The Orange

I saw bits and pieces of various UK SuperLeague games last weekend.

You knew when a try was scored when Blur’s Song 2.

Sadly, it was all a little underwhelming.  10,000 pasty faced Poms sitting there being told to get their mojo out.  Woohoo indeed.

Don’t get me wrong.  Great, great song.  But when the crowd is struggling to get excited, it just doesn’t do justice to the song.

Which got me thinking about a list of sporting anthems that (to be fair) risk being over exposed, over used, and frankly a little over it.

So here’s the Orange’s list of over-used sporting anthems:

Gary Glitter – Rock and Roll – Part II

I bet you your next year’s wages or salary that most people wouldn’t know what I’m talking about.  Especially the yanks.

Yet it is now one of the most hackneyed over-played sporting anthems ever known to mankind (and the Americans too).

Here it is in all its Glam Glory:

And I bet you the same people who’ve got no idea of the song have got no idea of the Gary Glitter story.  Just as well eh!

Blur – Song 2

Woohoo.

See above.

Queen – We are the Champions

Yet again, something to cherish the first time it’s done but less so the zillionth time it’s done for a D Grade competition no one really cares about.

And what is it about sporting anthems sung by blokes with a dodgy story?

Gary Glitter – I’m the Leader of the Gang (I am)

And what is it with Gary Glitter?  Did he sit down and right songs to be sporting anthems?  I mean every time someone makes a comeback, we get “Hello, Hello, it’s Good to be Back“!

It must have had something to do with the admittedly endearingly repetitive choruses.

As does Leader of the Gang … “c’mon, c’mon”.  Think the Warriors at Mt Smart working their way out of their half.

And if you’ve checked out any of the Glitter videos, thank God for punk, rap, reggae and all the other form of music that rescued us from 1970’s glam.

How Bizarre

NZ gets an honorary mention through OMC’s “How Bizarre”.

It was a brilliant use of a pop song – I remember it being used in NFL games.

Problem was, it pissed off the officials who didn’t need to be reminded about their strange officiating.

I wonder if the Aussie umps get their own song played when they walk out onto the park?

[I was tempted to go for Queen's We Will Rock You but needed a 20% NZ quota!]

Edit:

I’m not the first to have thought of this!

http://au.askmen.com/top_10/fitness_60/67_fitness_list.html

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/417227/616197

Looks like a good night to be at the pub, at home in front of Sky … anywhere except on the road to visit the Mother!

What a feast:

• The Black Caps take on the Indians
• The Breakers face sudden death against the Melbourne Not The Storm
• The Hurricanes are on the road to face the Crusaders who will smarting after their last minute loss to the Ponies last week

While I’m at it, Big Ups to the NZRFU for signing up Slow Hand Luke.

I was critical of the Super 14 earlier in the week.  It lacks the big names and the high skill (and excitement) level that was evident a few years ago.

It must be obvious that the lack of top drawer players is affecting the quality of the competition which in turn affects the bottom line.  The NZRFU is to be congratulated for snaring some talent back.

In a reversal of the time honoured tradition, instead of the shit hitting the fan, a rugby fan has hit out at moi for my shit stirring comments about rugby earlier in the week.

It is great news for rugby that they still have a fan.  Perhaps like the kakapo, they could put him in captivity on an secluded island and start a breeding programme.

Anyway, “esoj” made a couple of comments about my post on the start of the Super 14 which appeared over on the Warriors forum – and a big shout out to the boys and girls at Warriorsland too!

Backwards Jose said:

I will argue that whoever wrote that article is cherry picking what to comment on. the bulls v blues game which the bulls won 59 -26 was highly entertaining but you wouldn’t see the author of the article writing about it in a million years.

Yes, I am picking cherries … actually in the business it’s called low hanging fruit because frankly it’s a little too easy to point the finger at the rugby boys at the moment.  And did I hear somone mention World Cups?

So … the Blues game was “highly entertaining”.  I’m sure Blues fans everywhere would have been highly entertained by their team being flogged by MORE THAN 30 points.

Perhaps if the game had been on at a time when people in NZ were awake or sober or both may have meant there would have been an audience.

But seeing you mention this Backwards Jose, how crap is a competition that gives a team like the Blues a competition point for losing by 30 points – the same number of points the Crusaders got for effectively leading for 79 minutes and 56 seconds.

I’ve given Stephen Jones stick at times in the past but I think he is fundamentally right – the essence of sport is competition and the Crusaders-Brumbies game walked all over the 90 point Blues-Bulls game in terms of sporting entertainment and drama.

Back to the Blues game – here’s what the Granny Herald had to say about this “entertaining” spectacle:

The Blues were trampled 59-26 by the Bulls in Pretoria this morning, a record defeat that raises question marks over their Super 14 rugby credentials.

