Hard News by Russell Brown

Whooo that's telling it like it is. At least some of the Japanese will have some physical smashing experiences coming soon - what with Jerome K and SBW in their midst.

Russell: I will have to take you along to the Waikato Stadium and the Chiefs some day, to restore your faith in the rugby experience.

Hadyn has an interesting post about John Kirwan freshly up.

And Eddie!...you two are cosmically aligned

Eden Park this year has worn boat shoes...

an excellent metaphor. Not true I must say for the one match I attended this year there, but then it was the Warriors not the hapless Blues.

A minor thing.

I note that in this, and HG's piece, there is no reference to Sir John Kirwan?

Oversight or deliberate?

Are you pointing out the omission of the "Sir"? A column that talks about Kirwan in his professional context, not at an afternoon tea party with the Queen, should be all "Sir John" this and that?

(By the way, you don't give someone's full name with the "Sir" preceding. It'd be Sir John Kirwan KZNM if you wanted to give his full title. His wife is "Lady Kirwan".)

Oversight or deliberate?

First one, then the other.

I wrote the post and then remembered the "Sir". It seemed better without.

Thanks; that makes sense.

To me JK and Kirwan sound right. The Honours system baffles me at the best of times, but this seems to be a bit of a grey area. From what I’ve seen over the last 24 hours it’s an even split on whether the Sir gets included when you add John.

Since the appointement I have heard at least two interviews with JK where the interviewer referred to him as "Sir John" and JK immediately replied that he was more comfortable with "JK". He is certainly in the honeymoon stage with the media at the moment, but I suspect things will get a lot tougher as soon as the 2013 season starts.

He was my favourite All Black as a kid, I used to watch him run around for Marist. Good luck to him, but it will be a hard ask for the reasons Russell sets out.