Hey everyone, last Sunday on the 3rd of May 2009 I went to the Millenium Stadium,Cardiff for the Heineken Cup Semi final game between the Cardiff Blues and the Leicester Tigers. The majority of the crowd were of course routing for the Blues and inside the stadium was a great atmosphere.Blues and Tiger fans sitting side by side. It was a shame not to see the stadium at full capactiy, but just over 44,000 was a not bad turnout,the lower and middle tiers were all full but the top tier was mostly empty.I have put a few photos from my day below,one showing inside the stadium, from my view point from the North end. The actual game was terrific, Leicester were as ever tight at tackling and not giving the Blues any room and constantly knicking the ball off the Blues and kicking into the corners. Cardiff had to stop the momentum and hence gave a few penalties away but lucky for them thier kciker missed 3 of them, but still this didn;t stop the Tigers going infront, scoring a couple of tries through fly half Toby Floods quick passing through the middle. The Blues only had thier kickers and Leicesters silly fouls to give Cardiff some penlties to stay in the game at half time. It looked like Leicesters day, as Blues every time they had the ball either knocked it on or kicked it away to Murphy and he kicked it back with something extra making the Blues knock on. Leicester made some silly mistakes in the 2nd half and got a couple of thier players yellow carded meaning they went off for 10 minutes and this let Cardiff back into the game, as with 10 minutes to go Leicester were leading 26-12, but the Blues made some fantastic breaks against the 13 men of the Tigers and first of all Jamie Roberts touched down near the corner flag, giving Ben Blair a very hard kick to convert, but that didn't stop him and he converted, but with no time to stop to take a breath , from the kick off the Blues made another break and before anyone noticed Cardiffs Tom James was runningfor the corner to make it 26-24to the Tigers, with Ben Blair to kick from the corner and he made it once again to level the scores, it stayed this way till the end ofextra time, and noone cold make any breaks or sccore any extra points, so on it went onto penalty kicks.The first time ever in the Europe!5 players nominated from each team to kick from the 22 metre line.5 Blues kicked, 4Tigers kicked, once missed so Tom James had tokick his over to win it for the Blues, but he missed it!he never kicks, so very unlucky for him, but on it went, and it went to 6-6, but Martyn Williams missed hisand it went to Leicester to score thier remaining kick to win it, and they did, heart break for Cardiff, and what a way to win a game.I felt very sorry for the Blues, they came so close to getting thier best chance to win the Heineken Cup. Ive added some photos from my day.
