Field Theory by Hadyn Green

It's freezing at the indoor karting track. In the waiting area, with the pool table covered in papers, it's merely cold. Past the barrier and out on the concrete track you can see the breath of the skaters as they blast around the newly-created oval track.

"You can get a lot more speed in the straight-aways here" says referee and trainer Danger Danger. "But you gotta watch out for those tyres because you could break a leg on those."

I put it to the back of my mind that a man called Danger Danger is offering safety advice (he would later remind someone that skating while holding a glass bottle is very dangerous) and focus more on the skaters. It's a grading session.

Richter City Roller Derby are aligned to the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) and with that comes responsibilities and rules. Skaters must pass a number of skill requirements before they are allowed to skate in bouts, this includes sections on: basic skating; falling (there are four different ways to fall); balance and agility; skating with others (play nice!); and blocking. It's part assessment and part risk management. You don't want to send fresh meat into a racing pack of skaters; they'll get mown down. Training for the skill assessments is drilling the skaters until they have the muscle memory. There's no time to think in Roller Derby.

The skaters congregated in the middle of the track, amongst the stock car parts, go-karts and other racing paraphernalia. Off to the side a mechanic worked on his car, his grinder throwing off impressive showers of sparks. This seemed right. It's like Rocky working in a dingy gym and punching sides of beef hanging in an abattoir.

The coaches are going over the drills while Amy and I stand with Danger Danger and Justicier. I can't help it; I have to ask about uniforms. And I get the best response to a uniform question ever:

I think frilly panties are in at the moment

Stripy socks are too. Later Suffer Jet would let it slip that this training session is more well-dressed than most, possibly because of the cameras.

The two teams are (as you may recall) Brutal Pageant and Smash Malice. Malice were supposed to take the first bout easily but they lost. And since then Pageant has gained in skills and confidence.

"We're gonna go 4 and 0!" exclaims Ruby Deathskates, referring to the upcoming bouts in September and October. "And then we're gonna beat Auckland" she continues with a bravado that I was hoping to hear. But it was harder to get that quote than you'd think.

If the last bout showed anything it was that even a blood sport like Roller Derby can't rip friends apart.

For example, hypothetically, let's say your fiancé watched your first bout and then, after you lost, he said that your opponent was awesome and that you should skate like her and that at the next bout he might wear a t-shirt with her name on it. You can imagine that this could cause some on-rink animosity (as well as some terse discussions at home). But not even this (not actually hypothetical at all) situation could cause a rift or start a rivalry.

In fact when Mike went to get a photo of the two skaters from that story he couldn't get a good shot because they were laughing with each other too much.

In fact my whole "intense rivalry" angle is blown out of the water when I'm talking to Lux Vengence.

H: "So have the skaters in Smash Malice been angry since the bout, are they waiting to get revenge on Brutal Pageant?"
LV: "You really want us to say 'yes', don't you?"
H: "Yes"
LV: (shakes head)

Thank goodness for Ruby and Wax Assassin. If anyone was going to cause a rivalry it's these two. Admittedly they are on the same team but both are out for blood (figuratively) and both really want to win.

But will we ever see them go head-to-head? Maybe. After their humiliation at the hands of Brutal Pageant many of the skaters from Smash Malice couldn't handle it and dropped out (a slight embellishment but let's keep going). The intake of fresh meat (the generic name for new skaters) has meant that there can still be two full teams but that in order to make it a fair fight some of the more experienced skaters might have to switch teams.

"But I really like my dress!" was the first complaint from Wax Assassin. That and she loved winning. "I can't wait for the [Halloween] Derby against <a Auckland, my girlfriend skates for [the Pirates] and she's pretty good too". Will it be a problem going up against her? "Nah, you get two Derby Girls going against each other and…" she then indicated with a reference to her elbow that there would be violence.

The <a Richter City Roller Derby's next bout is on September 19 at the Wellington Basketball Association Courts. They run on volunteers so if you want to help out, go to the site and drop them a line. That includes anyone who wants to become fresh meat.

