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Vettori hails most realistic video game ever

March 4, 2010 in cricket, greatest hits, news by Richard Irvine | 2 comments

NEWSDESK: “I spent yesterday trialing an prototype 3D video game – it was incredible,” said Black Caps captain Dan Vettori. “Weird, I thought we were meant to be actually playing cricket, but once I got into it I couldn’t put it down. I’d recommend it to anyone.”

Black Caps manager Dave Currie said “Dan became such a pain in the arse once he was injured, we decided to give him an old Atari joystick and sit him in the stand to keep him occupied. It worked surprisingly well.”

While the experience was totally immersive, there are still some areas of the game to iron out, according to Vettori. “I mean, the batting was a little out, Shane Bond seemed to have got James Franklin’s batting skills, and vice versa, they’ll want to have a look at that. Injuries added a real challenge, I was out for starters, then Jake got injured halfway through – like I say, it’s pretty realistic,” said Vettori.

The injured Black Caps captain raved about the depth of field and wind effects, praising the game manufacturer’s attention to detail. “I could smell the hotdogs, I kept on expecting frickin Na’vi to leap out at me! The bloody pause button was broken though, eh, I had to go drop the kids off at the pool towards the end of the Aussie innings, it wouldn’t stop, but everything seemed to go OK.”

“Dan was enthralled – he even made little shooting noises – peeow peeow, he was going. We’re going to try this on long flights and in team meetings, for sure,” said Currie.

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Black Caps coaching – Star Wars quiz

February 2, 2010 in cricket, greatest hits by Richard Irvine | 5 comments

The Black Caps’ coaching-set up isn’t that clear – new coach Mark Greatbach gets to advise on team selection, while Dan has final say, and while Dan’s in charge on the field, Mark helps out with batting and gives interviews, but only if Dan’s not around… it’s more complicated than Tony Greig using his hotel swipe card after a hard evening’s awards ceremony.

In order to poll the Cricket public’s understanding, sportreview.net.nz presents a pop quiz, using 1977’s Star Wars as a model for a modern international Cricket coaching.

Is the Black Caps’ coaching set up more like:

Option A: C3PO and R2D2

screenhunter_01-feb-01-2140












C3PO is the kind of droid that emails Health & Safety to see if he’s allowed to use the Millenium Falcon’s toilet – you can trust his advice, but you really want to be wearing your ipod if you’re sat beside him waiting to bat.

R2 has a working relationship with C3PO, but he’s definitely his own droid. He thinks fast and gets results, and that’s what gets him loaded into an X-Wing to help blow up the fucking Death Star.

Option B: Ben ‘Obi Wan’ Kenobi and Luke Skywalker










Luke looks up to Ben, but concerns remain he might pick up bad habits from Han Solo, journeyman pro from the Corellia country scene.

Ben’s been pretty handy with a bat over the years, and has been on all the big tours. What he lacks in footwork these days, he makes up in mind games and getting in his opponent’s head. Superb facial hair. He’s keen to do some mentoring with the up and comers.

Option C: Darth Vader and Admiral Motti










Mark: Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways, Lord Vettori. Your sad devotion to backing away and cutting may have worked against a popgun Pakistan attack, but is it clairvoyance enough against the Australi….

Mark: *choking noises*

Dan: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Share your answer in the comments.

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Kicking 2009 when it’s down

January 10, 2010 in cartoons, cricket, cycling, football, general sport, greatest hits, links on friday, media, rugby by Richard Irvine | 1 comment

Doing a half-arsed wrap up of the year is becoming a tradition here on sportreview – here’s 2009.

If there was one week that summed up 2009 for me, it was seeing the All Blacks *cook* with Italy’s Next Top Model contestants in Milan in the most embarrassing and wooden photo op since Don Brash walked the plank, before our second string players participated in a shitty, shitty match at the San Siro, deeply marred by some shocking officiating from an experienced ref trying to enforce god knows what version of the rulebook is on top of the pile. Any Italians unfamiliar with Rugby watching the match would have found the oval ball code as appealing as toenail ravioli.

Earlier that day, New Zealand qualified for the Football World Cup in front of a crowd wholeheartedly supporting their team.

I don’t want to get into a Rugby v Football debate (although I think the nation’s office kitchens are going to be ringing with that mid year), but I really wish the first of these scenarios was more like the second – clear rules, supporting and having fun, and winning. That would do nicely.

Here’s my year, in sport, in sportreview.net.nz and for me.

