End of Year Review

As we approach the end of 2024, it seems appropriate to look at where we are with a host of sports and the things we can look forward to in 2025.

Football is covered in the majority of Limelight monthly sports articles and I have left our national obsession on the sidelines for this December review!

So, in no particular order – ‘where are we now’ across some of the remaining sporting landscape?

Rugby Union: 

Domestically, the sport has, and continues, to suffer financial woes as clubs try to establish profitable working models in the professional era.  The demise of Wasps and Worcester Warriors in recent times has highlighted just how difficult keeping a rugby club afloat is.

On a positive note, both clubs are now in the process of being re-born and although both will look to re-join the sports professional ranks, they will do so outside of the Gallagher Premiership and will need to earn their places back in Rugby’s elite league on the field, via promotion.

Nationally of course, the least said the better!! – England have lost all of their Autumn Series fixtures against New Zealand, Australia and South Africa and with only Japan to come at the time of writing, calls for the removal of Head Coach Steve Borthwick are growing louder.

Next years Six-Nations will be pivotal for Borthwick and a disappointing campaign will surely see him removed.

Cricket: 

With the busiest calendar ever for England, resources have been stretched to the limit with players involved in all three formats having to miss tours on a regular basis.

This has resulted in very mixed results in all formats and room for improvement in Test, One-Day and T20 sides.

We are certainly poised for an interesting 2025 with Test Head Coach Brendan McCullum (the father of Baz-Ball) taking the reigns across all formats from January and it seem ‘Smash-Em, Bash-Em’ cricket is here to stay, at least for a while yet.

The year ends with an Ashes tour ‘down-under’ – still the most exciting and fiercely fought series in world cricket and I, for one, will be attempting to stay awake all night during December and January to watch the action!

F1: 

We had our hopes raised for a genuine title battle between Red Bulls Max Verstappen and McLaren’s Lando Norris for a while there!

However, the very serious Dutchman simply had too much knowhow (and at times, street-smarts) for Britain’s new golden-boy and although McLaren look likely to win the constructors title, the questions remain regarding whether Norris possesses the ‘nasty-edge’ required to win a world crown – something Verstappen, Schumacher and Senna had in bucket-loads!!

2025 should answer that and many other questions across the sporting landscape!