Category: rugby

Millions of voices tweeting out in terror – then silence

The NZRFU HQ is on a secret mission to turn the dreadlock holiday Hurricanes into the Crusaders in the hope of being good at rugby and that. They picked the right man for the job – Mark Hammett, who comes from the Robbie Deans ‘what the fuck are you looking at? school of media relations is so embedded in Crusaders culture that his stools look a little bit like Grizz Wylie.

First job is the clear-out. All Blacks Nonu, an eye-liner-ed maverick that won’t listen to The Man, and Hore, a disappointing captain despite the ginger beard and that, are out. Dumping two current All Blacks is as bold a move as putting up a really, really cringey sign right beside your main airport, but it’s no surprise, the indications were were there all along if people had been paying attention:

More players are expected to go – hilariously, the enigmatic tweeter Corey Jane seems pretty disappointed not to be included in the first cut, and has been flouncing on and off Twitter in protest, when flouncing around a rugby field properly might be a better move. Throwing out All Blacks like a Dublin nightclub bouncer is a new thing for super rugby in New Zealand – all eyes will be on Hammett next year, if he hasn’t been made All Black coach by then.

Still, the latest challenge to the Hurricane’s title challenge is stuff.co.nz’s attempt to bring the team down from within. They’ve imported their very own Stephen Jones lite, Mark Reason, to provide some fist thumping, claret slurping, yorkshire pudding farting, jolly hockey sticks rhetoric to really set the cat among the grouse. This week, he aimed both barrels at Hammett and the wayward Hurricanes:

Nonu’s propensity for yellow cards and dissent is not acceptable. Hore’s drinking is not acceptable. Weepu coming back from injury overweight is not acceptable. Jane tweeting dissent is not acceptable.

Reason, who mysteriously googles very poorly and probably looks like an injured Piri Weepu, is obviously taking his ‘wind everyone up’ brief seriously, but he’s trying too hard. Outraging New Zealand rugby fans is  easier than locating a dickhead in Australia – we’re unhappy when we win, let alone when we lose. Most people’s abiding memory of winning the 1987 world cup is being upset at that dork waving behind David Kirk. Word on the twitter street is that Reason is only starting to rev the Land Rover, and will be full steam ahead trolling the rugby public by the time the world cup comes around. Thanks, stuff.co.nz, that’s just what we need.

Defending the Donald

Stephen Donald is the Marmite of NZ rugby – tasty to some, black death to others. His career’s misfortune is that he’s been forced to step into Dan Carter’s massive jockey’s billboard shaped shadow and attempt to pick up where the sleepy looking greatest first five ever leaves off. Not an easy thing to do.

There’s a line in Nick Hornby’s fantastic Fever Pitch about Tony Adams “struggling manfully with his limitations”. This is Donald to a tee, he just doesn’t LOOK like the most natural rugby player, all elbows and knee, excruciatingly mouthing “Focus… follow through…” as he lines up another scatter-gun shot at goal. And yet, he’s capable of moments of brilliance – in the 2009 season, he was magnificent, all kick and regathers, surging runs through the middle, consistent goal kicking… but then he went and played for the All Blacks, personally taking the blame for losing the unbeaten record in the last minutes of the Hong Kong test.

Now, he’s as popular with All Blacks fans as Richie McCaw’s ankle injury. While not yet at full Philpott level, he couldn’t be less loved if he’d run Shrek the sheep over with his tractor. That’s why I was so pleased on Saturday night when he steered the Chiefs home (alright, in wobbly fashion) to a win over the Blues. So pleased, I tweeted the crap out of it:

Very pleased. And a bit drunk.

Donald looked delighted afterwards, and I was delighted for him. No, I don’t think he’s an ideal Carter backup either (the Herald is obviously jittery), but he’s what we’ve got until someone else steps up (when Slade’s jaw is fixed maybe?). Fuck it anyway, he’s first five for My Team – and he’s done a bloody good job for us. Screw you guys. I’ll be over the moon when Stephen ‘Beaver’ Donald is free to be what he truly is: a really good super rugby first five, without the pressure of being All Black backup, before taking the money and running to England, where he’ll win three or four Heineken Cups no doubt. Don’t listen to ’em Stephen.

Links on Friday – Jimmy Cowan

If you haven’t been to youtube and typed ‘Jimmy Cowan’ into the search box, you’re missing out on more comedy and violence than a Die Hard quadruple feature. The seemingly surly Southland scamp, when he’s not dishing it out like on this sneaky late hit on Jimmy Gopperth or smacking his own captain on the head, is getting it dished up to him by Bakkes fucking Botha in an alarming fashion.