2009: big sport stuff

All Whites making the World Cup finals
All of a sudden it’s 1982 again. I’m sure I’m not the only one who this qualification kind of sneaked up on. I wasn’t paying that close attention to the qualifiers, and then suddenly we were two games away, and the whole country was going All Whites crazy and calling it ‘Football’. Wonders never cease. For a country used to grim, po-faced ’support’ of its Rugby heroes, where Grizz Wylie’s statuesque pose when watching matches is seen as a model for manhood everywhere, not, perhaps more appropriately, something to lean on to keep warm, the Latin explosion of noise and color in the Caketin that night could change our country’s sporting landscape forever. Could. Anyway. We really have something to look forward to this year. Leg Break or ‘lucky git’ as he’s known around here, will be our man in the Guardian’s Fan thingo.

Black Caps
Can’t I just skip this? Andy Moles was out faster than a sneaky fart in a meeting room, and suddenly Dan is player, captain, coach, selector and god knows what else – we would be deeply fucked if we lost him at the moment. We got a little taste of how un-fucked we are without Shane Bond in Dunedin before going back to being just fucked without him.  Everything in my July 2008 Black Caps coach application still applies – we need two things – 1. John Wright and 2. a plan.

Chiefs make the Super 14 Final
Not sure how they got on after that, ah har har

The All Blacks.
We’re still South Africa’s bitches, but how long they can continue a coaching panel the equivalent of a Benny Hill chase scene, I don’t know. I only got to one match, the bitter bitter disappointment in Hamilton. NZ’s other national sport of kicking the All Blacks when they’re down is still alive and well. To me, there wasn’t a lot of difference between the way we played on the end of year tour and in the Tri Nations, it’s just we executed better, and playing against poorer quality sides up north would have helped. It’s still not going well, though, is it? The All Blacks’ 2011 preparations (and make no mistake, it’s ALL about 2011) is still in the ‘Hey! Let’s build a waterfront stadium!’ phase. Must try harder.

New Zealand cyclists kick the world’s arse
New Zealand cyclists had 15 world titles this year, and just this week, up and comer Jack Bauer outsprinted Tour De France riders Hayden Roulston and Julian Dean to win the national Road Race title. We’ve got cycling talent coming out our ears, and it’s looking all on on the track and the road for the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. Pro wise, this year’s Tour De France should be a ripper, with Alberto v Lance and the new Brit Sky team. Can’t wait.

2009: sportreview.net.nz related highlights

Stalkipedia
I really enjoyed putting this together, there’s some great stuff in here, but NOT ENOUGH! I’m still accepting stalks team.

L&P take down
I wish more companies would piss me off so I could do This Kind Of Thing more often.

Podcasting
This is a lot of fun, and something I’m keen to do more of, if I can find a decent place to record them. The fist few have a certain charm, but the French preview one is where it hits its stride

The Herald showed some love

I won a copy of JRod’s first book

Best 2009 posts: Bowling through Wexford, Dan drops himself, Fight Club Duos, Keith Quinn on Twitter, Rattue joins the All Blacks, Tua / Cameron fight move, Bloggers at the Basin,

Best 2009 cartoons: Player Power, Dingo + shark, SuperDobbers, 18 and life to go,

Tech Talk with Phil Waugh – secretly probably my favorite thing I’ve done all year. Too weird?

2009: Rocking my world

Getting MySky
I CANNOT emphasise enough how much arse MySky kicks. Having long sent the VCR to the downstairs storage of doom, the ability to quickly ‘tape’ anything on a whim has changed my and sportreviewloveinterest’s lives. As a sport blogger, this means I can actually WATCH SPORT again – imagine that! It also means I can fast forward through the weather for the South Island – this makes me very happy indeed.

Starting a tumblr is a pretty low hassle way to make a neat site, and a great way to find new links and photos.

New Bike – conquered some sweet hills on this already.

Top 5 tracks in last.fm
1. The Kinks – This Time Tomorrow
2. Beck – Sing It Again
3. Ben Kweller – Thirteen
4. Harry Nilsson – Turn On Your Radio
5. The Velvet Underground – I Found a Reason

Film
In The Loop, Avatar 3D. I didn’t see many movies released in 2009 this year.

Books
Pathetic effort reading wise this year, due to watching too much iPod TV on the bus. I loved White Teeth and Cannery Row, while Man In Full made me very frustrated. Sport-wise, it was Summer 0f 49 and Tana’s Up Close, continuing the All Black tradition of mildly revelatory bios after they’re safely retired.

So, another year down. I hope you all are enjoying the site, I really enjoy your comments and having some larfs, especially on the twitter. My personal sporting highpoint this year is watching sportreview jr, who’s 19 months now, kick a ball – he hits it hard. He’s going to break the back of some poor unsuspecting net one day.

Related: best of 2008, best of 2006 one, two

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sportreview weekly podcast French test preview

November 25, 2009 in greatest hits, podcast by Richard Irvine | 1 comment

In this week’s podcast, our weekly podcast previews the big match between The All Blacks from New Zealand and the French from France.

