Category: cricket

L&P – doing it wrong

I got a press release from L&P’s PR agency today on their upcoming BYC cricket tournament. PR’s easy, it works like this:

  1. Get list of ‘sport blogger’ email addresses. For god’s sake don’t bother reading their site to see if they a) do this kind of thing thing or b) hate you
  2. Send out a mass emailed press release
  3. Bloggers do your job for you and send that shit ‘viral’ on the ‘internet’

Unfortunately, sportreview.net.nz’s policy is that L&P needs to eat a bag of dicks for the way they treated top blokes The Beige Brigade last year. Here’s an excerpt from the email the Ad Agency sent The Brigade when they tried to get behind last year’s tournament:

“We kinda see the Beige Brigade as high profile funny guys where as L&P is always the backseat funny guy, finding humour in little kiwi truths and not really making a fuss. We…don’t feel the fit is quite right for L&P, strategically.”

‘Kinda’. That’s awesome. This is how it’s going to go on my site:

  1. Blogger receives mass emailed press release from L&P (disclosure: blogger already thinks L&P should eat bag of dicks)
  2. Blogger responds with snarky mcsnark snark blog post

L&P has been going to the tired 70s / 80s Kiwiana well for a while now. They used to be good, but the current ads make drinking L&P seem as appealing as feeding my nuts through the electronic whiteboard. Dressing no-marks in headbands and trackies would have a lot more impact if every other hipster on K Road wasn’t dressed like that these days. The campaign’s posters stars aren’t Kiwi lads who love a game of cricket and an L&P to cool off while effortlessly embodying the brand values of being quirky, down to earth, lovable, and a dufus. They’re dicks. Exhibits A through C:

I was going out of my way to get annoyed now. The campaign’s shitty flash-based website is a content-lite shambles, a Trojan horse for lengthy terms and conditions that crashes Firefox, and leaves no Kiwiana stone unturned to flog you sugary water:

Gag me with a jandal – they’re raping buzzy bees here. For crimes against Cricket and New Zealand generally, sportreview.net.nz says no to L&P’s ad campaign, and no to unsolicited press releases. I like to drink L&P with fish and chips as much as the next man, and the BYC tournament itself is a great idea – I’m sure those that play will have a great time – but the patronising and annoying ad campaign, website and PR has to go, team.

Links on Friday: David Lloyd tribute

David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, the Lancashire batsman, umpire, coach and pundit has an amiable, relaxed style and regularly comes up with *gems*, like ‘the fridge has opened, he’s flown like a gazelle!‘ in his broad Wallace and Grommit accent. As promised on Hadyn’s Field Theory, here’s more Bumble:

Spotting a stray heat spot

Pitch report from ‘Lords’. Listen for the dubious groundsman name

Utter gibberish. Catford?

The best one, though, is when someone nicks his lawnmower. I wouldn’t want to meet his George.

Links on Friday

Wussiest. Hockey Fight. Eva. This guy looks like a frickin’ Emo missing out on a Chuck Taylor sale. I thought the NHL was meant to be big tough lumberjacks and that?

I would love to see the All Blacks medics get involved like this, maybe with a ball and all tackle on the line, or some off the ball action at ruck time.

Back at work? Not happy? Skive off with a few rounds of Test Catch Cricket. It’s no penguin toss, sadly.

Bunch of hipster-types go to Austin, Texas to ride track bikes with Lance Armstrong. He kicks their arse.

What I learned in 2008

2008 lacked last year’s dangling carrots of World Cup glory, or the crushing, crushing disappointment. Still, with the Olympics and Euro 2008 to go with full Rugby and Cricket programmes, there was plenty to watch, write and bet online about. Here’s what I learned:

Crusaders fans threatening to support Australia against the All Blacks have very short attention spans

TV reporters going to find Crusaders fans threatening to support Australia against the All Blacks look very foolish indeed

Graham Henry and Richie McCaw are pretty good at what they do

Even that won’t get Rattue back on side

The Black Caps are an effective test cricket side like a Jelly Tip is an effective sunhat