Still, that doesn’t mean he’s not up for some fun, like kicking Dan Carter’s arse in a trick kicks competition,  getting Ma’a Nonu sent off for the laugh and having some harmless japes with the officials. Mind you, this is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Cheer up, Jimmy!

Guy with ‘make Otago jersey green’ idea told “don’t have any more ideas”

NEWSDESK: Otago Highlanders marketing exec Steve ‘Steve’ Landrover, who conceptualised changing the famous blue, gold and maroon colours to green, has been instructed to not have any more ideas.

Landrover, who believes Highlanders management “aren’t seeing the bigger picture,” said “I triangulated this opportunity for literally hours. HOURS. When you factor in the synergies between rugby – which is played on grass, and grass – which is green, it’s obvious.”

When told about the new green playing strip, which is launching this Friday, Highlanders Chairman Ross Laidlaw commented “fucking WHAT?” before refusing to comment. Otago salwart Laurie Mains is outraged, telling reporters “It’s fair to say I’m outraged – I don’t even know how outraged I am to be honest, but I’m sure it’s going to be pretty fucking outraged. I’ll figure it out and get back to you,” before hurrumphing weightily several times.

Landrover’s plans for ‘Bring A Flaming Couch, Get In Half Price’, ‘Buy One Beer, Get 14 Free’ and ‘Kids Get Pinecones Covered In Cow Shit day’ promotions have been shelved at this stage.

Will to live status: being sucked

So. Sport and that. Have to say, actual sport to watch has been a little thin on the ground with the Super 15 at a sedative point of the competition and the Black Caps being on the world’s longest holiday. Still, we DID get another classic piece of Alex Ferguson media relations to enjoy this week – I reckon he gets Darth Vader to help him brush up on press conference technique. Sunday morning’s Champions League final (at a very civilised time, NZers!) could be a classic, or it could be a classic ‘cancel each other out’. Be grateful though, the alternative final could have been Real Madrid v Chelsea, in what would have been the nastiest match since Oscar the Grouch took on Judith Collins at cage fighting. I predict 1-0 to Barca, with Messi nutmegging Ryan Giggs, tweeting about it, dribbling through the defence three times before smacking it into the net off Fergie’s face. Looking forward to it.

The big story in Rugby has been Dan Carter and Richie McCaw signing back up with NZ for four more years. The NZRFU is all about flexible contracts these days, with sabbaticals, casual Fridays and god knows what else on the menu. sportreview’s admiration for Richie McCaw went up about tenfold when he decided to re-sign at his local rugby club, doing the presser from a bar leaner.

Where would one expect the captain of one of the world’s most successful sporting teams to make such a momentous announcement?

Parliament Buildings for the ubiquitous prime ministerial photo opportunity? A swank golfing resort? The red-carpeted lobby of some five-star hotel (though there aren’t many of those left in Christchurch)?

Nope. Richie McCaw – who hails from a family farm in the Hakataramea Valley but a proud Cantabrian now – opted instead for his local footy club.

The only way he could have done it in a more Kiwi fashion is if he’d done a yard class and spewed $5 of chips on a TV camera. On ya. Now, the focus turns to Sonny Bill signing up – the big issue seems to be letting him smash people over in-between matches. Considering how comfortable the NZRFU have been with All Blacks smashing people over in bars in the past, I reckon the deal is as good as done.

On Wednesday night, I tuned in to watch the State Of Origin. I was a big fan in the 90s – Graham Lowe, Alfie Langer masks, Cockroaches, big Mark Geyer, big Marty Bella, state against state, mate against that guy that shat in that hotel corridor, big men sorting their differences out with their fists and each other’s faces. Fantastic stuff. But my GOD, I caught about 15 minutes of the build-up to Origin One (as everyone INSISTS you call it), and was convinced Australia was about to collectively disappear up it’s own arse so far that they’d somehow disappear and pop out as a nation somewhere on the Afghanistan / Pakistan boarder and be forced to make a new life for themselves without all the sharks and minerals and that. It was that over the top – interviews with the player’s families in the crowd, Phil Gould wandering beneath the goalposts looking like he was trying to find his way out of the stadium after a messy corporate function three weeks previous. Have to confess, I watched about half an hour of the match and went to bed. Some things are just more important than sport.

Tweet yourself unemployed

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.

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.

