That was the weekend that was

Rugby: England's crown smashed
Okay so it wasn't strictly on the weekend but the world champions came crashing down to earth on Friday night with a 36-0 defeat to South Africa. The performance proved that England had been champions in name only and their display was a sad indictment of how stodgy and unimaginative their brand of rugby has become. Never threatening to score a try they were undone by Fourie du Preez at scrum-half and now look a serious doubt to advance from the pool by beating Samoa and Tonga.

Cricket: Collingwood states the obvious
Humiliated by Australia on Friday, England limped into the Super 8s needing a big display against hosts South Africa and after a promising start in the field they let the Boks off the hook with dropped catches and wayward deliveries. Chasing 154 for victory again the batsmen failed and while Owais Shah threatened the total at one point the runs always looked beyond Collingwood's side leaving the captain to cryptically say in defeat "we need to start winning"...

Golf: Yankie Doodle handy
While Tiger Woods was boosting his bank balance again to the tune of $10m (will he come to the help of Northern Rock customers?) and Soren Hansen was eagle-ing his way to the win in Cologne, the European 'stars' of the Solheim Cup were showing how not to play singles as America retained the trophy. Now while some of the US girls may be a pretty bunch do you really expect to hear "Tiger has been making ribbons for his team-mates all week" or see the men with US flags painted on their faces when the real battle resumes at the Ryder Cup next September?

Our bets
The good: we returned to the winner's rostrum in F1 when we got with Kimi Raikkonen early to take the chequered flag in Belgium and add to a truly miserable week for McLaren. He duly delivered and a return on the 13/5 odds means perhaps we can start to help Ron Dennis's team pay back the $50m fine.

The bad: It's notoriously difficult to predict what Wales will do on a rugby pitch. If they hit their straps and play the 'Welsh Way' they can be an attacking force to live with the very best. However if they play like a bunch of leeks and give away a 25-3 half-time lead then they will always struggle. Our advice that Australia would win by 6-10 points was looking wide of the mark at that point - however the Welsh recovered, but not by quite enough, to lose by 12 points and see us out of pocket.

The ugly: I have a confession to make. I let love of my football team get in the way of my betting insticts this weekend and ended up providing some pretty useless advice. Spurs have all the ingredients to be a top four side - unfortunately the cooks are letting the team down badly. A 1-0 lead was soon whittled back before 'they who shall not be named' scored twice more to humble Martin Jol's side and mock my prediction of a Spurs win. It's not often that I get to write about football and even though i'm the boss, I think it might be a long time before I do so again....

The week ahead
Football: the Champions League returns and Liverpool travel to Porto and Chelsea host Rosenberg on Tuesday before Sevilla travel to the Emirates and United play Sporting in Lisbon.

Rugby Union: England play the first of their back-to-back must-win games. First up are the mighty Samoans who were so mighty against Tonga that they couldn't score despite playing the last 10mins against 13 men 

Cricket: England must beat New Zealand and then India the following day to have any chance of making the semi-finals, so that's them on the way home then...

Tennis: Tiger Tim bows out with a Davis Cup tie against Croatia at Wimbledon. What's the betting that rain has the last laugh on Henman's last hurrah?