Jimmy_D

I’d be surprised if Spain manage to keep that intensity up for the whole match, feels like they needed to score to make that effort count. Expecting to see England come more into the match as it goes on.

So now apparently Russia are blaming the failure to take Kyiv on Ukranian supersoldiers created in US run biolabs in Ukraine… … … I mean, aside from conveniently forgetting that they were claiming that Kyiv was just a feint, I’m not sure the best way to motivate their troops is to make them think they’re up against supersoldiers, especially with the increasing issues they’re getting with deserters.

Do they still get the money for a Lada if they’re shot down by their own side? Reports a SU-34 was shot down by Russia’s own air defence. That’s one of their newest multi role fighters. They don’t have many and they can’t currently replace them either. The success of Ukraine’s rocket artillery may well have played a part in this. For Russia’s AA operators, between the stress of facing a weapon that’s almost impossible for them to stop, as well as being a high priority target, and it’s easy to see how that stress could lead to incidents like this. On top of that, with the way the Russian army operates, that stress is probably being exacerbated by being blamed for the success of HIMARS and M270 strikes.

We were waaay ahead of them on what happened lol

Dammit, I’m actually tempted to get this now

No run out recorded by the look of it, so can only assume the umpire had called a dead ball when the keeper had taken the bails off and Lancashire had stopped running.

Is there anything better in sport than a narrow win in a final?

Bloody hell! What a match!

Reports that Ukraine have received the first of the newer M270 units from the UK and Norway. (M270 is an older platform than HIMARS, but newer ones have updated fire-control computers, among other improvements) These fire the same rockets as HIMARS, and can fire twice as many at once if needed. It’s not as fast as HIMARS, but it can cover rougher terrain. It probably won’t be risked as close to the front line as HIMARS, so in effect shorter range, but it’s definitely a massive boost to what Ukraine can do, and will be able to reach some places that HIMARS can’t, especially if the reports that they’re going to get access to longer range rockets (300km vs the current 80km) turn out to be accurate.

Did what we needed to do to keep momentum going but bigger challenges ahead. We’re more than a match for any team in the tournament though.

Cracking goal!

But unlucky for NI there but can see the difference in confidence breaking the deadlock has made

Oooh, nice finish!

Difficult to read too much into a dead rubber group game against a team making themselves difficult to break down, but we certainly don’t look anywhere near as ruthless so far.

Indeed, not sure the handball itself would have been overturned but the earlier handball made it easy.

Oof, that seems harsh… think that’ll be overturned?

Really cool to see Rafferty in the starting line up for tonight’s game. She gets to play at St Marys for her country in a major tournament, and against England as well.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-parliament-passes-sweeping-wartime-economic-controls-2022-07-06/ Seems obvious this is an attempt to reduce the effect of some of the sanctions that have been affecting Russia. It might help them in some areas, for a while at least, but obviously won’t help where Russia simply doesn’t have access to resources and components they need. Taking their time off away from people is only going to lead to resentment, poor morale, and and poor quality work if it carries on for any length of time. Depends on the exact specifics of which companies will be affected, but I can see another wave of companies being triggered to pull out of Russia rather than risk being dragged into directly supporting Russia’s war effort.

That was a nice story, although I can’t help but despair a bit that we’re living in times where a kid raising money for the military is a feel good story. Three more ammo stores went up in Kherson last night apparently, two to artillery, and a third to an aircraft airstrike. While it’s nowhere near as visible as the ammo stores when they’re hit, anti-air emplacements are obviously being targeted by HIMARS as well, which brings not only aircraft back into it, but other artillery that Russia’s AA systems had been more effective against. Being up against a weapon with no defence against it has to be a soldier’s worst nightmare, it’s like the old wunderwaffe stories come true, except tried and tested and in mass production. Knowing Ukraine are about to receive more of them as well... morale must be dropping to the point that they may well stop being effective.

Yeah, feels like they've just given Putin something in the hope that something is given back. Under the circumstances it's colossally stupid. On the topic of stupid things, Russia trying to claim the ammo dump was saltpetre. As we saw in the Beirut explosion, saltpetre would have gone up in one go, while the ammo dump is still now cooking off ammo and exploding. That really was a big hit that'll severely dent Russia's capability in the area.

Seems it's yet another Russian ammo store going up in Russian occupied territory. Looks like the S400 anti-air can't intercept HIMARS, despite originally being bought by Russia on the basis it was advertised as being able to, and as a result any static Russian target in range is essentially defenceless. There have been a LOT of Russian targets being hit way behind the front lines over the past few days, I'm not sure there's much Russia can do beyond send aircraft on missions to try and find them, but with the number of light anti-air missiles Ukraine have, they've effectively been able to enforce a no-fly zone of their own over territory they control for about 10 weeks now. With the range and mobility HIMARS has, any mission like that would be a long shot, and successful or not, would likely be one-way. Even then, it's only a matter of time until Ukraine receives more HIMARS.

Amazing. There aren't many teams in the tournament that will be able to even begin coping against us if we keep playing like that.

Beth Mead playing ridiculously well

Yep! They're actually a decent team too. This scoreline is more than slightly ridiculous.

Reminds me of the England - Holland game in Euro 96