celebrate the country’s famous “endless summer nights.”
Also new on the programme are the “World Team” and the “National Afternoon” shows. While the World Team performance offers a possibility for gymnasts from all over the world and of all age groups to participate in an international Large Group Programme that is part of the Midnight Sun Special, the National Afternoons complement the National Evenings, showcasing hour-long lasting presentations from specific countries.
Overall, more than 200 hours of Gymnastics performances will be staged in fifteen different venues in Helsinki during the coming week.
Few days ago on my facebook wall, and in my usual habit of dialogue with intellectuals on football matters in Nigeria, we discussed the appointment of Sunday Oliseh. It was full of mixed reactions as patriotic and passionate Nigerians bared their minds on the Super Eagles, their beloved team. My conclusion, Nigerians are desperate for a positive change.
Its been a shock jamboree this year at the NFF under the guise of propagating change and who says they are taking steps in the wrong directions. They have entertained us with more administrative drama than articulated football programmes. Its all about entertainment anyways.
It is no longer news that the NFF is getting set to unveil Sunday Oliseh. But the federation will unveil an inexperienced and jobless man. Realistically, he lacks the experience for such huge position. Ideally, he should have started with the junior team to garner the desired cognate experience like Samson Siasia who grew from the ranks to become the toast of many Nigerians with his successes with the Flying Eagles and Dream Team.
No doubt, Oliseh is eloquent and as an experienced and accomplished footballer, he appears to understand the game as a pundit and through his write-ups. In fairness to him, Oliseh has indeed proven to be knowledgeable and tactically astute.
Having said that, we can only wait and pray to see if all these talk can be translated into action. However, anyone who properly understands the game can discuss it. Being a good pundit doesn’t make one a good coach. In coaching, theorical experience is totally different from practical coaching ‘Enu dun rofo jare’ – Its easy to cook vegetable soup with verbal description like the Yoruba people would say.
Sunday Oliseh And NFF President Amaju Pinnick
Yes, Oliseh possesses the highest UEFA coaching license, abandoned on the shelve for a long time now, I equally hope that the knowledge acquired hasn’t eluded him. However, I will appeal we give him a trial and the benefit of the doubt. Let’s just say its a marriage of convenience between the NFF and Oliseh.
The questions are; why should the NFF appoint an inexperienced coach to oversee our dwindling Super Eagles. When last did Oliseh attend a refresher course? Can he work with the National Technical Director, Shuaibu Amodu and the NFF Cabal?
Why can’t NFF make it transparent enough by calling for applications like the Ivorians and other nations rightly did? Is there any iota of truth that NFF practically begged him to take the job? As an apostle of local coaches for the national teams, there is nothing wrong in hiring him, but everything is wrong when we circumvent or short circuit the recruitment standard.
If Oliseh should fail and I pray he doesn’t, Nigerians will come down hard on the NFF, with dangling hammers falling on them from many directions. The federation should get ready and immunize itself against the impending onslaught.
Before you tag me a prophetess of doom, history has proved that inexperience may not actually pose serious challenge to Oliseh succeeding since cases abound of such coaches succeeding in the past, Jurgen Klinsman of Germany belongs to this category of inexperienced but successful coaches. Frank Rikjaard and Lother Matheus are other great examples that come to mind.
However, Nigeria’s terrain is entirely different from Europe in terms of attitude and administration. They have a totally different mentality and attitude. Without our tribal sentiments. If their Coaches fail, they give them another opportunity to continue which is a rare possibility in Nigeria. If a Coach fails, we will call him all manners of derogatory names that might derail his ambition if such a Coach is not focused.
My greatest fear of this marriage and what poses as a threat to Oliseh are his would-be employers, the NFF. Oliseh is the beautiful bride now because they want someone out at all cost and to also satisfy Nigerians yearning for the appointment of a local coach.
Will the NFF in its characteristics give the necessary support to Oliseh to succeed? Will they be patient enough to stay by his side if he fails? And will their marriage end in war, like past coaches. What are the antecedents of his foreign assistants? Oh well, lets allow time to be the judge.
Undoubtedly, we will have it rough at first since he has not done this before. Even as someone who played football to the highest level, coaching is more practical than theoretical. My advice if you ask me, is that Oliseh should imperatively be mentally and psychologically strong and resilient to deal with the high expectations of many Nigerians.
During his playing days, he picked quarrels and insulted both the Federal Government and the NFF, before turning his back on the team. I hope such attitude will not come back to bite him on the foot. Oliseh will have to carefully work with the foreign coach to understudy the home front for a smooth transition.
I want to implore my colleagues in the media to sheath their sword and give him a chance. Nigerians should be patient, support Oliseh and see him to greater heights. There is a saying that there is time for everything’. Any position, relationship or office anyone is holding today is just temporal. Whatever you do in your tenure is what posterity will judge you by.
Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I wish him a blissful marriage with the NFF.
newfanzone 