Category: greatest hits

French to All Blacks: "We will steal your girlfriends"

SRNZPA: French efforts to win the World Cup are moving from the playing field to the bedroom, launching a campaign to distract the All Blacks by stealing their girlfriends. Experts believe the players’ unrelenting focus on World Cup preparations, not sweet nothings whispered in ears, could leave them exposed to a brigade of oily French marauders. The news will come as a bombshell to Dan Carter’s girlfriend, hockey player Honor Dillon, and whomever Ali Williams is knocking off this week.

Alarm bells are ringing in the All Blacks’ camp at the potentially disastrous consequences sudden, unexpected heartbreak could have on the campaign. Despite smelling mainly of garlic, onions and cheap aftershave, French men are renowned for their sensitivity to a woman’s physical and emotional desires, compared with our Kiwi fellas’ grunting emotional unavailability. Tactics at the French gits’ disposal include admiring the starry lights of Paris by night, getting caught in the rain and seeking shelter in a cafe, browsing second hand bookshops wearing a beret, and speaking French, the language of love.

The All Blacks are now playing catch up, learning key romantic French phases like “Ici, ayez une chemise de polo d’Adidas, je l’a obtenue libre” (Here, have an Adidas polo shirt, I got it free), “Là où sont mes chaussettes propres?” (Where are my clean socks?), and “La jeune mariée d’emballement est sur le câble ce soir, bébé” (Runaway Bride is on cable tonight, baby).

In a rearguard action, All Black legend Colin Meads is being rushed to Paris to chaperon the player’s partners, organising a series of bingo and bridge nights to distract them from any skinny, cigarette smoking fuckwits. Meads has promised to deliver any French arseholes sniffing around “a farkin’ backhander right in the Eiffel tower”.

This tactic is not without precedent. In 1986 the French attempted to steal Wayne ‘Buck’ Shelford’s girlfriend after brutally ripping open his nutsack during a test match, for the love of all that’s holy. Luckily, they were intercepted at an after match function and ran off into the night, chased by Shelford (gingerly) and All Black officials.

Red faces all round as cylinder contains body parts, not turf


SRNZPA: There were red faces at the All Blacks’ farewell at Auckland Airport last night. The team was presented a cylinder supposedly filled with turf cuttings from all 1071 of their predecessors home grounds. But when the container was opened, it was discovered to actually contain cuttings of the 1071 All Blacks themselves.

“Ohhhhhhhhh, that makes a bit more sense” said Adidas Cylinder Ambassador Peter Harvey-Withers. “That fax DID get a bit smudged, but I never double checked. I got some funny looks going into all those cemeteries with a shovel and saw, let me tell you. What a turn-up, eh?”.

Fish 1 – me nil


I’m a guy who spends most days at a desk, my manhood being tested only by locking horns with Windows XP. So when the chance to go big game fishing came up on my holiday in Vanuatu… well you’ve got to go, don’t you? I was ready and waiting at the resort wharf at 7.30am on Friday, the harbour quiet and glassy as the boat pulled up. I clambered on board to meet skipper Fabrice, a local, and his son Stefan the decky.

I was a bit nervous, frankly. My preparation for a new sport is usually sitting down with a book on it, and having read about epic man vs. fish battles lasting several hours I wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I went on a fantastic fishing trip off Great Mercury Island earlier this year, pulling up Snapper by the bucketload, but Marlin the size of horses would be an entirely different (ahem) kettle of fish.

Handily, it’s a quick trip out of Vanuatu’s harbour to the open ocean, and we quickly went from gently rolling seas into big old swells in 100-150 metres of ocean, and the Nikita, an 8 metre fibreglass boat started pitching up and down. I’m generally OK at sea, but wondered if repeated viewing of ‘Jaws’ and an overactive imagination were the best way to settle the nerves. Stefan had quickly organised 6 rods with impressive reels and brightly coloured lures looking like SpongeBob Squarepants’ mates – and we were fishing.

