Not content with making those ghastly NZ Cricket uniforms, Canterbury have done a WStar (who still have S. Fleming and L. Vincent on their homepage) and released a shoddy ‘shaft the Beige Brigade’ shirt. This is cynical bullshit of the highest order, NZ Cricket gets a HUGE amount of free publicity, enthusiasm and goodwill from ‘ver Brigade, and deliberately cutting their lunch is unbelievably low. So – avoid this shit quality (and the shirt itself IS shit quality) cash-in like an Australian plague and DO NOT BUY! Go to the Beige‘s site and get a real one.

When me and a mate were trying to name the 1987 WC winning XV, John Drake was the last name we came up with – I only knew him much better as a commentator and columnist. I rate him alongside Tony Johnson as NZ’s best. Almost everyone paying tribute said he ‘had interests outside Rugby’, which is a sign of sanity.  We’ll miss his thoughtful, forthright style in our house when Stu Wilson starts levering foot into mouth again next season.

Iain O’Brien’s blogging on Cricinfo now, and while JRod bemoans him jumping ship, it seems that Cricinfo are re-blogging Iain’s blogspot site, not the other way around. As Emma Hart said on Hadyn Green’s PA discussion, ‘I was listening to O’Brien getting the hell bounced out of him that day and thinking, wow, can’t wait to read his blog about this’. Too right.

Cockfighting aside, there’s no crueler game than golf – it was excruciating to watch Hamilton’s David Smail mess up the Australian Open yesterday evening. Brother of sportreview has played with David, and even with a hugely successful career in Asia, he’d have wanted to nail the Australian Open to go with his NZ Open. Still, Smail handled himself with dignity throughout, in that situation I would have definitely vomited.

Ben from Mike on Cricket now has his own pad @ Crucket. Get in there.

Sorry I missed Links on Friday this week. If I’d got around to it, the Wunder Boner would have probably made the cut.

This is brilliant, and should have happened years ago. Imagine if, say, Richard Hadlee had blogged the Brisbane test:

Woke up. Gave the mo a good trim. Did those Aussie bastards all day. Can’t believe Vaughan fucking Brown got that wicket. I should have dropped it. Entered stats into the book back at the hotel to relax. Slept for seven hours and forty five minutes. Disconcerting dream about Karen.

I think it’s fairly safe to assume Iain’s blog is flying under NZ Cricket’s radar; there’s simply NO WAY any decent PR would let this happen, unedited, with no clear revenue / flogging crappy Canterbury gear angle, on a free Blogspot account.

But now that Australia’s Fox Sports have picked up on it, it’ll be touch and go how long it lasts ‘unedited’. I reckon four days. And it’ll be a real shame, ‘cos this kind of thing is sadly lacking from the official site. Plus, I think it’s kind of sweet that when his team mates are on the XBox, playing cards or watching themselves on the telly, he’s slaving over a hot keyboard.

So go have a read. Just don’t let on to NZ Cricket. Iain, if you’re reading, wanna swap links?