Download: sportreview-podcast-vol4-251109
(1.6Mb download / 1′46″ duration)

All the head to head clashes, all the big names, all the results and all the highlights.

Don’t touch that dial, you itchy-fingered control freak. Only joking with you mate! Har.

Listen to a podcast. About sport. On the sportreview.net.nz sporting podcast. Listen.

Get Player Power – call now!

October 28, 2009 in cartoons, cricket, greatest hits by Richard Irvine | 8 comments

player power 281009

Selector Vettori drops himself

August 25, 2009 in cricket, greatest hits, news by Richard Irvine | 4 comments

NEWSDESK: New Black Caps selector and captain Dan Vettori has stunned team mates by benching himself for the second test in Sri Lanka, saying he’d given himself a wake up call and hopes he responds to the challenge.

“Telling myself I wasn’t playing was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, yeah. In fairness to Dan I took it well, and promised to impress myself in the nets. I want to make it hard for me to to leave me out of the next test. I’ve given myself a list of things to work on – line, length, when to leave outside off, cracking my knuckles the whole fucking time… It’s up to Dan now.”

Coach Andy Moles supported Vettori’s decision. “Dan knows what makes Dan tick, whether he responds to open and frank feedback or an arm around the shoulder from himself. He’d probably use a mirror to do that.” Team mate Ross Taylor backed his captain, saying he was confident Vettori knew what he was doing, going by the amount of time he spent talking to himself.

Former player Martin Crowe warned that swinging the axe on himself could send Vettori into his shell: “I Hope Dan Knows What He’s Doing – He Has To Eat Breakfast And Share A Room With Himself. That’s A Lot Of Time. Lot Of Time. Man Gets Crazy On His Own.” Crowe spent the next two minutes staring far, far into the distance before adding “Holy Cow”.

However Vettori was at pains to leave all communication channels open, saying “My door is always open to me if there’s anything I want to discuss.”

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Sport’s top five Fight Club duos

August 12, 2009 in cricket, football, general sport, greatest hits, rugby by Richard Irvine | 5 comments

<SPOILERALERT> This post discloses plot details from David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999). If you haven’t seen Fight Club in the ten years since then, give yourself a cock punch. </SPOILERALERT>

Can we apply Fight Club’s plot twist that Tyler Duden is merely a macho, sexy figment of Ed Norton’s narrator character’s imagination to sport? It works with Calvin and Hobbes and Cameron and Ferris, after all. Yes we can, here’s a top five.

5. Matthew Hayden is a figment of Justin Langer’s imagination.

Matthew Hayden scared the shit out of world Cricket by standing two metres outside his crease, flogging attacks with his swagger, self-righteous Christianity based verbal abuse, and those brutal forearms that could take an eye out. If you were an opposing bowler, seeing that maniacal light in his eyes was far, far scarier than seeing the headlight of an approaching freight train while trying to get your stalled car off the track. Langer got lots of runs, too, but no-one ever noticed.

4. Tiger Woods is a figment of Phil Mickleson’s imagination

Poor old lefty. Phil’s stellar amateur career pointed to triumphs in a whole lot of Majors before happily retiring with the world’s biggest bag of Nacho Chips. Then along came Tiger, more force of nature than golfer, who grimly went about winning TRUCKLOADS of Majors, doing amazing shit, filming ever more self-reverential ads, getting bored and reinventing his swing every couple of years, and turning the air blue.  He made Phil wear a “Best player to have never won a major’ baggy sweatshirt until, agonisingly, 2004, when Mickleson eventually nailed the Masters. Phil and his alter ego really don’t get along, meaning Phil has spent the last decade looking ever more pissed off and whiny. Hilariously for everyone else, the pair are often forced to play together in tournaments and the Ryder Cup, where the atmosphere on the tee turns more icy than Hoth.

3. David Beckham is a figment of Gary Neville’s imagination.

Gary ‘n’ Dave were key members of Ferguson’s golden generation, the ever so reliable right back and the rock star winger who announced himself with a wonder goal and wasted no time marrying a Spice Girl. Beckham’s England captaincy, the falling out with Ferguson, the move to Madrid and the haircuts were all covered to death and made him Football’s biggest name, at least off the field. Meanwhile, Gary kept his head down, tided up neatly behind Becks on the right, and just got on with it. Still, deep down Gary was intense, wild (watch this til the end) and scary intense; when he snapped, he was terrifying, frankly.

