The Orange

Ok, my own fault for going feral but you wouldn’t think so much would happen in two weeks!

The All Blacks go from champs to chumps (I’ll blog more about this later in the week).  Mind you, in the Village of The Damned (Christchurch), the AB’s have been the Planet of the Apes since King Robbie missed out on the head zookeeper role.

The Warriors fail to beat an understrength Titans.  Cunning plan by the Titans.  Put an understrength team on the part knowing that that was the best way to beat the Warriors.  A full strength Titans team would have lost to the Warriors no doubt.  As it stands, the Warriors are more Titanic than Titans.

And finally, The All Whites What Play in Black go ballistic after a nil all draw.  Amazing scenes.  We draw a game we had done enough to win and yet still celebrate like there’s no tomorrow.

Mind you, for Teacher Ted, if things don’t get any better – and soon – there will be no 2011.

Perhaps Prof Ted was taking inspiration from my last post and saw the tactical brilliance of losing to the Froggies in between World Cups.

I just wish they hadn’t lost so convincingly.

Frankly, it’s was hommes against boys for a while out there.

We shouldn’t be surprised tho.

It was undoubtedly a weak team ravaged by injuries and it got worse with injuries to Thomson and Hore.

However, there are real positives so long as the NZ public grows up.

Every other team uses the non-world cup years to blood players and develop depth.

NZ, tyrannised by the successes of the past, has held on to the view that ever game is sacred.

And so it was in the past but the reality is that nothing really matters or perhaps nothing matters as much as the world cup.

Get back the missing superstars and the AB’s will be a different team.

God forbid, we could even think about bringing back some of the stars who play their trades overseas.

Whatever the case, a loss will never hurt you in the long run.  Failing to learn from a loss will.

Apparently, the AB’s aren’t going to be motivated by a sense of revenge at the weekend.

According to Wayne’s world:

“It’s a different (French) team, a different coach. We’ve got a different team, what happened, happened,” Smith said.

“We moved on from that last year.”

Sorry, but the old tried and true methods aren’t working.

We give the Froggies a grade A arsss whipping every year except the World Cup.

So why don’t we try something different … how about trying to deliberately lose every game against them EXCEPT at the World Cup?

And if you think that’s dumb, try not going for a drop kick when you’re two points down with a few minutes to play in a knock out game.  Now that’s dumb!

Ha … and I thought that the names were on the jerseys so the fans would know who the players are.

I have a suspicion that it’s actually so the players know who their teammates are and what position they’re supposed to be played.

At least that’s what it looks like after the deckchairs on HMS Titanic Warriors were rearranged.

WARRIORS: 1 Wade McKinnon, 2 Kevin Locke, 3 Patrick Ah Van, 4 Simon Mannering, 5 Manu Vatuvei, 6 Lance Hohaia, 7 Stacey Jones, 8 Sam Rapira, 9 Ian Henderson, 10 Steve Price (c), 11 Lewis Brown, 12 Ben Matulino, 13 Michael Luck. Interchange: 14 Aaron Heremaia, 15 Russell Packer, 16 Jesse Royal, 17 Jacob Lillyman.

No Moon whose concussed.

No Tate  – out for the season.

No Kemp (no not Tony, Denan – remember him? Ivan doesn’t).

No Fien – off to play with Puff the Magic.

There’s a fair bit of the salary cap tied up in the above.

Not to mention Evarn (hint – pronounced the way the Russkies say Ivan) who now knows where the out door is.

Hame Lauaki does too but he’s still waiting to find the in door at Hull.

While it’s easy to wallow in the Warriors’ woes (a loverly bit of alliteration that is too!), we should at least celebrate the fact that the Warriors are finally becoming a genuine Kiwi team.

Of the team that beat the Tigers, 13 were Kiwis.

Of the team above, 11 are Kiwis who have only played for the Warriors in the NRL and 4 player in the Toyota Cup last season.

I struggle to see how the Warriors can make to the final 8 this year.  They still have a chance but for the last four weeks they really haven’t looked like a top 8 team.

Strangely, the Sharks were the other top 4 team from last season that big things were expected from this year.

Strangely 2, in the middle of a major season-ending form loss, Cleary had his contract renewed until 2012.  That’s great for future seasons but I don’t think playing Jesus on the wing would do much … mind you, you’d get by with a wing and a prayer

Hell, with a headline like that we ain’t talking about the T20 World Cup

The good news is that as predicted here the Aussies are one of the first teams confirmed for the next FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

The Aussies qualified with a game in hand after a nil-all draw against Qatar at the weekend.

Aussie papers would have called in a nil-all victory for Australia

It’s great news for the All Whites Who Wear Black who won’t have to come against the Old Enemy in the playoff with the 5th placed team.

It’s also a great reward for the Aussies move into Asia.

It’s just a pity that the rest of Australia doesn’t want to be part of Asia!

… you just score more points than them.

I saw this on Stuff on Sunday morning and laughed my way through my cereal.

Could have been serious.  A case of cereal killer if I’d laughed myself to death.

Anyway, here’s what the Aussies thought at half time in their opening T20 game.  If you can’t read the small print, the story was last updated at 9:37 on Sunday morning a few hours after the game had actually finished!

It’s State of Origin time – you know, mate against mate, state against state, yadda yadda.

And yes., last night’s game had plenty of controversy, lots of excitement, some great tries, and the possibility of a photo finish.

And all to prove that Australia is the second best rugby league nation in the world

From a NZ perspective, I hope that the Queenslanders spank the Blues 3-zip.

After all, the Canetoads are pretty much an Aussie team in maroon and the Aussies spanked the Kiwis in the traditional Anzac Day spanking.

It serves the Aussies well to continue to rake in the money from SOO and to hold that SOO is the top form of league.  It also explains why the Aussies were happy to go without a WC for 8 years and why they don’t push for Kiwis to be released for mid-season tests.  To the Aussies SOO is more important than tests.

Sadly, the Super League had the right idea – the Tri Series.  That would have the same number of games as the current SOO and Anzac test but with the potential to get better financial returns out of NZ.  The top two teams would play off for the title each season after a round robin series.

The problem is that this simply doesn’t fit the Aussies view of the superiority.  It would help build up NZ’s strength and again that’s the one thing they want to avoid.

While SOO continues to provide close games, the Aussies will avoid at all costs a tri-series.

So let’s hope that Cockroaches get well and truly squashed and the fizz goes from the SOO.

I couldn’t resist the following courtesy of an email …

2007 – Chinese year of the Chicken – Bird Flu devastates parts of Asia

2008 – Chinese year of the Horse – Equine Influenza decimates Australian racing

2009 – Chinese year of the Pig – Swine Flu strikes

It gets worse – next year:

2010 – Chinese year of the Cock – what could possibly go wrong?

… and I’m not talking about the Warriors either.

A lot has happened in the last week or so and you’d be forgiven for thinking strange things had indeed happened had you been living in a cave for ten years (or somewhere similar like Winton) and then emerged to find the Chiefs in the Super final.

Same person might struggle with the fact that the Warriors are now headline news when they’re not in the top 8 but at least that’s progress.

Anyway, a fair bit to digest or even digress so I’ll try and get back into training.