Author: Richard Irvine

Welcome to sportreview.net.nz - here's a bit about the site. Here I am on Twitter, or email me at richard (at) richardirvine dot com.

Growing the game

So we’re taking the Bledisloe to Hong Kong. Again. Taking rugby to Asia sounds like it’d be cool, kind of like Indiana Jones getting on the razz in a Nepalese bar, but is more likely to involve a bloke called Charles Barrington-Unpleasant-Rolls boring your tits off with tales of the ‘barmy’ ‘army’ in a corporate box before vomiting on your shoes.
Getting a disinterested world interested in our interesting game is a challenge – Sportreview.net.nz Sporting Consultancy’s proposal involved Clive Woodward being driven through the world’s great cities on the back of a lorry, being repeatedly kicked in the nuts. Let me paint you a picture of the good people of Berlin, Chicago and Mumbai cheering the sickening thud of shoe leather on bollock and the yelping of a knight of the realm. They didn’t buy it.
In the meantime, we can all but dream of a world in the thrall of rugby – a World In Union:
The people of Iceland celebrate Sonny Bill Williams considering his All Black options with a traditional fireworks display.
Afghanistanis unhappy with the latest designs coming out of Canterbury New Zealand.
A Mexican rugby fan clambers to get into Yarrow stadium.
In other news, All Whites captain Ryan Nelson has been touring the country telling us how excited he is about the World Cup – but could he be MORE excited?
All the elements are there – his eyes are clear, not glassy or cloudy, legs crossed casually, and David Bellamy-like talking with his hands. Unfortunately for Ryan, the one audience member we can see is listing to one side, sleeping, or deep in thought, wondering if he left his copy of adult equestrian magazine ‘Horses For Courses’ out in the lounge where his flatmates might see it. With a few small tweaks, Ryan could be THIS excited:
This kind of energy would really lift New Zealand’s Football Fever™ (bought to you in association with Andrew Saville) to another level, and be handy for the All Whites if their matches go into extra time. Prepare the industrial sized tins of Sunny D, for the nation’s sake.

Links on Friday

This rally driver was doing great until he drives past some guy unable to keep his arse in his jeans. Features NSFW language in a badass Kiwi accent.

Footballers, learn from the great Totti – if you’re bothering to shave, get dressed and drive the Lambo to the ground, and if you want to foul someone, REALLY foul them. Don’t muck around.

The affectionate nickname for Marmite at the sportreview castle is ‘black death’. It’s horrible, team.

Are you a horse? It’s very motivating.

Black Caps T20 World Cup exit FAQ

Q: What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?

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.

Championes (league), Championes (league), ole, ole, ole

We are fourth. It seems all those old Spurs records like never finishing top four, never beating Chelsea, never beating Arsenal, records that usually go “the last time Tottenham did X, Gary Linneker was playing…” are starting to tumble. Finally.

This run of nine wins in eleven games, including taking three points off Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City in the last month to seal fourth and the Champions League spot is totally unexpected. After 2006’s Lasagne, I thought  we’d never make it, and spend eternity battling Villa and Everton for sixth spot in a not-quite-good-enough Premier League purgatory, changing managers every  18 months in a sadistic, perpetual false-dawn cycle of rebuilding, then being shit.

And honestly, Harry Redknapp was not my ideal managerial candidate. A right Del-Boy wide boy that swooped for half a dozen eastern Europeans every time  the transfer window, before selling all his decent players to, well, us, I wasn’t holding out much hope. I was wrong, he has achieved more than any Tottenham manager in years, actually DOING SOMETHING IN THE LEAGUE is the true test of a club, not just nicking a League Cup every decade. I haven’t been as happy as a Tottenham fan as seeing us not just go one nil up, but keep on attacking City in the final minutes. That’s my Tottenham. This means a lot. I may have gone a bit mad on the Twitter.

It will be quite a summer, with a World Cup on, and Harry with a bulging checkbook. God only knows who we’ll get in, we have a very strong side, with Modric, Bale, Huddlestone and Dawson the stand outs for me. Maybe we could use one more big centre half, and one striker of true international class. And some shirts that haven’t been vomited on. Anyway – come on you Spurs.

ICC promise most confusing tournament format ever

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NEWSDESK: Anxious to live up to standards set by 2002 ICC Champion Trophy’s ‘Super Confused Round’ and the 1999 England World Cup’s ‘Baffle Raffle’, the ICC are promising further innovation in the current T20 world championships. ‘We’re going to make the NRL Finals look like a design classic – we’re expect grown men to weep trying to work it out,” enthused ICC spokesman Brampton Bender-Brampton.

“We gathered the finest minds the English public school system has produced, put them up in a Sussex Castle-slash-Conference Centre, gave them tea, gin and a whiteboard and left them to it,” Bender-Brampton told worried-looking press. “When they came back three weeks later asking for erasable markers and more pornography, we knew we had the right team on the job.”

Task Force Shit-Gaggle member Little ‘Lord’ Chortleroy was struck by the dedication the working group showed whenever they were fully concious. “At one stage we were considering teams qualifying for a ‘Prove Who Admires And Respects The Queen The Most’ round, to be presided over by Prince Phillip and Rudi Koertzen, but we felt it played England’s hands too much. Phillip was frightfully disappointed when we woke him up and broke the news.”

For 2010, the West Indies’ spread out geography was taken into account to maximise confusion further – “Some teams may even turn up at the wrong venue altogether! As for fans – well, those without a super yacht of their own may well be best off staying home,” said Bender-Brampton, as he dodged burning copies of Wisden being lobbed in his direction.

Players are cautiously welcoming the challenging mystery format. “Doesn’t matter, mate, I’m still biding my time, waiting to punch either Duckworth or Lewis in the face. I hate those guys,” said New Zealand Captain Daniel Vettori.