What a lovely name: "Rokocoko!"
I just love hearing it. Over and over, as we did on Saturday night.
50 to 21. Report card: great effort, can still do better.
Okay it was a seriously good display of backplay, and apart from the line-outs a pretty damn good forward game too. But at some point it looks like we’ll have to play England and that will be a different kind of game altogether. One where a few missed line-outs will count big. One where the backs could, depending on the referee, be much more constrained.
On the rugby show over here on Sunday morning Chris Laidlaw was very gracious. Mind, he didn’t need to go in hard. The Aussies don’t need too much prompting. Right now they are beating themselves up just nicely.
And among the suggestions, growing, is a call to dump Captain Gregan.
By Sunday evening, however, the game had been relegated to about third item on the news behind the Bangladesh test match and AFL.
I went for a coffee this morning at my usual haunt, Jet in QVB. I thought all the staff were Italian, but there must be a kiwi there somewhere as the headline from the Sunday paper was stuck over the front of the counter: “The end of the world”, it read. “New Zealand 50, Australia 21.”
Hardly the end of the world, but it is going to be a long haul for the Aussies. I’m pretty sure they won’t be nearly this brittle when the World Cup comes around.
The Girlie is very pleased too, though a little frustrated by our continuing line-out woes and unnecessary turnovers.
Meanwhile, we’re sending in the Crusaders. Anne Coulter will be pleased. Not only are we sending them in, we’re sending them to the holy city of Najaf. I wonder if we can get a few Vatican guards on the job as well? And catch the name of that opposition spokesman!
Cover it up boys.
A week or so ago in my Canberra blog I waxed on about Aussie insecurity, but I must say when you manage to get comment from both the PM and the alleged leader of the opposition on an episode of the Simpsons, well, a bit desperate guys. Luckily this story is mirrored over here today too.
“Suddenly, the whole world wants to be in Sydney - and it's nothing to do with sport. Everyone's fallen for a tiny fish named Nemo, whose Australian adventures have made this city one of the biggest stars of the US box office smash Finding Nemo.”
Terrific. Anyway, some of us have work to do.