The Orange

Too much sport and too many other things on my plate the last couple of days – moving house is NOT sport.

However, I will be in Oz for the next 5 days which should provide fertile material

An Irish article suggested that the All Blacks were the Chelsea of World Rugby.

Fair enough.

But it then went on to repeat the urban myth that the All Blacks is effectively a Barbarians-like team with the selectors chugging around the Pacific Islands grabbing players.

International rugby does not operate a transfer market. That’s the official IRB line. In essence, it does.

Hence, the best Polynesian players are hovered up by the pre-eminent nations. That’s why the awesome Sitiveni Sivivatu, the man who will interrupt Anthony Horgan’s sleep for much of this week, does not play for Fiji. And he’s not alone.

Check this out … mate.

We didn’t even need to make it up!

OK, so we won the rugby and lost the singing.

The decider – let’s hope the decision isn’t based on the quality of the sports writing.

The Pommy press (I must put together some links!) have been universally in praise of the ABs effort.

An article in the Daily Telegraph by Martin Johnson takes the cake (actually, it takes all the scones, biscuits and breads too … the whole fricking bakery!).

Some highlights:

Wales were handicapped by the absence of several key players, but when you delve more deeply into the reasons for this walloping, you need look no further than the pre-match build up. It’s getting more like the Superbowl every year, with the world and his dog being wheeled out before the kick off, and invited to sing, dance, or jump through hoops.

Tom Jones wasn’t there but you wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d wheeled out a bus driver who’d just completed 40 years service on the Pontypridd-Tonypandy route. By the time it came to start playing rugby, no wonder the Welsh looked exhausted.

It’s worth reading the whole article tho.

A pity our writers resemble the unsmiling grim-faced figures from the black and white days of the 1950’s.

Not really much to say.

The AB’s in the first half were pretty rusty and disjointed – it wasn’t the number 1 team and some players were still finding their feet (Byron eventually found his inside his boots but not after he’d botched a try).

Once the mistakes were eliminated or at least minimised, the Welsh never looked in the game.

Sad really that in the game to mark 100 years of intense rivalry the greatest confrontation was at over the pre-match rituals.

The Red Dragons had a better game plan for the pre-match than the real McCoy. The original idea was for the haka to come BEFORE both anthems. That’s like converting a try and then trying to score from the place where the conversion was taken.

One guesses that there was an itsy-bitsy negotiation involving places where the Welsh were welcome to insert things.

In the end, the haka came after the NZ Anthem (it’s not a funeral Hayley!!) but before the Welsh finished the church service with a couple of hymns.

It’s a pity for the Valley Boys that they weren’t awarded points for the singing.

So will the new NPC be like Back To The Future II (sucky) or BTTF III (worthy of the original). And would Michael J Fox AND the car fit under the cap?

As far as the NZRFU is concerned – it could well be the New Zealand Rugby Fuck Ups for some of their decisions in the past) – it’s not a bad start.

The draw is out and they don’t seem to have forgotten any teams. Well done Steve Tew!

The Division One which is more like the old division 2 and 3 will play for the Meads and Lochore Cups (I might have made the last one up but you wouldn’t know would you?).

The Premier Division – which is actually the first division on steroids – will play in two pools and I just hope that the players take swimming lessons.

Now, I could go on trying to make out I’m funny when you are really dying to know what I think about the new NPC.

I am sympathetic to what the NZRFU is trying to achieve. For a number of provincial teams – particularly Hawke’s Bay and Counties – it’s famine or feast. If you’re not in Division 1, there’s no point in continuing – all the best players end up in Otago or North Harbour.

SO expanding the Premier Division could potentially be a good if not great move. It will provide opportunities for some of the breeding grounds in NZ to regain their positions on the national stage.

But the cap – all $2 million – is a joke. Either have a cap which will genuinely spread talent around or don’t bother. Given the intention, they may as well have used a draft for the NPC. It doesn’t seem to hurt the NFL.

Quite frankly, the NPC is effectively a third tier competition now, behind the All Blacks programme (they no longer play games) and definitely behind the Super 14.

There will be some winners of sorts – Hawkes Bay, Counties and Tasman will all benefit.

But if the NZRFU is serious about putting the Competition back into the NPC, it will only happen when all 14 teams have the same player and financial resources.

I’m happy to state here that the new NPC in 2006 will be won by either Canterbury or Auckland which suggests that there’s a long way to go to get an even comp.

I thought I should dedicate a post to all the good things that the Knights have achieved, since they have been getting a hard time from the press.

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See, you don’t have to be negative about the Knights when nothing says it all!

There’s been a huge amount of press in NZ about how the Lions and our Brian simply won’t let go.

Funnily enough, we seem to think it is acceptable if not essential that we continually bring up the try that wasn’t in the 1905 between the ABs and Wales.

I’ve just read a superb article in the UK Guardin on the game and its significance to international sport … I think I’m right in saying that this was the first time that national anthems were sung before a game.

I suggest that December day marked the very beginning of the [international sport] itself, to such extent that every competitive pastime anywhere should be celebrating New Zealand’s return to Cardiff this Guy Fawkes day of 2005 as nothing less than the lustrous centenary of all international sport.

Whatever, it’s a great read and uses lots and lots of big words

A couple of reasons why Diva SHOULDN’T win, CAN’T win, WON’T win.

No horse has won three years in a row. Never.

No mare has carried that much to win. Never.

The track’s too hard – her best wins have been on wet tracks, not dry and firm.

This is racing – hard-nosed, real life. It’s not a Walt Disney movie. You can dream but it won’t help.

So that’s it then. Simple. Save your money and back anything but the Diva.

Bet with your head, not your heart.

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As the Tui philosophers muse – “Yeah, right!”.