All that youthful talent

I suspect Sir Bobby will need to be more authoritarian than avuncular, and I trust he would have chastised Jermaine Jenas even had his chipped penalty in the Asia Cup shoot-out been successful.

Perhaps it is the fault of all these motivational gurus preaching self-belief, but when confidence is so high that it encourages a player to do something foolish then it's time for experienced old hands to clamp down.

Jenas arrived at Newcastle as a pleasant, unassuming teenager, but stardom and the corrupting culture which surrounds him has turned him into the sort of person who now declines to speak to the Newcastle Evening Chronicle.

It would be no surprise if a siege mentality gripped players who have brought bad publicity upon themselves such as Bowyer, Bellamy, Woodgate and Dyer. But there is no reason for Jenas to distance himself from an admiring public.

Hopefully the penalty miss in what was, after all, a fairly meaningless pre-season tournament in Malaysia, will have taught him a lesson as he embarks on a crucial season for himself and the club.

THERE were two Graeme Smiths in action last weekend. While one was scoring 362 runs for once out against England at Edgbaston, the other was narrowly missing a medal at the World Swimming Championships.

The latter is a 23-year-old freestyler from Stockport who won silver and bronze medals at the championships two years ago but then missed a lot of training after being mugged in Manchester.

This time he finished fourth in the 800m and sixth in the 1,500m, admitting that his lack of training had left him short of stamina.

These fellows, of course, are up at 5am and in the pool by six for the first of their twice-daily training sessions, which generally have to be fitted in when our pools are not full of those splashing about for fun.

Despite constant complaints about our lack of 50-metre pools, of which there are apparently more in Paris than the whole of England, Britain enjoyed a record haul of eight medals at the championships in Barcelona.

This is yet another sport in which we have an Australian coach, the burly Bill Sweetenham. He became performance director in April, 2000, and has achieved impressive results since British swimmers had their worst Olympics at Sydney.

As far as the tough-talking Sweetenham is concerned, everything is geared to next year's Olympics in Athens. He has been known to insist on Christmas Day training and any swimmer who doesn't meet his rigorous requirements is taken off the funding programme.

Gold medals for Katy Sexton (200m backstroke) and James Gibson (50m breaststroke) led the way in Barcelona and if burly Bill's plans come to fruition there will be even more in Athens.

LIAM Botham has told Glamorgan cricketer Steve James that the biggest mistake he ever made was leaving Cardiff, almost echoing his dad's words that the biggest mistake he ever made was joining Durham.

James doubles up as a rugby writer for the Sunday Telegraph, in which his article about Botham quotes him as saying he did not enjoy the last two of his three years at Newcastle.

Following his release by the Falcons at the end of last season, largely because he was costing them too much, he has signed a 12-month contract with Leeds to play both union and league.

As he was also good enough to play first-class cricket with Hampshire, it seems that Liam is suffering from being too much of an all-rounder. He played centre, wing and full back for the Falcons, but utility men often end up on the bench.

I wish him well in his crack at Rugby League, but it's rather sad that the Bothams' dalliance with the North-East has not been a happy one. Botham senior had a hospitality box in the new stand at Kingston Park, for which they will now presumably have to find a new tenant.

IT was not an auspicious start for England's new cricket captain yesterday, but taking over at such short notice was not ideal for Michael Vaughan and there is no reason to believe he will not make a success of it.

Having different captains for one-day matches and Tests is not ideal, even if it appears to work for Australia.

The Aussies clearly feel Steve Waugh is such an exceptional character, both as a leader and a batsman, that they want him to carry on past the usual sell-by date.

Quite what purpose it serves, however, for him to score successive centuries against mighty Bangladesh is beyond me. We can only hope that a lack of foresight in bringing on the next generation eventually topples the world's greatest sledgers from their lofty perch.

Published: 01/08/2003