Vanuatu is renowned for its Marlin, Sailfish, which is like a Marlin with different fins, MahiMahi, a big fish with a weird round head, and Wahoo, “very agressive fish, teeth like Shark” explained Fabrice in his thick French accent. We trawled through the swell for an hour or so, before hitting Pointe Diablo, an impressive place where the ocean swell smacks the coast hard from very deep water – Nikita started bobbing more erratically than a Wallaby walking home from a team night out.

We followed the coast back into the bay, and just as we were headed out to sea Fabrice started shouting “Fish! Fish!”. I leaped up and into the chair, heart pounding… 30 seconds later I sheepishly pulled a thin little Tuna of no more that 30 centimetres on board. This was a great sign according to Fabrice, as it was our prey’s favourite snack, but Stefan gave me a quizzical look as I snapped a photo – surely it was too small to waste pixels on?

It was back out to sea, and my little Tuna was quickly speared with a big hook and chucked overboard to add variety to the menu we had on offer. The swell was just as big, and despite Fabrice’s constant pleading “Where are the fiiiish?”, we had no luck. He was on the radio to other fishermen, and of the four or five boats out that morning, only one caught a fish, a 22kg Wahoo. It wasn’t my day, and as we went back to the harbour, I thought technically, I’m not a big game fisherman yet (I’m on my way though – on observing Fabrice and Stefan’s bare feet, I quietly kicked my jandals off under my seat – smooth). I enjoyed being out in the ocean and listening to the tales of better days and bigger fish, I’ll be back out there for sure.

Top ten tragic moments in New Zealand Sport

Observer Sport Monthly has the top 50 Tragic Moments in Sport. Being British, penalty shootouts feature heavily. Here’s my top ten tragic moments in New Zealand Sport.

10. Some Marketing guy hears Dave Dobbyn’s ‘Loyal’ and thinks “Wow, that’ll be a great theme tune for the America’s Cup, no-one will ever tire of hearing that 23 times a day”.
If you were in NZ in 2003, you know what I’m talking about. Closely followed by…

9. Sailing Away by All Of Us.
Satellite Spies? Eh? What is it with The America’s Cup and music? If I was in Team New Zealand, this song would ‘inspire’ me to jump off the boat when far out to sea.

8. Wayne Shelford dumped as All Black captain.
Not just ‘cos he restored the All Black Haka to what it is today. Not just ‘cos he was an all time great captain and #8. Not just ‘cos he played against France with his sack ripped open, but because it gave birth to Bring Back Buck, probably New Zealand’s most overused and underfunny three words ever.

7. New Zealand 31 France 43 -1999 Rugby World Cup Semi Final.
John Hart kept job after losing all those matches in ’98 as the Boer Busters all retired at once. Our forward pack was “mobile and skilled” (read: inexperienced and lightweight), while our backline was “dynamic” and had “special moves we were saving” (read: bung all the flair players in, including Cullen at centre, and see what happens). There was so much SHIT that came on the back of the new Adidas sponsorship – ie those shiny jerseys, the massive billboards all over the world, the over-produced ads on the telly, and the bloody jet with the front row painted on the side. I was living in London then, and it was bad – god knows what it was like at home, with almost 4 million rabid Kiwis getting carried away together. We cruised through the pool matches, upon which the players buggered off to the south of France to have their photos taken on the beach. They came back for a half asleep performance against Scotland, and then THAT loss to France. With no real on field leadership, the All Blacks fell to bits. All the hype, overconfidence, and overexposure had been for nothing. I arrived at work to find a croissant on my desk. So this is professional rugby.
You can read the team talk here.

6. Dave Latta’s brain explosion.
Poor old Otago. Just ahead of Canterbury in the dying seconds of a Ranfurly Shield match, Latta dived out of a ruck and conceded a penalty in front of the posts. The LOOK on his face said it all – Otago had one of the best sides around for many years, but had never taken home any silverware, and Latta had just helped keep that run going. Cruelly, Canterbury supporters still call the block at Jade Stadium built at the time the “Dave Latta’ stand. Ouch.

