Twitter’s Cory Jane got in hot lineament this week when he posted “Siit … If the ABs team got picked 2moro on form NO #Chiefs or #Hurricanes would make it apart from #ConradSmith & @LiamMessam #JustSaying” to popular social networking site Twitter.
Before he had time to pick up his homies in his Hummer and roll to Hurricanes training, Cory found himself on the front page. Stuff.co.nz published both his reported tweet, and his protest that an All Black expressing an opinion shouldn’t be news. He’s right, it shouldn’t, but as a nation, we’re more conditioned to hearing our national team expressing opinions on their preferred choice of underarm deodorant, breakfast cereal, carbonated soft drink or big grunty V8 petrol burner of choice. We rarely hear them talk about rugby, especially so if you tune in to the post match interviews.
Presumably, as an All Black, Cory is more media trained than John Campbell’s surprised look, so he’s being naive in the extreme. If he believes his tweet wasn’t newsworthy, he probably believes Dan Carter really is a heat pump, the NZRFU cares about the Ranfurly Shield, and that Steve Hanson didn’t go missing in Graham Henry’s eyebrow for three weeks in late 2005.
While @Coryjane1080 winding up on the front page of stuff.co.nz with a silly tweet is quite big, I still predict a bigger, proper Hurricanes Horror Twitter Explosion is yet to occur. Someone is really going to lose it at some stage – I do not envy the Hurricanes and NZRFU media teams’ jobs, they must be having kittens – but it’s going to be awesome to watch when it does happen. Watch out around All Black selection time, or in the weeks afterwards. There’s only so much playstation an ex All Black with time on his hands can take.
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The Crusaders attempt to capture the lucrative youth / internet market with mid-game planking. |
Elsewhere, heat pump to the nation Dan Carter will announce his playing future today. New Zealanders follow Dan the same way they’d follow a duckling trying to cross the southern motorway, every move he makes causes howls of angst. “Left! Left, little ducky! Watch out for that sixteen wheeler Mac truck!” “Dan! Dan! Ignore that shady looking Frenchman carrying cash in a suitcase and smelling vaguely of cheap hotel room!”. It goes on. Whatever happens, Dan will be part of our next world cup, his third, and look half asleep. I predict he’ll re-sign with the NZRFU, with a couple of sabbaticals to get highly paid / injured / catch up on playstation inbetween.