And further:

It was the most points they have conceded in Super rugby history and it could have been more if the Bulls hadn’t eased off from their rampaging start, when they raced to a 26-0 lead in 24 minutes.

The Bulls capitalised on a glut of Blues errors and turnovers, scoring seven tries to four.

Keep in mind that the Blues get a competition point out of this!

I do accept that that Crusaders fans have been consistent supporters of their team (compared to say the embarassing levels of support in Dunedin).  You would hope so given their past level of success.  In any case, a crowd of 15,000 is not front page news when the same weekend the Warriors got similar numbers for a pre-season game.

The fundamental point that I tried to make in the original post with my tongue so far in my cheek it was coming out my ear is that rugby still hasn’t got its premier club comp right in the professional era.  Sure, rugby’s world cup is a legitimate global event.  Sure, people care more about rugby than the do about other sports (that’s heritage for you).

But that heritage doesn’t hide the fact that rugby as it is packaged right now is a poor product on TV.  Anyone mention crouch, touch, pause, engage, reset the scrum, change the channel?

For all the incompetence of the league administrators and the NRL clubs’ struggle with the cashed up Northern clubs, at least the NRL knows how to package up the game week after week, month after month, and give us a decent sporting competition.

A million years isn’t that long, is it Backwards Jose?

I saw this on The Crowd Goes Wild at the weekend and thought I’d flog it and make you think my research department had found it all by myself.

High School Basketball Teams Bring Sportsmanship to Life

Mind you, the story on line is actually the script from the news so I’m not the only one flogging things.

The story’s got a Disney-like quality to it.

Player’s (Jontell) mum dies game night.

Coach doesn’t expect player to turn up so he’s not on the roster for the game.

Player turns up and wants to play … it’s what his dying mum wanted him to do.

Coach wants to play the player.

Opposition coach wants the player to play.

Umps threaten a technical foul (two free throws) if he plays.

Fierce local opponents deliberately miss the free throws.

Tears well up all round.

Yep, you can see the Disney moguls writing their scripts on that one.

While I think it’s a great story, it’s more a drama based on the tragedy of the situation rather than the sportsmanship.  Obviously not in the States, where this was deemed to be news worthy.

On the other hand, this is real sportsmanship and I can also see Disney all over it like a rash.

The NRL may still be a couple of weeks away, but the extensive advertising campaign has started in New Zealand, Australia, and even South Africa.

Yep, the Super 14.

Actually I blogged a recently about oxymoronic sports events and right now there’s not a lot super about the Super 14.

The Waratahs v Chiefs game really highlighted the situation – it was a case of which team deserved to lose more.

As for the Highlanders, even their mums and dads don’t recognise most of the players.  Yet again, the draft is the key to the Highlanders success while their home support is so strong they will be playing a HOME game in Palmerston North.  Mind you, the Hurricanes won’t be this year so the Palmy natives will be happy.

Yet again, the punters seem to be telling the rugby fish-heads they’re not interested in Super 14 in the middle of sum.

FFS, the Indians have just arrived (funny that they should have been in the country at the same as the Cowboys!).

So while the country is engrossed in Danny Lee, the cricket, and other summer activities, the Einsteins in the rugby world have the Super 14 players doing their stuff to a largely disinterested public.

Add to that the disapora of our top players to the North.

Add to THAT the need to rest the AB’s after their northern tour.

Add to all of that the usual confusion with rugby rules, ELV’s, Snow White and the numerous dwarves.

Put it all together and you’ve got a competition that is struggling to be taken seriously by the public with players who appear partly incompetent, partly jaded, partly disinterested, and in the case of the Highlanders completely anonamous (except in the pub after the game).

What a great advertisment for the NRL.

The Orange has patented Tana Watch, there should be as much interest in New Zealand’s highest paid sports star, Ryan Nelsen (in case you needed a bit of help).

In case you need a little bit more help, Nelsen is a defensive player with Blackburn in the English Premier League and good enough to be captain.  He’s also good enough to be paid a rumoured $8 million but that’s strictly between Nelsen, his accountant, and the blogosphere.

So, here is the first official Nelsen/Blackburn watch.

The situation is shall we say challenging.

Here’s the situation as it stood Sunday pm NZT on 22 Feb.

Blackburn are in the bottom three (relegation zone) but with a game in hand.

Check out this cool graph – straight out of Premier Manager! Problem is that the red line – this season – is dropping like the proverbial stone.

Maybe Ryan needs to check out opportunities at the Nix next season?

Richard Boock likes to get up people’s nose.

And good on him too.

Too much of the New Zealand sporting public acts like they’re been at the bottom of too many rucks or gone too many rounds with Mike Tyson.  Without head protection.  And without ear muffs.

Over recent weeks, there’s been a couple of issues that are inter-related.