All photos copyright to Michael Roseingrave and Jed Soane. Full photo galleries are <a here and <a here

You may have heard the news by now but here is the story, as I wrote it during the game

If there was going to be a game the Pulse could win… it was probably against the Tactix a few weeks back. The Swifts may be second to bottom but they won the whole thing last season. This isn't the last gasp. The last gasp was a long time ago.

But maybe there is a change. As the team runs out the stadium crew plays Thriller, so maybe the Pulse are back from the dead. Coach Yvette McCausland-Durie is out with the players during warm ups pacing up and down, and she stands with a stern look during the passing drills, both things she hasn't done before.

And, holy shit, maybe it's working. For the first five minutes it's shot for shot. Then slowly the Swifts eke out a lead that gets to four goals. In any other game this season (except for the one against the Mystics) this lead would just get bigger and bigger. But the Pulse actually fight this time and by the end of the quarter the score is 15-15. I write a very ballsy tweet.

The Pulses' fight-back is created with, frankly, stunning defence. Althea Byfield (recently returned from injury) is seeking the ball and actively placing herself in the way of passes. (Later Swifts captain and GS Catherine Cox would say that Byfield plays "off the body", an unusual style that confuses shooters). Cushla Lichtwark possibly played her best game of the season, getting in the way, knocking players and disrupting the Swifts' rhythm.

The Pulse keep up the attack in the second quarter. There's a few shooting issues and Pulse GS Amaru-Tibble needs to keep her mouth shut to the ref (the Aussies are supposed to be the mouthy ones). And the halftime score is 27-28 to the Swifts.

At the half Broederlow is brought in, giving the Pulse more height in defence. It also means the Pulse have changed to an attacking defence. Defending all the way into the middle third and using the same pattern for a more forward offence rather than their usual side-to-side. It works. There's a fantastic piece of defending by Byfield and suddenly the Pulse have the advantage in the arm wrestle, going up by four points at one stage. But the Swifts aren't going to be pushed around and at the end of the third quarter it's 41-41.

I just want to point out that, SWEET JESUS FUCK this is tense.

The gameplan sticks in the fourth quarter and the Pulse are up by two (or one + centrepass) early. The Swifts' centre Kimberlee Green (no relation) is having a really physical battle with Lichtwark in the middle of the court. Green is getting angry and shovy (she's the angry looking one in the photos). A lot of terse words are exchanged.

But my god it's working, it's actually fucking working. With two and half to go the Pulse have a one goal lead with centre pass. An "injury break" only adds to the tension. Even Don't Stop Till You Get Enough can't ease things (quick note, nearly all the music has been Michael Jackson).

The Swifts draw with in one, one minute left, the Pulse have the centre pass, they look to have lost it in a wild pass but it came of a Swift finger, Pulse retain possession, a pass back to the centre third, surely that's time, I'm banging on the desk, Frankie Stevens is going nuts! And, and … this.

The NSW Swifts will go down history as that team, the ones that lost to the Pulse, and you can see that on their faces.

So what was it tonight? For some reason a win for the Pulse always seemed to be in the cards. There was more energy in the warm up, more enthusiasm. There was more determination in their play. Talking after the match we agreed that the team hadn't seemed this energetic and physical since the Mystics game, and they only lost that in overtime.

Here is the audio from the press conference
Swifts' captain Catherine Cox and Coach Julie Fitzgerald (who is coaching the World 7 against New Zealand later in the year):

Pulse captain Cushla Lichtwark and coach Yvette McCausland-Durie:

For those people who care these were recorded using Voice Memo on my iPhone

And how much do they love the win? Compare this from the close loss to the Mystics:

To this from last night

I asked how much the team would be allowed to celebrate given that there is still a game to play. The answer was in moderation, but my feeling is, let's let them go for it.

All photos copyright to Michael Roseingrave and Jed Soane

It could've been the greatest upset of all time. In front of a packed arena an unknown, playing with borrowed equipment, who shouldn't have even been in the match, versus one of the world's best. Yet they held their own for the majority of the shortened match.

I refer of course to the remarkable match between Tommy Haas and 15yr-old ball girl Chloe Chambers. Haas' real opponent (Michael Llondra) had crashed out of court into another ball girl, and had to retire hurt.

