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What do I know? Nothing.
I mean, how bad, sloppy, rudderless were the Hurricanes in those early home games, that I never rated them capable of getting this far. I always doubted it, I'll admit it ... but I think its easier that way. “Expect the unexpected”? That would be winning the title.
Looking forward to the finals now, and the rematch North Island derby between the ‘Canes and the Chiefs, but consider these mental doodlings:
- How classy and reliable is Leon MacDonald? Where was he in Cardiff? Sayonara, Rangi.
- With 3 NZ teams and one South African team in the finals, why the hell should the ARU get another team?
- Will an NZ champion rekindle the public’s interest and lead to All Black sell out crowds?
- Hey Wellington Rugby Union ... after another year of upfront season pass attendance, how about a FREE playoff ticket offer for being so effing loyal? As I’m over 14, I pay through the nose.
- Could the Crusaders do the (apparently) impossible?
- If the Hurricanes win, will they buy Captain Hurricane some new overalls? The dude looks faded.
- Why even put the first 8 rounds on telly? Nobody watched and no teams dominated - its a traffic jam on the points table at week 14
- Given the level of interest in NZ derbies this season, can we please have our All Blacks in the Air NZ Cup?
- And if the French are going to send weak teams for Tests, then don’t play them - better still, give them a game against the NZ Maori who are owed a ‘Test’ they lost against the Boks
The Chiefs have had a good season ... now move over and let the Hurricanes have theirs. They are ready this year; they have fog lamps for the final.
L8trz.
Yes, despite all my best attempts to run them down - I am a pessimistic old git - the Hurricanes are starting to deserve the favourite tag hooked on them before this year’s Super 14. They are peaking at the right time and we should all be happy. Except its all doomed. We will finally get to another final only to have it called off due to ‘Swine Flu’.
It may be time to stock up on Tamiflu, face masks, even Star Anise to get you through. Attending such a public gathering under pain of death may be at least as twice as frustrating as going to a normal Hurricanes knockout match.
Personally, I blame all these poncey Auckland schools. There is a Recesion on fercrissakes, yet these little toffs are traipsing of to Mexico for a week!!?? WTF? When I was a kid, we got to go here of we were lucky ... for the night! Look at it, its glorious.
The next time you think of sending little Janey or Crispin off to a high quality private educational institution up North, think again.
You could well be sending them overseas on some kind of Gap Year Plague Mission, turning them in to Agar Plates of the Apocalypse.
Maybe this is the Mayans & Aztecs paying the West back for the Conquistadores. Or maybe its all just another pile of media beat up a la Bird Flu like we went through 3-4 years ago.
If face masks become the “new beret”, does it mean Altern8 and heavy acid techno will come back too? got to be better than Op Shop.
Ian McGeechan will announce his Lions squad today for the tour of South Africa. Ha has already named Paul O’Connell (POC), the Munster Monster, as his captain ... picking him over the other Irish favourite for the job, Brian O’Driscoll (BOD). The rest of the touring party that will have to face the World Champ Springboks in 3 Tests will be named tonight our time.
It is expected that the Wasps head man, and former Lion himself, McGeechan will name a touring group of 35 or 36; far less than the bloated band of 45 gypsies Clive Woodward brought out here in 2005. And that tally did not include his QCs and Alaistair ‘Bomber’ Campbell.
BBC has a team picker here and I have had a crack for the first Test team. Once again I will qualify my selections by saying I know bugger all, and I am just a BeanBag Pundit with some beers in the fridge ...
Much of the talk has been about picking a bunch of bruisers to battle the Boks up front, and it will be attritional, but McGeechan is wily - he will want to have a mobile bunch as well I think. Defence will keep the Lions in the game, but it will not win it for them. They will have to score tries. Duh.
Despite the number of tries that England did actually score in the Six Nations, their players are a little thin in this squad, and that simply comes because of Irish and Welsh standouts in key positions and the need to (rightly) slot in existing combinations around them first up. I would say that the Test team may very change noticeably over the tour. I think McGeechan will pick on form from all the fixtures. If players like Lee Halfpenny, Delon Armitage or James Haskell or Nick Kennedy get on the plane, they may well get a Test appearance.
So there’s my effort. Unlikely to see Shanklin and BOD together, but what the hell ... do something different, play your cards and let them swap about; power and pace. Henson goes for me, still has to be fit (otherwise Ricki Flutey), but he ticks lots of boxes. And 9,10,12 are going to make a truck load of tackles.Whatever the outcome, it will be hard for the tourists. The Lions are simply at a disadvantage because of the lack of preparation and the mix of nationalities ... but that is why these tours are so good.
“Can they do it in the face of such sheer odds?”
Kiwis will just have to be a spectators this year because the biggest Rugby Union event of the year does not involve us. Might do all our “hubris” some good, eh?
Team Veitch? What is this? An America’s Cup syndicate?
Tony Veitch has enough money and media friends (like “Holmsie”) at TVNZ to construct a very sneaky narrative out of all this. Don’t forget his very pre-crunch salary paid to him by state owned TVNZ, or that this ‘sports journalist’, like all TV personalities these days, gets groomed via womens mags and appearances on star-fucking, ego-fellating piles of shit like ‘Dancing With The Stars’, into what we call a S’leb ... someone we can all relate to, feel like we know, and maybe if we are lucky see their wedding photos, or wrinkly new baby!! Arse.
Many high-powered Kiwis, almost all from Planet Sport, got conned in to giving personal references to Team Veitch, like Susan Devoy and Graham Henry ... and people are not happy about it. But now the same referees are scrambling to distance themselves from their own words, claiming they were misled. Come on people, get smart. Dance with that Devil ... and you may get voted off.
The media scramble will continue - this the perfect mix (storm?) of celebrity, violence and public bloodletting that we all love. They must be creaming themselves over at Stuff! It’s like our very own OJ! Veitch will get his TV One soapbox - and heaven knows he might need the box to stand on. He will probably be back on telly and radio in the not too distant future.
This blogging stuff makes it really easy to attack someone, eh? Personally, I have never liked him; never connected with his toothy grin, his smarmy, just-one-of-the-blokes media persona. It stems from some primeval memory I can’t erase of him (I am sure it’s him) interviewing Steffi Graf for the Holmes show years ago. On gaining access to - at the time - the greatest womens tennis player on the planet, he asked her “How did you get those fantastic legs?”. If it wasn’t Veitch, I am sorry ... though I remember it as him. And one day I could do jury duty!
If that level of crapness is what makes you a sports journalist, then I am off to pick up my Pulitzer.
Anyone remember that poor 13 year old girl raped in Auckland this week? No, because she can’t afford a PR team and doesn’t see the One News team in the staff cafeteria every day.
Rant over. Got to get ready for the Hurricanes game ... like, that will cheer me up!
Can’t wait to see how this one pans out - England’s Rugby Union looks set to be battling it out with Japan to get the 2015 Rugby World Cup now. After all the sanctimonious bleating about the desperate need to “grow the game” in 2011 and how NZ was simply a backwards, sympathetic choice, let’s see how the Old Farts at Twickenham spin this one out. The Poms heavily invested in Japan for 2011, and were openly against NZ getting it. Either choice next time, its laying out RWC right in the grubby palms of even more massive corporate ownership. Its already pimped out to the likes of Visa and Heineken, but take it to either Japan or England and the scramble for a slice of Brand Pie will be frightening. And if Kiwis think they are going to have steep ticket prices for 2011, they may be surprised in four and eight years time. I’d rather have our “World Cup of Campervans” in 2011, as BBC Rent-a-Rant Brian Moore described it, than some sponsors only, boardroom sausage fest.
