Category: rugby

Rugby in crisis

Our national game is in a crisis of getting-it-stuck-in-the-fly proportions. No NZ team in the Super 14 final, more All Blacks out injured than out on the piss and a beloved ex-All Black stirring up a race war.
Haden in his playing days, when it was 14 moustaches per team – and that’s it
Sporting agent Haden, whose stable includes legendary sporting figures like Sale Of the Century’s Jude Dobson, talking very loudly’s Chris Harder, eating’s Peta Mathias and erm, Stu Wilson, blew the lid off the Crusaders’ ‘manual’ with his race-based selection claims. Other sporting manuals around the globe are now living in fear of similar outings, as sportreview.net.nz can exclusively reveal:
Springbok manual – one player on the ground wondering what fresh hell this is and that’s it
England manual – one RWC 2011 touring party that should feel right at home and that’s it
Crusaders manual – fifteen fellas a *bit* too keen to get their kit off and that’s it
Co-incidentally, Haden made his controversial comments on a show with a ‘three fuck-knuckles per episode – and that’s it’ policy.
Meanwhile, the All Black injury outbreak is reaching crisis point – in The Good Old Days™, when you could break a full backs’ nose without fear of television-enabled-reprisal, Colin Meads played with a broken arm, Grant Batty played with a funny name and one lock even took his place in the lineout while suffering from death.

Modern All Blacks, however, suffer new ailments like “Adidas poisoning’, ‘Powerade knee’, ‘Xbox’ and ‘Bench sickness‘. Getting potential All Blacks to play club rugby on Saturday backfired spectacularly, with Luke McAlister and Stephen Donald both going down with ‘Soft-cock’s elbow’.

Our playing stocks are at breaking point. Long gone are the days when you’d put the cat out and find four or five All Blacks sheltering on your stoop. Efforts to increase playing stocks by releasing All Blacks into lakes and the bush only seem to have made the problem worse.

Add in the fact South Africa has more big, scary players in hot form than Victor Matfield has leg hairs, while Australia has the best coach on the world by far, along with a crop of young players coming of age together and OH MY GOD WE’RE FUCKED, WE”RE TOTALLY TOTALLY FUCKED. In response, Graham Henry drove his vee-dub to an abandoned warehouse, had a beer and a smoke, danced around a bit and named his squad. And it looks pretty good. Relax, people, and that’s it.

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.

Far Canal

Ma’a Nonu has hit the headlines in the eye with a  dreadlock like a dancer at a Fat Freddie’s Drop concert, turning the airwaves blue after his team scraped past the Chiefs from ‘We were good last year’.

Nonu’s outburst has blown the lid off the Hurricanes’ rampant swearing culture, where groups of players meet midweek at each others’ homes to swear behind closed doors. This kind of thing happens during matches all the time, but has gone unreported up til now, due to the age old ‘what happens on the field stays on the fucking field’ Omertà. sportreview.net.nz can unveil Andrew Hore as the ring leader of the Hurricanes’ swearing ring:
Andrew Hore: “Fucking catch it or I’ll fucking waste you!”
Andrew Hore: “Charge down! In your fucking face!”
Colin Cooper’s fears this poor example will affect up and coming players has already been realised:
Aaron Cruden: “Stop tackling me. You fuckers.”
While this language is familiar to anyone who’s traveled on a bus with schoolchildren or pensioners, or spent any time socially with six o’clock news presenters, in cases like these, journalists must get outraged and demand fulsome apologies, despite using these words and worse while performing mundane tasks like  putting the cat out.

Handily for Nonu, the four days of headlines so far is golden publicity for his post rugby career – he aims to make the transition to stand up comedian with the stage name Ma’a ther-fucker. Ahem.

Another who’s made the leap from sport to comedy is Herald writer Chris Rattue, who, faced with the choice of writing a column about how he didn’t have any ideas for a column this week, or the warm familiar bubble bath and highball that is his favorite topic, Banging On About Robbie Deans, Chris chose BOARD. Kind of like his audience. Bored. These jokes write themselves some weeks.

What drove Sione out of Hamilton?