Former All Black available for out-of-touch opinion on pretty much anything

NEWSDESK: Barry Shovel, a half back capped six times for the All Blacks between 1967 and 1978 is not short of an opinion. Ask him about any issue of the day and he’ll give you both barrels and six sprigs down your back. Which is why journalists have been beating a path to his Te Waibotherau sheep farm gate, or the bowls club if it’s after half eleven.

“If there’s one thing wrong with this country, people are afraid to call a spade a spade,” said Shovel. “Back in my day, a man didn’t need a bloody car phone or America’s Cup yacht to have an opinion. It’s still a free country, despite what those woofters up in Wellington reckon – I call it how I see it, and if you don’t like it you can stick it in your tractor, get it up to 80kph, smash it into the pub and die in a flaming fireball. Or something.”

“Shovel has fast become the New Zealand sporting media’s go-to political correctness gone mad quote source,” said Media Expert Brian Sanctimonious. “His ability to churn out cantankerous, ill informed, traditional-values-based, borderline racist moralising sound bites is an easy way to confirm the journalist’s original hypothesis and fill three to eight seconds.” Some of Shovel’s most prominent quotes include:

“Adidas needs a high tech punch punch in the face” – High tech panels to be sewn to the front of the All Blacks’ jerseys

“If Fitzy needs a Hydatids shot, he knows where to find me” – Springbok prop Johan La Roux bites Sean Fitzpatrick on the ear

“It’s touch rugby’s fault” – NZ’s 2007 quarter final defeat to France

“It’s got Helen Clark written all over it” – Proposed red fern on All Black jersey to commemorate Christchurch earthquake

Recently, Shovel has branched out into broader social commentary, telling NewsTalk ZB’s Larry Williams “Next thing you know, they’ll make it illegal to drink and drive,” in a piece about the left hand turn rule review.

‘Super’ 15

Team, there’s going to be a FUCKING MASSIVE rugby tourna-meh-nt later this year. Why, here in Auckland, we’ve spent years preparing by arguing and leaving all the actual stadiums and railways and that exactly the same as they were. We’re set to showcase our nation’s ability to piss, moan, argue and leave everything ’til the last minute to the world.

Still, at least there’s rugby on to take our minds off all this rugby coming up. The SUPER 15 is happening RIGHT NOW, with an EXCITING new format seemingly designed to create unprecedented interest in googling exactly how the tournament works, ‘cos no-one’s got a shitting clue.

The Super 15 tournament format (exec summary).

We’re a few weeks into it now and three things have become clear:

1. Dan Carter is injured

2. Richie McCaw is injured

3. “Nurse, hand me my revolver. I’m going for a walk in the south stand. I may be some time.”

That All Black injury crisis in full

Alongside a punch in the nuts somehow leading to the remote going missing, injuries to Dan ‘n Richie in a world cup year are pretty much the nightmare scenario. Injuries to Woodcock, Jane, Smith, Thorn and Whitelock among others, not to mention Wayne Smith’s perm playing up means we’re in the middle of a full blown INJURY CRISIS, and will in all likelihood line up at the world cup with a container of mince and cheese pies past their expiry date at full back, Don Brash at first five and a forward pack made up of Shrek the sheep. Suddenly our strength in depth is looking positively Australian – let’s have a look at the teams:

Blues

It’s a far cry from the Blues teams of the 80s and 90s when they won shit and the coach changed facial expressions every so often. Still, they’re going well and Mealamu and Ranger have really impressed me. Ali Williams is fit-ish and well-ish, which makes me happy. 

Chiefs

The Chiefs are like a box of chocolates that drank 16 beers, had a few spots, went into town, got in a fight, slept under a cop car, brushed their teeth with sausage rolls and only just made it to their cousin’s wedding with no time to shower and change clothes. You don’t know what you’re going to get. The thing we’ll remember about this season will probably be next season’s coaching appointment.

Hurricanes
Most disappointing thing for me is no-one’s tweeted anything really stupid yet. I mean, they’ve tweeted stupid stuff, but nothing that’s REEEEEEALY turned it all to custard and caused walk outs, trouble with the media team, etc. Rugby’s been worse than the tweeting, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Crusaders

Looking really good, from a ‘feckin Crusaders always bloody win everything, but at least they should go well for the All Blacks’ point of view (Highlanders game aside). Fair play to ’em.

Highlanders

Jamie Joseph is channelling Laurie Mains and running a tight, tight ship, tighter than Marc Ellis is to his sense of self-worth. I really like them, but it’s hard to see which individuals would make an All Blacks side, Mackintosh aside. Colin Slade has been very unlucky with his jaw.