Feeling disappointed, perhaps, that his game had come to such an early end, his opponent, Tommy Haas, the German 24th seed, decided to play on with another of the ball girls on court…

The pair knocked up for five minutes in the 11,393 capacity stadium.

Meanwhile in the same time zone an actual massive upset was going on.

USA 2 – Spain 0

Is this one of the seven signs? Or is it more of a glitch? Football is the sport that has the highest probability of an upset (based on historical data). And the Americans have been pretty lucky in this competition.

They needed to beat Egypt by three goals and have Brazil beat Italy by three. And it happened. Side note: the Egyptian team were robbed while celebrating their victory over Italy, they claimed it was the hotel cleaning staff, but it later emerged that the culprits were more likely the prostitutes the players brought back to their rooms. What goes on tour?

But is the American victory of the European champs an indicator of anything? American's have traditionally been very strong in women's football, perhaps the men are stepping up. And despite fighting a losing battle against the other major league sports the MLS seems to have a strong fan base (driven, I imagine, by ex-pats). A large number of the American squad play in England, so will have gained some experience of the European style of play. Or perhaps it was just dumb luck.

The most interesting thing was watching Sportscentre tonight. They covered the game while making all kinds of odd comparisons. "Watch as [American goalkeep] Tim Howard becomes like Tim Thomas, the Bruins goalie and best goaltender in the league". And after the match ESPN showed some great American upsets and streak-ending games. They really don't "get" football over there.

In fact the big news, and really it's pretty big, is that the Phoenix Suns have traded Shaquille O'Neal to the Cleveland Cavaliers (for Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, a 2nd round draft pick and a pile of cash).

Back home the story of the French player Mathieu Bastareaud being attacked by a group of Pacific Islanders is slowly unravelling (as was insinuated in PAS this week). Does every foreign rugby tour have to end with a police investigation into team antics in a hotel room?

And speaking of rugby Steve Tew is getting it from all angles: they don't like him in Christchurch and we're all just bored with rugby really no matter he says.

By the way, free-to-air Wimbledon! Yay TVNZ!

So we won, sort of. The lead story on Sunday's sports news was the fact that New Zealand actually lost the series by one-point!

How did the players not know? How did the coaches not know? How did we, the viewing public, not know? Was it because it wasn't reported in the media until yesterday? Steve Hansen said they didn't tell the players about it because they'd rather the team just focussed on winning. Whatever you do, don't make them add up!

Personally I'd rather we had three tests.

But we did win the game. There are still a few worry spots (Mr Donald) but I think Latimer had a good game, I'm told Read had a good one too (though I felt he was fairly invisible, I'll wait for Tracey's stats). Also having a great game were the old hands Thorn and Rokocoko.

Basically we seemed to have a real gameplan this week. There looked to be actual purpose behind the plays and the players seemed to have a better idea of what it was they were supposed to be doing (i.e. getting the ball and scoring). Anyway, here are the official stats. Go make graphs.

And while I'm here let me apologise to the French for Wellington. It was a bit wet and cold on Saturday, that's alright. But we actually quite like French people and the group of four or five men who attacked Mathieu Bastareaud are fuckwits of the highest order. There is nothing in the report that instantly suggests this was rugby related, but either way this isn't what we need a few years out from the World Cup. If you saw these brain-dead idiots (and there were a lot of people out on Saturday) please go to the police.

In the meantime our Under-20 team has gone and won another World Cup.

The final, played last night in Tokyo, was broadcast live and free by the IRB. And it should still be available for on-demand viewing (as are the semi-finals). And if you want to see a free-flowing running game of rugby between two pretty good teams with exciting players then I suggest you watch it (Spoiler Alert! We kick ass).

And big congrats to Aaron Cruden for winning Junior Player of the year. He is definitely a name to watch.

I cannot praise the IRB enough for the intelligence to put live, streaming rugby on their site for free. I am a firm believer that letting as many people as possible watch good rugby is essential to growing the game (I know, duh).

And that's exactly what I wanted to hear from Steve Tew on Friday, are we going to get online media from the NZRU (or their broadcast partner). It was a very basic media briefing on the NZRU board meeting but it did have some interesting titbits (there would be audio if my recorder hadn't died after four minutes).

