A: We went out to England, who’d already qualified for the next round, minus their best player, who went home to help his wife have a baby.

Q: Their best player went home to have a baby? Can’t they ALL have babies? We’d win then, eh?

A: Getting every England players’ WAG pregnant and due to give birth around the time of our second round encounter would have proved morally and logistically challenging. And then where does it end? Do we get all the Aussies’ WAGs pregnant too? And what about Lara Bingle? What if we’d got her pregnant just before she split from Michael Clarke? She seems pretty unstable now, judging from the headlines of womans’ magazines sportreview.net.nz can’t help but glance at while walking to the bus. Imagine her as a solo mum, pushing a pram around a mall all jacked up on hormones. Things would get even freakier than they are now.

Q: But jesus fuck, you told us we were the dark horses! We were the dark horses, right?

A: Well, yeah, one of the pre-reqs of being a dark horse is playing well and that.

Q: But we’ve got a top order capable of pummelling attacks like Tong Grieg pummels the English language!

A: Blame cow corner.

Cow corner – the dream: In the mind of an NZ cricketer, cow corner is a magical place where cows frolic with dolphins and fly above the water to a happy place, a place of glory, a place where no harm can possibly come.

Cow corner – the reality: trouble.

The Black Caps batsmen’s obsession with cow corner, and weird refusal to pay ANY shots on the off side throughout their innings against England would prove to be their undoing, with no less than 43 batsmen serving catches up to square leg like meals on very disappointing wheels. Yes, their shot selection could be questioned. At least they’ve stopped trying to ‘feather’ the straight ones into the stumps for the moment, small mercies and all that.

Q: That Ryan Sidebottom’s really, really, really annoying, isn’t he?

A: Yes, the fact he runs like a page 3 girl is most annoying for me.

Q: Where to from here for NZ?

A: First we play Sri Lanka three times in the USA, in the “Yee-ha!” series, for the “Hoo-boy!” trophy, bought to you by “Riding around in pickups hitting letterboxes with baseball bats and taking a heck of a lickin’ off the old man the next day,” to bring the charms of leather on willow to an un-enthused nation, following football’s excellent example. After that? God only knows. FAQs like this probably aren’t helping, but neither is cow corner.

Even though it was a warm up game, most of the team didn’t bother warming up, and left the scoring runs and getting wickets and that to ‘Black To The Future’ duo Scott ‘The’ Styris and Jake ‘Snake’ Oram.

Oram and Styris light their farts in the general direction of the Australian team hotel

Fred ‘Andrew’ Flintoff prepares for a cruise on the HMS Ian Botham

Black Beauty here is a Dark Horse™, black (like the caps) and about the size of NZ’s chances of winning the tournament.

A real folk hero – or Ryder after a night out down the Cool Runnings nightspot?

Maybe he was looking for some action. Hamilton’s nightlife options traditionally taper off shortly after lunchtime, and you can understand wanting to leave a city that can’t decide if it’s happening, if it’s more than you expect, if it’s ON, or whether it’s “Hamilton – ‘gis a fucking dollar and what the fuck are you looking at, mate?”.

A Hamilton youth protest, demanding equal council facilities for up and coming Heavy Metal bands as skateboarders

The Waipa Delta in happier days – RWC organisers should note nothing says Party Central like a carvery, free Waikato Draught and a spew over the side

You don’t GET these kind of personal in your online face experiences in Hamilton, where Broadband generally means a poofters’ gumboot.

Giapo, where you can ‘tweet’ about your ‘ice cream’ and upload it to the ‘pavement’ if you’re drunk enough

L-R The “Superfreak“, the “AUGHH AUGHH THE CREEPY BLONDE FINGERS ARE MAKING A PLAY FOR MY BRAIN!!!”, the “Headlock Rasta”

The Founders Theater fountain has spoken to many young Hamilton men as they relieve themselves in its waters after a night out, but mercifully, their memories are generally wiped the next day. If you’re a pro rugby player struggling with form, fitness and 13 JD and cokes, and a fountain talks to you, you’re best to zip up and move on, not get in your car and flee. There’s no escaping the fountain, bro.

Ok, Ok, Ok. Something’s wrong, REAL wrong. It’s going to be pretty frickin’ hard for me to do my job here. I just can’t see any way this struggle is going to be massive, classic or bruising.

It’s a mid table clash – no-one’s going up, no-one’s going down, literally nothing is riding on the result. There’s no match-ups for representative honors, or scores to settle. This isn’t going to be an arm wrestle, the cocking players are warming up like they’re going to ENJOY THEMSELVES out there. Whoop-de-fuck, get the monopoly board out.

I might as well head home and clear the bottles out of my bed.

I mean, it’s Super Shitting Sunday. The crowd expect some bone crunching action, and yet, it looks as exciting as nine hours in Rotorua International’s transit lounge. I’ve done it, I know.

The coaches? Those fuck-knuckles have a – get this – mutual professional respect. Fuck it. There’s been no outbursts, no slagging, no argument over who’s the underdog. Come ON! I was *this close* to shitting in a bag and cycle couriering to the dugout, let me tell you. That would have mixed things up a bit.

So fucked.

I’m not seeing a range of options here. If this struggle isn’t going to be titanic, that means I’ve showered for NOTHING. I even got ClearEyes from the night chemist on the way home last night. If anyone wants to cock punch a prop and blame it on the opponent’s full back, I’ve got some Sky City chips up here for ya.

Ah fuck it, what’s the point? This match is going to be as much fun as my engagement. Let’s just do a bomb threat and head to the Cossie, they’ll be cranking on a Sunday. Can anyone do an Irish accent?

Ewan Chatfield
Chatfield’s weeknight current affairs show ‘Chats’ was the scourge of NZ politicians and business leaders for many years. His hard hitting interview style was modelled on his bowling, with a nagging line and length, wearing down his opponents until they made a silly mistake. Unfortunately, his personal life was much like his batting.

You can order the actual magazine or download a PDF if you just can’t wait.

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.

Reference