2. Carlos Spencer is a figment of Andrew Merthens’ imagination.

You can tell by the haircuts. While Carlos rolled out ever-more-bizarre combinations of curls, bleach and goatees throughout his career like a some kind of NPC Cher, Merthens played it straight down the middle with short back and sides every time, the kind of thing that befits an ex-private schoolboy  and future Prime Minister. Merths used to run, but soon settled in to the role of All Blacks’ quarterback, doing the accurate passing and pinpoint kicking basics so well he mostly wound up getting picked. And winning, especially with the Crusaders. Up in the big smoke Carlos was pure rock and roll, strutting around Eden Park like Prince on his motorbike in Purple Rain, or Kiss’ Gene Simmons, with wipers kicks, netball passes and banana poppers*.  He’d have been right at home in the Harlem Globetrotters. Both wound up messing up a decent shot at a World Cup for New Zealand.

1. John McEnroe is a figment of Bjorn Borg’s imagination.

The Ice-Borg’s baseline game, with all the flair of a garage door, won him a record breaking number of Wimbledon titles, while his aloof, oh-so-European temperament had the mysterious, intriguing allure of a sort of demure Swedish Zorro. New Yorker McEnroe didn’t give a fuck about any of that and smashed his way into world Tennis intent on winning Majors and yelling very loudly. Borg and McEnroe’s careers only really crossed paths for three years; they first played in a semi final in 1978, and Bjorn’s defeat to McEnroe in the 1981 US Open ended his career; Borg left the stadium immediately after the loss, not bothering to stay for the ceremony and press conference. Mac had broken him – his serve and volley game, based on superb touch, was the antitheses of the Swede’s metronome-like style. Poor old Bjorn realised he had to get out of the way of this big sweary freight train that was busy grabbing Tennis by the nuts and squeezing. Hard.

*I made that up.

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Chris Rattue selected at Number 8; invited to ‘walk the talk’

June 10, 2009 in greatest hits, news, rugby by Richard Irvine | 3 comments

NEWSDESK: In an unexpected move, outspoken New Zealand Herald writer Chris Rattue has been selected at Number 8 for the first test against France.

After spitting out his Weet Bix while reading Rattue’s article “Worst All Black side of modern era“, Graham Henry got on the phone. “We see Chris as quality cover for our injury crisis. I’d also love to see the look on that desk jockey’s face when Chabal gets hold of him.”

The journalist, one of the current All Black coaching staff’s harshest critics, learned of his call up while out shopping at a K Road bakery and fried chicken outlet.

“I took the call on the mobile, and thought it was one of the boys having me on – I wound up telling Graham to ‘piss up a rope, fuckstick!’ He saw the funny side after ringing me back.”

At a particularly awkward press conference, Rattue highlighted his Rugby career, consisting mainly of a local First XV wrecking his parents’ house during a party one time. He did share detail of his recent training regime, made up of walking, not driving, the 150m to the video shop.

Herald love

May 25, 2009 in greatest hits, media by Richard Irvine | 4 comments

Your ever-loving sportreview.net.nz was privileged to be featured in the NZ Herald’s Super Sport Super Shorts website review on Friday. Thanks for the kind words and welcome to any Herald readers. This site’s always as good as Winston says. Honest.

SR site of the week 220909

Balls’ book compo entry

May 19, 2009 in cricket, greatest hits by Richard Irvine | 1 comment

Top Cricket blogger JRod has written a book: The year of the balls 2008: a cricket disrepsective. He’s running a competition to win one with 200 words or less on how CWB is ruining Cricket. Here’s my 198:

*Camera tracks past a pack of grizzly bears on crack patrolling the grounds of a darkened Hollywood hills mansion.*

PA: Mr Cruise?

Tom Cruise: This had better be good – Katie bluescreened again, I’m doing a complete re-install.

PA: You heard of Cricket?

Tom Cruise: Was I a Cricket player in Days Of Thunder?

PA: No…

Tom Cruise: Vanilla Sky? Fuck it, what you got, amigo?

PA: This… Cricket blogger is starting his own religion. Sehwagology.

Tom Cruise: You’re Fucking Kidding Me! That JRod shitheel usually peddles analysis as insightful as Andrew Flintoff ordering a post-Ashes win breakfast kebab! Now it’s a fucking religion?

PA: There might even be a T-Shirt.

Tom Cruise: I. Will. End. Him. Actually, fuck that. I’m going to end Cricket. Get me L. Ron’s reanimated corpse on line one…

*Cut to 2011. Montage of Richie Benaud sighing in a food court, Ian O’Brien blogging about scrapbooking and Lords being used for rolla-lawn before cutting to a hi-fi clearance outlet.*

Virender Sehwag: See this system here? This is Hi-Fi… high fidelity. What that means is that it’s the highest quality fidelity.

*Customer leaves, buzzer sounds as we see The Ashes propping the door open. Credits roll*

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