The new broadcast package is being put together. There seems to be some question about whether Sky will be the broadcast holder, though really I can't see anyone else getting it. There was also some talk about selling the tournaments (Super 14, Air NZ Cup, Internationals) separately. Any talk of selling individual games (or packages of games) like the American networks was quashed: "If only we had the critical mass of the NFL". Does the broadcast package include on line media? Yep. But hopefully more than the current YouTube channel.

Tew also laughed at one point that they were on Twitter. I looked at their feed, and no, they're not.

There was an odd moment when discussing the upcoming Christchurch test. Tew mentioned that sales were very slow (to which the retort was "play it during the day", Tew ignored and continued), he then proceeded to pretty much say that if sales didn't pick up that Christchurch might not get anymore test matches (though the 2011 games are locked in).

Tew admitted that threatening fans was probably not the best way to go, and that they need to talk to fans more. How do they talk to fans? Market research groups [sad trombone].

Here's the pitch: We sell product X, sales of product X are down, and so we need to figure out new ways of selling product X to people. And if people still don't buy product X, it's their fault.

Still maybe there are changes coming.

The key principles agreed at that time were that the competitions must:

• Include Super Rugby players;
• Have a stand-alone window (which also recognises the windows for club rugby and Super Rugby);
• Feature a full round-robin and playoffs;
• Have promotion-relegation;
• Guarantee four or five home games per team;
• Be completed within a 10-12 week window; and
• Be concluded by the end of October.

That is of course the new Domestic Competition structure will be introduced which has a 10-team Premier Division, a Division One competition and a Heartland Championship. And, as was foretold in the prophecy, we get it by 2011.

The second:
Casey Williams is a fucking panther. And I don't mean that in a sexually euphemistic way (ala "cougar"), although she is hot. What I mean is she's a predator. Her eyes very rarely leave the ball, she's constantly aware of her surroundings and she attacks everything. It was about half way through the game when I realised she was hunting down the fucking ball.

This is winning, and winning with intent.

But if the Magic lose it's annoying (to Magic fans). Such great potential squandered usually because of stupid mistakes. But unbeaten seasons are rare.

There is an urban myth that the surviving members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins (the only NFL team to ever go through an entire season unbeaten) open a bottle of champagne and have a toast each year after the last unbeaten team finally loses one. Sports people take great pride in their invincibility.

So it shouldn't come as a shock that the All Blacks aren't happy about their loss to France. Neither are some fans and neither are a bunch of reporters.

Personally I'm content. I'm not pleased but I'm far from writing a frothing diatribe about it. A very good French team came and completely outplayed the (admittedly not top-strength) All Blacks.

Don't expect it again.

Before the Dunedin game everyone was talking about 1994 French tests. Nineteen Ninety Four! That's the last time they beat us here. We cry when they send us under strength teams, we cry when they beat us. But we need those losses.

The All Blacks are a myth. The Bledisloe Cup is a myth. For every lengthy winning streak by the greatest rugby team of all time, there has to be a trough where we can't seem to string a set of passes together. For every extended stay for the cup on this side of the Tasman there needs to be a similar (though somewhat shorter) trip over the ditch.

The All Blacks are nothing without their losses. We need the "remember that time they beat us". Can you imagine how arrogant and posturing the All Black fan would be if we had won all those World Cups we were supposed to? For goodness sake, we're not Australians.

So when the losses happen, revel in them. Drink and cheer with the victors (heck, they may be buying the drinks). And remember that losses are good for us.

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And because I know you kids love this stuff, here are the official stats from the last game. Sorry about the jpg, but that's how I got them:

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Quick notes:

• I keep forgetting to pimp Jed Soane's photographs, which is bad because I keep dragging him to boring netball matches that are hard to photograph.
• Due to a flu-like illness I couldn't make the All Black press conference yesterday, so instead I sent cub-reporter Naly D. His write up and audio will be on the Dropkicks soon.
• Naly sent me a text saying "Just spent 15mins talking to Rokocoko, afterwards realised recorder was on pause"
• Last week I posted a story featuring pics of a jersey sans man, Emma posted one featuring pics of a man sans jersey.
• I'm just about to head to the NZRU for a press conference with Steve Tew, any questions for the man? (I'll check the site beforehand)