5. The Underarm.
Yes, we should probably get over it, and Brian McKechnie was unlikely to hit that last ball for six at the huge MCG, but still… There’s been too much written about this murky little incident, so I’ll move on.

4. Phar Lap poisoned.
The Red Terror, Timaru’s Phar Lap was a folk hero who won 37 of the 51 races he ran, including a Melbourne Cup, winning the hearts of Australasia. He was given arsenic and hemorrhaged to death in California with rumors of Mafia involvement, a hugely unjust end to his glorious life.

3. New Zealand 262-7 Pakistan 264-6 – Cricket World Cup Semi Final 1992.
It was a golden summer when anything was possible – beating Australia, Dipak opening the bowling, Greatbach and Latham spanking the world’s best bowlers into the stands. It was magic, we hadn’t had a good build up and people were worried we’d embarrass ourselves – no longer, the whole country loved the, erm, Grey Shirts (Black Caps hadn’t been coined then). I went to see us just destroy South Africa at Eden Park – I’ve never seen a crowd more charged up in any sport, Greatbach hit some HUGE sixes, and wasn’t afraid to charge down the pitch to Allan Donald, a very fast bowler known as White Lightning. We dealt to everyone (except, ominously, Pakistan) and topped the table at the end of the Round Robin. We were at home and in blinding form – surely we were a great chance to win the bloddy thing. We batted first, posting 262, which was good. Martin Crowe was hobbling on his dodgy knee, which was bad, his captaincy and runs had got us this far, and he stayed in the shed for Pakistan’s run chase. We were doing OK, until a young Inzamam-ul-Haq came out and scored a very rapid 60, and got Pakistan over the line, and it was all over. The players did a lap of honour to thank the crowd and the nation for their support. Some of the players, the guys that had done so brilliantly and entertained us all, making cricket perhaps as popular as it had ever been in New Zealand, were crying. It was very, very sad.

2. Team New Zealand 0 Alinghi 5 – America’s Cup 2003.
When Sir Peter Blake was shot on the Amazon, it arguably began a sequence of events that ended with Team New Zealand sailors frantically bailing the boat out in race one of the 2003 finals. The America’s Cup was a very Auckland event – this city’s obsession with water, money, yachts, real estate, expensive sunglasses, technology and drinking shitloads of piss all converged nicely with the arrival of the Auld Mug. Remember, Aucklanders wouldn’t have the Viaduct Basin to play in now if we hadn’t won in San Diego. After some frantic scrabbling to get ready we laid out the welcome mat in 1999 for all these sophisticated vistors to little old us, especially if they said nice things about us, remembered their chequebook, and didn’t win any races. We loved Prada and their cool grey and red uniforms, especially when they got Zip to our Five in the final.

Then it all turned to custard. Coutts and Butterworth dropped their toys and were off to Switzerland, prompting a gang of loudmouth shitbags working in Advertising to form the Blackhearts, a group existing solely to sling mud at some true champions. Anyway. Team New Zealand was under new management, and the boffins that served us so well in the past had the reigns. We unveiled the magical Hula keel, as Alinghi won the Lois Vuitton series ominously comfortably. In race one, leg one of the finals the two boats were neck and neck. “We’re faster!” cried my Dad, but then the sailors were bailing water out of the boat as Alinghi sailed to an easy victory. Really easy. Embarrassingly easy. Same thing happened in the next five races, apart from the one where our mast broke, but by then we’d lost interest. Aucklanders move on pretty quickly.

1. South Africa 15 New Zealand 12 – 1995 Rugby World Cup Final.
We won at home in 1987 of course, and let the Aussies have it in ’91, but in ’95 we needed it back, thanks. Laurie Mains had a pack chockablock with all time greats like Fitzpatrick and the Brookes, who along with a young Josh Kronfield brutalised teams to supply Bachop, Merthens, Wilson, Little, Bunce, Lomu and Osbourne all the ball they needed to re-invent rugby. On the wing, Lomu was busy making the the world wake up fearing corned beef and taro, and in the England semi made Keith Quinn scream “LOMU! OUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!” at the nation at 2.30 in the morning. Then Zinzan, a NUMBER EIGHT, drop kicked one from half way. The world had gone mad – there was no WAY we’d lose. The Herald’s typically understated headline was, from memory, ‘Why We’ll Win’.