First, the acknowledgement of property rights for “the” haka (Te Rauparaha’s Ka Mate haka).

Second, the possibility that South Africa may not allow the NZ Maori team to tour.

The property rights for the haka is so obvious – particularly given the way in which the NZRFU protects its own rights. As Boock has pointed out, try selling a black t shirt with a silver fern on it and see how long before the NZRFU sends in its legal bovver boys.

A few years back, I seem to recall the AB’s using the Rolling Stones “Paint It Black” as the basis for an advertising campaign. Rights were negotiated with the Stones (from memory it involved beer, tickets and signed jerseys). Point is – you have property rights, you protect them.

That does NOT mean you stop everyone from signing Paint It Black – you simply protect its exploitation. Same with the haka.

The second issue is interesting because those who’ve spent too much time at the bottom of the ruck will say that the NZ Maori team is discriminatory. So is the NZ Women’s team, the NZ University team, and the NZ Under 19’s. Each has different criteria for representation.

As noted by a former race relations conciliator, the NZ Maori team is NOT the NZ team. The team does not claim to be representative of ALL NZ, just Maori. I’d also argue that the Maori would argue it’s normally not representative of all Maori either as the AB selectors (plus the pillaging Northern Clubs) take care of that.

Sadly, as Boock points out, these episodes have brought out the worst of the NZ sporting mindset (if that isn’t an oxymoron).

Funny thing is, if the Maori were to play the Boks next weekend, the same meatheads would be pissed in the cheap seats supporting the Maori.

At least with the LOTR trilogy, things got better for our merry band of misfits up against the odds.

Or should that be in Tana’s case, up against the Frogs.

Tana is now once again a living legend who is risking his own personal legacy to try to get out of jail.  So far, he only looks like collecting $200 for passing go and might be looking to buy somewhere else.

Tana returned to the field up against one of the top French teams – Stade Francais.  Unfortunately, there was no fairy tale and Toulon lost 12-22.

And, as Brucie used to say all those years ago in monchrome – let’s have a look at the old scoreboard:

http://frenchrugbyclub.com/Top-14-League-Table.html

I wonder if Petone needs an aging centre next season?

The ARC are now taking it up the chutney following the debacle with David Beckham and a Galaxy that is now far far away.

The loss is now reported to be close to $2 million which is a great ROI if you happen to be an Auckland ratepayer.

According to the Granny Herald, the ARC shelled out almost $3m to pay for Bex and his merry band of men.

Auckland might claim to be New Zealand’s creative capital but they will need creative accountants to make that one work for ratepayers.  More on this later!

The chair of the ARC was said to have been hit by the physical shock.  More like the shit that was flying around after the results became known.

As I mentioned above, they will need to be creative to deal with this one and bingo they have done just that according to an anti-rates rort campaigner, David Thornton:

Thornton was dismissive of the notion of ring-fencing the loss: “In other words they are going to put this loss as ‘reserves’ in the accounts, but the figure will be in brackets, meaning it is a minus figure,” Thornton said.

I bet you they learned that one from the smartest boys in the room at Enron – call a loss a negative asset and bingo no problemos!

So what went wrong (apart from everything) that lead to the $1.79 million debacle:

• NZers were over Beckham – he’d just been in the country 12 months earlier and many soccer fans had already spent their money on Bex
• the Oceania No Stars concept – no one cared less for the team opposing the Galaxy, compared to the fans actively supporting the Nix
• Auckland – Auckland and soccer goes together like Aussie cricket umpires and fair play
• the economy was starting to tank and the ARC already had their ARS on the line
• venue – the only Auckland venue that gets soccer crowds in on the North Shore – at least 1/2 an hour and many cultures away
• local bodies trying to be commercial – there’s a reason these guys don’t work in the real world!

Frankly, this is no more than the ritual dick comparison game that goes on between those lack in self confidence.

Auckland had to have what Wellington had.

Let’s hope Wellington doesn’t want to outdo Auckland and go for a $2m loss next time.

OK I know this isn’t really sport but it does involve a team (of players!) and excessive use of alcohol.

No, it’s not New Zealand rugby.

Apparently the Rolling Stones are considering giving Ronnie Wood the DCM (Don’t Come Monday) if he doesn’t clean up his act.

According to Stuff:

Ronnie failed his medical for the 2002/2003 tour because he was drinking seven times the recommended number of alcohol units a week. He had to spend months drying out at a clinic in Arizona.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought this type of “team building” was compulsory for rock groups and John Mitchell’s rugby teams.

Mind you, all that drinking obviously hasn’t impacted on his … err performance away from the drum kit.

Apart from excessive drinking, his hobbies also include 20 year old Russians with a tendency to flash their prime assets.  We can only conclude that even with all that pissing up, he can still get satisfaction.