Ricky Ponting gets pretty narky when he loses

But then Andrew Symonds, Micheal Clarke, Mike Hussey and Brett Lee aren’t as good as we thought they were. At least Ponting can bat

Australia’s fall is a god send for sports writers and columnists filling word count over the holiday break

Hayden Roulston is a shit hot cyclist on the track and the road, and is just a fucking cool guy

Lance Armstrong is on Twitter

Even the Rugby League World Cup got exciting toward the very end after all

It’s not quite the same without Flem

Juande Ramos isn’t as good as I thought

I had to re-think my dim view of Harry Redknapp

Iain O’Brien is a pretty decent cricketer and blogger

W e can win Olympic golds after all

The Tour De France reached yet another low point despite the cool bikes – roll on 2009

Just getting rid of Bracewell isn’t going to fix everything

sportreview.net.nz related learnings include:
It’s nerve-wracking but fun to sit alone in a broom-cupboard-like studio to talk on the radio. I was stoked to be asked, and with with how it came out, managing to get a few pre-rolled zingers in

Bloggers don’t get picked to coach the Black Caps too often

I enjoyed scanning old photos and writing up my fav stadiums and trips

Robbie Deans is a double agent

Even with 15 minutes’ trouble to set up a CafePress store, people don’t buy your shit

PowerPoint is still the best for making cartoons

There’s nothing like a semi-organised cartoon archive

Kids make blogging time scarce – must focus

This year I really enjoyed JRod’s blog, and Hadyn Green’s Field Theory was always good for a Friday afternoon uniform debate. I met Graeme for a beer and to talk tactics. I joined Twitter, quit, and got back on it. This was my first year on a proper domain and on wordpress, and I’m very happy with both.

Thanks to everyone that’s read, commented and linked to sportreview.net.nz  – I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Sometimes this blog feels like a ‘if a tree falls in the forrest, does anyone hear it’ situation, but I love doing it – your participation is much valued. I go by Wil Wheaton’s adage that “it doesn’t matter how many people ‘get’ your work, as long as the right people do’. You’re the right people. Ta.

Lazy days of summer

It’s summer hols, and for sportreview.net.nz that means very little time spent on sportreview.net.nz. No, this time is better spent on SR junior, sleep, the xmas ham, beer and bashing out Eagles numbers on the axe. Not literally. You know what I mean.

Sport doesn’t sleep though – here’s what you’ve missed:

NZ played the West Indies at 20/20. Yawn. Gayle got out in Hamilton, the WIs lost, no co-incidence there. Ryder and McCullum got an opening partnership together, a great sign for the one day series.

Australia were down trou-ed across the Tasman. This one got more time on the SR remote than the Napier test, put it that way. After we softened them up *hollow laugh*, South Africa have thoroughly defeated the once great Aussies, hanging on to their mantle as the world’s best like a groom after a three day stag do trying to play pinball. Despite the stand out performances of Smith, De Villiers, Steyn and Duminy, South Africa look like a team, with several blokes firing at once, and everyone stepping up to do their job, exactly the opposite of the Australians. They know the axe is about to swing in their dressing room, and look like they’re waiting to see who will be hit. Chris Rattue pointed out it’s tough on the Aussies they have to deal with a Shane Warne-adorned sightscreen throughout this series. The first thing Brian Clough did when he took over Leeds in the 70s was take down the pictures of Bremner, Hunter, etc from the walls – that’s what the Aussies need, to start again and create a new empire. Ricky Ponting produced a couple of great innings to show he’s not about to pull a Kim Hughes just yet. If he can bring the new look side up to speed, he will have done something far harder than Taylor or Waugh.

I got back on the bike. Was fun – but flat. I need to fnd some hills. @lancearmstrong has nothing to worry about at this stage.

Actually, not a lot else has happened. More importantly, I haven’t gone for a fish yet. Laptop down. See you in 2009.

Catching up

Sorry for the ‘review being quiet lately – it seems one of the pre-requisites of a sports blog is *blogging*. I know. Here’s what’s been happening while real life has got in the way:

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.