New Zealand got up (or played sleep roulette after 13 pints) to see the All Blacks lose the final to the hosts in agonising fashion. There’s two images that stick – Jeff Wilson being sick on the bench, and Merthen’s dropkick drifting wide in the depths of normal time (OK, THREE images – Nelson Mandela giving Francois Pienaar the trophy counts, I guess). Laurie got a detective to investigate Susie the waitress, but really, it was over, and it’s now 20 years since we won the big one. This was the one that got away.

Zombie / Xmas gift guide 2006


I love me some Zombies, and can’t wait to finish writing this shit so I can get back to Resident Evil 4. At my house, nothing says Xmas like getting drunk and shooting at some re-animated rotting flesh, so here’s my top five Zombie gifts for this special time of year.

5. Sean Of The Dead. Yeah yeah, it’s a couple of years old now, but if you don’t have it, get it. If you have it, get Spaced for added Simon Pegg / Edgar Wright action.

4. Mob Zombie. This game is played with a specially designed portable PC – you walk around the room to avoid the zombie hoarde on screen getting at your brain. Just the thing if it rains Xmas day.

3. Zombie Survival Guide. Tagline: Organise Before They Rise. Perfect for beach reading while working on your sunburn. Can Zombies swim?

2. Dead Rising. Must. Get. XBox 360. Dead Rising is based on the Dawn Of The Dead premise – a Zombie attack goes down while you’re out shopping, and it’s up to you to get creative with the consumer goods to control the outbreak. Park benches, beach umbrellas, dumb bells, you name it, you can use it to mow ’em down. I’m heartened they’ve included a shot gun, though, it’s the knife and fork of any Zombie attack.


1. Zombie Portraits. Send this bloke in Canada a photo of yourself, and he draws you as a walking corpse. It’s just fantastic, and the kind of thing those loser portrait drawers at Leicester Square and the like should look into. How about getting a Zombie-fied drawing of a your normal living room portrait, and swapping it to freak your xmas guests out?

Fish, Barrels, and Radio Sport.

Last week, I bashed out a short article about Radio Sport for my blog, which Bart was good enough to post on The Silver Fern. The next thing I know, he emailed to say Matt Gunn responded on his show. Honestly, the adrenaline was flowing faster than Floyd Landis at his doctors as I loaded up the clip.

“Gutless Scumbags… Softcocks, basically, is the only category that I can put you into… Just like me, you rate highly in the dickhead stakes… I wish I could headbutt that person”.

That showed me, and conveniently illustrates the type of moronic debate you can expect these days on Radio Sport, which is why I’ve started switching off. I really WANT to listen to sport on the radio, and LOVE the idea I can hear it 24 hours a day, but as I said before, the blokey boy’s club atmosphere of the breakfast show, and level of debate on the talkback is turning me off. Guys, it’s just getting boring.

So I decided to share my thoughts with the world – I care about Radio Sport, I really do, and I tried to be constructive, outlining why I used to love it, why I don’t love it anymore, and gave some brief suggestions on making it better. Yes I called Matt Gunn a dickhead, but Matt, you’re a loudmouth talkback host, and comments like that come with the territory. I’m sure you’d be a top bloke to have a beer with when you’re not doing your RadioSportsGuy persona, but if I was you, I’d spend those long, lonely breaks between calls sharing some thoughtful and informed opinion, promising callers a worthy debate, not just an argument.

As for your headbutt offer, no thanks, I’m only a gutless scumbag after all. However SilverFern Overlord Jason Bartley of Whangamata is willing to deputise for me, and there’s more volunteering on the forum. And because my anonymity bothers you, Matt, my name’s Richard Irvine. Dig around my website, and you’ll find that fairly easily, but hey, I’m just some guy on the internet – if I was you, I’d be more worried about WHY I wrote it.

