Lots of puns on the “The Hand of God” incident with references to the “Hand of Frog”.
Why stop there?
A punful post for all.
Those who are a certain indeterminate age will recall with fondness the days when live international sport was first televised.
Keep in mind that at the time a rugby test match would be scheduled and the TV schedules would simply have a blank TBC.
No promotion, no advertising, but if you’re a good boy we might just televise the test match live.
The concern of course was that the administrators didn’t want to cannibalise their attendance – they hadn’t cottoned on to the fact that they could make more money from selling the TV rights.
Anyway, having set the scene, you will now understand (or even recall) that in the days of 1 or at most 2 TV channels there wasn’t wall to wall coverage of sports. Live sport was a treat whenever it was on TV.
So that meant when live sport was on TV late at night, it became an event.
Thousands of NZers would stay up or get up to watch the FA Cup or the Rugby League knockout final. It didn’t matter who was playing it was live and lights would shine throughout the night as we glimpsed insights into sports that seemed a galaxy away.
Fast forward to last weekend and in addition to all the free to air TV, Sky and other broadcasters provide round the clock TV entertainment. In Sky’s case, there’s 4 dedicated channels for just sport.
So Sunday morning, I got up like the good old days to watch:
The good old days aren’t as great as I remember them. From now on, it’s MySky for me … or it will be once I work may way through the waiting list.
Live sport is great. Live sport on MySky is even better.
The Cake Tin … opps, Wellington’s Westpac Stadium has been voted best sports venue in New Zealand.
A nationwide survey has found most New Zealanders rate the Cake Tin tops for overall satisfaction. The venue leads the field in seating comfort and layout, toilet facilities, transport, pre-event entertainment and overall value for money.
No shock, no horror, no probe.
There really isn’t much competition.
The “secret” is so obvious that even Brendon Telfer can’t ignore.
Put the stadium in a central location which is easy to get to and easy to get away from. The links with the trains are brilliant (so long as the trains are working and on time).
Put the stadium in a place which is close to pubs, clubs, restaurants and hotels.
Give everyone a decent view regardless of where they sit.
Make the stadium a regional stadium – by all means, have secondary stadia, but put the key resources into a single regional facility.
Get Peter Jackson to involve the punters in a movie soundtrack (optional).
The obvious yardstick (Q: shouldn’t that be metre-speak???) is Eden Park which fails all four tests. The decision not to go with a new stadium for the World Cup reeked of self serving parochialism. Having at least three rugby venues in greater Auckland – Eden Park, North Harbour, and Mt Smart – is just dumb particularly given the difficulties getting to all three grounds.
The other critical point is to have teams that the punters want to see:
Westpac Stadium spokesman Steve Thompson is grateful for the loyalty but says ultimately the success of the stadium lies in the sports codes it hosts.
“We’re very privileged in Wellington that we’ve got the Hurricanes, the Wellington Lions, the All Blacks sevens for rugby and the Phoenix for football,” he said.
“They’re all good, exciting sports codes to watch so that helps patrons’ enjoyment.”
I still remember Radio Auckland Sport putting up a fight to keep the NZ A-league team in Auckland. Their self-serving narrow-minded views have been shown up as being exactly that (haven’t they Brendon??)
So there ya have it.
The Cake Tin takes the biscuit.
Have moved hosts and lost my post.
That’s what I’ll blame as I’m sure I did a post.
Anyway, there’s no longer a gap in the calendar and I had tried to have a daily post.
So this is really a post about nothing.
A little like the All Blacks coaching staff.
Frankly, I’m not all that interested in what Karmichael Hunt gets up to.
He appears to be the number one member of his own fan club and I’m sure could join the mile high club sitting on his own in first class!
Frankly, he now appears to be motivated by francs – Hunt’s now looking to spend a few months in France:
The AFL-bound Hunt had secured a $300,000 six-month stint to play in France, starting in January, but now the whole thing looks like falling over.
What’s interesting about this of course is the precedent he could set:
If Hunt successfully joins Biarritz, the Queensland Origin and Kangaroo star is expected to become the first professional athlete to play all three major football codes - NRL, rugby union and AFL.
However, if you’re used to doing what’s best for you when you like it, it can be a little difficult to sort out some of the details.
Strangely, while Hunt was very keen to forget his New Zealand origins (pun intended), he’s equally keen to no longer be called an Australian (and this is perfectly understandable):
The confusion centres around the New Zealand-born Hunt believing a Cook Islands visa would make him eligible to play in France under the foreign player quota system, but Biarritz have demanded he produce a Cook Islands passport.
So the New Zealander soon to be AFL star (??) who’s played NRL for Australia needs a Cook Islands passport to play rugby union in France.
Pretty much says it all really.
Shane Cameron wasn’t the only one taking being smashed at the weekend … the Tua v Cameron boxing fight on Saturday night helped the TAB to achieve its biggest turnover day this year.
According to the NZTR media report:
The David Tua v Shane Cameron bout ended up being the fourth biggest individual sports betting event for the TAB since sports betting first began in New Zealand in 1996. In total, New Zealanders wagered $1.14 million on the fight.
If you backed Cameron, let’s hope you had a dollar each way. Tua put it all on the nose 
In case you’re wondering, here’s the big sporting betting events:
The top three biggest single sports betting events for the TAB have been the Tua v Lewis boxing fight in 2000 ($2.1m), Brazil v Turkey in the Football World Cup in 2002 ($1.3m) and the inaugural sports betting event in New Zealand – the Bledisloe Cup rugby match at Athletic Park in Wellington in 1996 ($1.15m).
Why Aussie Rules awards ceremonies and piles of free booze are the perfect combination.
Hat tip: the Guardian
What more could you want than a highlight reels of band and cheerleading disasters?
Just the thing to keep in mind the next time the ABs play the Boks … see, it could be worse!
Stuff had an article the other day on ten famous cases of cheating in sport.
And bugger me if they couldn’t find ONE Aussie example in there.
YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!!!!
What about the Chappells and the infamous underarm?
Greg Dyer?
Any Aussie umpire?
And think about it … Nathan Fien was a cheating Aussie trying to be a Kiwi in the Grannygate affair. If he’d been a kiwi, he wouldn’t have been cheating!
OK the vid may not work on the Brad Haddin link, but one of the comments is worth repeating:
Kiwis aren’t as bitter about the Underarm as is made out. Our media might be, but the average fan on the street isn’t.
We’re far more bitter about Greg Dyer’s cheating when he didn’t claim a catch.
Or Matthews stepping over the boundary line and not admitting it.
Or the cheating prick of an ump who gave Day Walker McDermott not out when plumb with 2 overs to go in a test.
Or Gilchrist wanking on about walking when he’d appeal for obvious non-catches.
And now we get this gem to enjoy.
Thanks Brad, it had been a few years.
Brain snaps (quite different from brandy snaps) are all the rage – excuse the pun – thanks to Serena Williams.
The SMH has kindly put together a top ten sporting brain snaps and it would be rude of me not to flog it. It’s definitely worth a look.
From a NZ perspective a couple of points:
1. The blog item fairly includes Billy The Kid Slater’s brain snap in last year’s RL World Cup final. They just manage to get the score wrong – it was 18-16 at the time, not 18-6.
2. No mention of the underarm – the ultimate brain snap.
The undoubted highlight is Matt Dunning kicking a drop goal that even he didn’t want to go over given the game context. Brilliant!