Weekend Roundup 5/9 - 5/10

Colorado Rapids - The Rapids had a bye this week. Next week we're in New England.

Queen of the South - For their final game of the season QoS traveled to Livingston. On a soggy pitch the Doonhamers appeared eager to get to the offseason, giving up a goal and a PK in the first 10 minutes. That looked to be a appropriate ending to a season of disappointment, but in the second half Queens decided they didn't want it to end that way. In 3 minutes they scored and got a PK goal to level the score, and ended the season with a draw. With the point Queen of the South ended the season in the top half with a 5th place finish. They were only 8 points out of second place, but the league champions St. Johnstone were a full 15 points ahead of them. Hopefully we can repeat the good start of this season next time around, and this time make a better promotion push.

Blackburn Rovers - Blackburn had a vital game against Portsmouth at Ewood Park this weekend. Grabbing the 3 points in this game would make survival all but mathematically certain. The team responded to the challenge, controlling the game for most of the 90 minutes. In the first half Morten Gamst Pedersen scored his first goal of the season in what may be the most important goal of the season for Rovers. In the second half Portsmouth was called for a handball and Benni McCarthy stepped up to put the game away. There was a scare in the final minutes as the handball PK call went the other way, but Portsmouth's Utaka put the ball over the bar from the spot and Blackburn get the necessary 3 points. If Newcastle and Middlesbrough had drawn on Monday Blackburn would be assured of safety, but since the Jailbirds managed a win there's still a mathematical chance of going down. Rovers will be safe with 1 more point gained, or 1 point lost by Newcastle or Hull over the last 2 weekends of the season. Next week we travel to Chelsea so we shouldn't expect to gain that point this week, hopefully Hull or Newcatle won't win.

CD Tenerife - CDT returned to the Canary Islands to host Murcia. They continued their remarkable run, now at 17 games without a loss, as they took a 3-0 lead before giving one back to Murcia late. Unfortunately the other 4 teams in the promotion race all won as well, so Tenerife didn't extend their lead at all, but we're one step closer to promotion with only 6 games left. Right now they have a 5 point cushion over Hercules, who they play on the road next weekend. A win there would give them a 7-8 point lead with 5 games to play, and fans could start to seriously consider what La Liga would be like next year. A loss would make it only a 2 point lead and things would get very tense very quickly. Xerez still leads the division by 2 points over CDT, who's worst possible finish is 9th.

Kildare County - Another week, another shut out lost. Reports are that the Thoroughbreds played "better" this week, but the time for moral victories is long past. The total is now 35-2 over the last 9 games. The team is still only 3 points from safety though, so survival is still a possibility even with the worst run of form I've ever seen from a "professional" team.