I’m a guy in his 30s living in Auckland, a radio listener who loves going to Rugby and Cricket, playing sport at the weekend and catching games on TV. I’m a professional guy, I earn a crust – in other words, I’m your target market. The forum crowd on TheSilverFern are your target market too, and they (mostly) agree with the sentiment of the article. That’s golden feedback my friend, and I’m stoked the article is on your Smoko room wall. Like I say, I’ve tried to be constructive, and I’ve shared my opinion – surely that’s better than just turning Radio Sport off and never listening again?

My Name’s Richard, and I’m a Gutless Scumbag


Matt Gunn has shared his thoughts on my article on Radio Sport. Apparently he’d like to headbutt me!

Now violence doesn’t solve anything – but if you’d like a headbutt from Matt, leave your name in the comments.

So yeah, my name’s Richard Irvine, Matt, and I was trying to be constructive! Rebuttal here.

What’s wrong with Radio Sport?

Have you LISTENED to it lately? Fresh back from my OE in 2001, I was very excited to learn there was a dedicated sports radio station – “They even play the sports news first on the hour!” Yes, you could listen to Cricket commentary alright, but it promised a whole new world of sports talk, led by Martin Devlin in the mornings. Informed, opinionated, quick witted, he was passionate about NZ sport, obsessed with Man United, and didn’t take any shit. He rightly hauled Kevin Roberts (or ‘KR’) over the coals for saying winning the Tri Nations was more important than the World Cup for All Blacks fans. That’s the kind of utter shit the Rugby Union expects us to believe, and I loved hearing someone actually calling them on it. The first nail in Radio Sport’s coffin was when Devlin left to do Radio LIVE, and hang out with Mike King full time.

The rest of the day’s programming was very listenable. Brendan Telfer did his cantankerous bit in the mornings, using his no doubt extensive contacts book to get some thoughtful interviews, and I enjoyed the golf show, with tips from a dry as a bone golf pro, along with ‘JK’ of the driving ranges getting off his death bed to contribute. Afternoons was Graham Hill, a very clever guy and my favorite BFM breakfast DJ ever. He’d present thoughtful interviews and nostalgia with some big names of the past, which was great radio. Where the station fell down was talkback.

Talkback is cheap for radio stations to do (which is why there’s so much of it*), but for me, it was like sitting in the car with that bloke who sits silently through All Black tests until someone drops the ball, then pipes up with “WELL THAT WAS SHIT!”. Yeah, THAT bloke. Whinge feckin’ Central, where rumours and misinformation spread like wildfire. It got old really quickly, and before long I was working and couldn’t listen to the radio all day, so Radio Sport was relegated in favour of BFM in the car.

I’ve tuned in a little again lately, and it turns out those were the good old days. The unfeasibly fast talking Tony Vietch is the boofhead’s boofhead. Sexism reigns supreme, and his laddish references to his nights out on the pull and whatever else comes across as insulting, annoying and just plain irrelevant to a sports show. Charming Aussie Matt Gunn (whose favourite meal is ‘any wog dish’) scores very highly in the dickhead stakes, too. Talkback has got even worse due to a lack of callers bothering to ring anymore, forcing the hosts to adopt more and more ludicrous ‘points of view’ to get a reaction. It’s desperate stuff, and dumbed down radio at its worst. It must be a lot of work to fill all that on air time – I don’t envy them at all. Can I suggest:

How to save Radio Sport:
1. Hire Leigh Hart to do Breakfast. Actually no, he’d be dumbed down by the hopelessness of it all, and I couldn’t handle that.
2. Get regular caller ‘Zane’ to host night time talkback. He’s on every night anyway showing the hosts up with his well prepared and thoughtful calls, so why not let the inmate take over the asylum?
3. Eliminate the sexist bullshit. It’s offensive, and pandering to some radioguy’s imaginary ‘Kiwi Bloke’ demographic is insulting to us kiwi blokes, let alone everyone else. We’ve all got mothers and sisters, you know. Why not get more women on, while you’re at it?
4. I’m all out of ideas. Judging by the extremely high repeatition of commercials, advertisers can’t be bothered either, so all this might not be a problem for much longer.