As a youth in Hamilton, sportreview.net.nz often encountered youth gangs in Garden Place of a Friday night and thought “I wish I could drive to Auckland tonight, the Yuppies up there wouldn’t be all punching shit out of my knees right now.”  Early Saturday morning Sione Lauaki had the same thought, but failed the all important ‘get to Auckland’ part of the plan, which was unlucky, as he’s a  man with form when it comes to letting down the fans, but usually when he’s playing rugby or punching them in the face. So, what drove Sione out of Hamilton?

Maybe he was looking for some action. Hamilton’s nightlife options traditionally taper off shortly after lunchtime, and you can understand wanting to leave a city that can’t decide if it’s happening, if it’s more than you expect, if it’s ON, or whether it’s “Hamilton – ‘gis a fucking dollar and what the fuck are you looking at, mate?”.
A Hamilton youth protest, demanding equal council facilities for up and coming Heavy Metal bands as skateboarders
Or was Sione driving out of Hamilton as a solidarity chest thump for the Waipa Delta, the steam boat driven out of the tranquil brown waters of the Waikato River and forced to work for its keep in the Auckland Harbor ferrying ungrateful Yuppies about and having its foredeck wee-ed on like Matthew Ridge’s shoes?
The Waipa Delta in happier days – RWC organisers should note nothing says Party Central like a carvery, free Waikato Draught and a spew over the side
Or was the big smoke calling, the big smoke where ‘teh’ social media craze is creating an industry of experts not seen since the leaky homes expert boom. Like the Kids from Fame taking over a cafeteria with their dancing, you can’t walk the streets of Auckland move for social media experts forcing their friendship on you and threatening ROI.

You don’t GET these kind of personal in your online face experiences in Hamilton, where Broadband generally means a poofters’ gumboot.
Giapo, where you can ‘tweet’ about your ‘ice cream’ and upload it to the ‘pavement’ if you’re drunk enough
These are all plausible reasons (ahem – Ed), but sportreview.net.nz can reveal Sione was driven out of the fountain city by the cruel mocking of a fountain. This is a man deeply, deeply insecure about his hair. Exhibit A:
L-R The “Superfreak“, the “AUGHH AUGHH THE CREEPY BLONDE FINGERS ARE MAKING A PLAY FOR MY BRAIN!!!”, the “Headlock Rasta”

The Founders Theater fountain has spoken to many young Hamilton men as they relieve themselves in its waters after a night out, but mercifully, their memories are generally wiped the next day. If you’re a pro rugby player struggling with form, fitness and 13 JD and cokes, and a fountain talks to you, you’re best to zip up and move on, not get in your car and flee. There’s no escaping the fountain, bro.

I can’t think of ANY way this encounter will be huge

This is the excerpt of your first post template…

– a TV comments man writes for sportreview.net.nz

Ok, Ok, Ok. Something’s wrong, REAL wrong. It’s going to be pretty frickin’ hard for me to do my job here. I just can’t see any way this struggle is going to be massive, classic or bruising.

It’s a mid table clash – no-one’s going up, no-one’s going down, literally nothing is riding on the result. There’s no match-ups for representative honors, or scores to settle. This isn’t going to be an arm wrestle, the cocking players are warming up like they’re going to ENJOY THEMSELVES out there. Whoop-de-fuck, get the monopoly board out.

I might as well head home and clear the bottles out of my bed.

I mean, it’s Super Shitting Sunday. The crowd expect some bone crunching action, and yet, it looks as exciting as nine hours in Rotorua International’s transit lounge. I’ve done it, I know.

The coaches? Those fuck-knuckles have a – get this – mutual professional respect. Fuck it. There’s been no outbursts, no slagging, no argument over who’s the underdog. Come ON! I was *this close* to shitting in a bag and cycle couriering to the dugout, let me tell you. That would have mixed things up a bit.

So fucked.

I’m not seeing a range of options here. If this struggle isn’t going to be titanic, that means I’ve showered for NOTHING. I even got ClearEyes from the night chemist on the way home last night. If anyone wants to cock punch a prop and blame it on the opponent’s full back, I’ve got some Sky City chips up here for ya.

Ah fuck it, what’s the point? This match is going to be as much fun as my engagement. Let’s just do a bomb threat and head to the Cossie, they’ll be cranking on a Sunday. Can anyone do an Irish accent?