*Marcus Lush appears on Radio LIVE ads saying ‘Talkback radio is the only true artform, cos it’s made purely of people’s ideas’. Marcus, if you took the world’s stupidest person and hit him with the Stupid Stick for three weeks before driving him off Mt St. Stupid in the Stupidmobile while wearing the Stupid suit, you couldn’t make him say something that stupid. Honestly.

I’m backing England

Here kicks off sport review NZ’s Germany 06 coverage. I’m going to be providing some New Zealand perspective on the world’s biggest sporting event. Mostly from the couch. After some (pretty minor) soul searching, I will hereby be backing England in this World Cup. Here’s why.

I started off supporting England when I began taking a proper interest in Spurs in 1993 or thereabouts. It went hand in hand for me – I knew the players, the All Whites were pretty crap, so why not? It just felt right. I got a copy of the Italia ’90 semi final on VHS and watched it a lot.

It really kicked off with Euro 96 – Terry Venables had the coaching job, and put Teddy Sheringham, Darren Anderton and Nick Barmby in the team. Gazza was back, Wembley was bathed in sunshine, they had grey shirts, I had a Sky decoder – what could possibly go wrong?

“You look like you’re going to vomit” said my then-girlfriend when Southgate missed his penalty. Some welcome.

Then came France ’98. By now I was living in London, and had seen England lose to Chile at the old Wembley stadium with my brother and a couple of mates, a game notable only for the England debut of M. Owen. I warmed up with the rest of the boys from the office at a Southwalk pub, laughing at Scotland losing to Brazil. “This is brilliant” I thought – World Cup football in the same timezone! And booze!

England had three pool games to negociate, but no-one seemed too worried, all eyes were on the Argentina match. I watched from the floor of a Wapping pub in front of a big screen. It’s safe to say that by kick off, I’d had a few, my office went to a wine bar for someone’s birthday, so we could all get pissed beforehand, they were bloody considerate those guys. I remember Owen’s goal alright, and I remember leaping to my feet to celebrate (pre-Judas) Sol Campbell’s goal, only to be ruled out by Alan ‘bloody’ Shearer’s thoughtless elbow on an Argie defender. I remember using some very bad language on my stagger to the tube station afterward, and can only apologise to anyone Argentinean who may have heard it.

Then God Hoddle shot his mouth off and England got Keegan. I loved his Newcastle side like everyone else, but always thought he was a bit of a Muppet. By Euro 2000 I was living in Dublin and took my life in my hands cheering Shearer’s goal vs Germany in a Leopardstown pub – that didn’t go down to well with the locals (“It’s OK, we’re Kiwis” “Ye’re feckin eeejits”). England were a bit shit, of course, and this was the beginning of the end, Keegan was apparently great at ‘geeing the lads up’, but was utterly, cruelly clueless tactically.

I packed it in when they lost to Germany at Wembley’s last match in the worst performance and Keegan resigned immediately afterwards. “I don’t need this shit” I thought. “I’ve got enough bloody teams to worry about without these guys”. I watched Beckham beat Greece on his own impassively. I laughed at Seaman’s ponytail and Sven’s inability to keep it in his trousers. I tried backing Italy (The Sopranos) and Brazil (Ronaldo) in Japan/Sth Korea 02, but didn’t get tooooo worked up. Everyone loves Brazil deep down anyway. I watched Rooney go off injured and England going out of Euro 04 and felt a twinge of… something.

Now I’m back, chastened. The time is right, England can play some nice football. There’s loads of Spurs players in the team and squad. They’ve got a great chance of winning it, and they’ll have me yelling for them. I only hope they’ve been practicing penalties.

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