Posts by Tom Semmens
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I don't blame the referee - you have to ask why the IRB chose to blood an inexperienced referee in a RWC quarter final between the number one ranked team and the host nation.
The NZRFU has to now sit down and work out if we want to be the Harlem Globetrotters of international rugby or if we want to be the RWC champions. We can't be both. Personally, I would like the All Blacks to be world champions not world clowns.
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Don't worry, I'll be over it by Tuesday at the latest.
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Am I angry? Hell yes!
Graham Henry got everything he asked for. Rotation has been a total, abject failure - our high tech jet fighters have turned out to be hanger queens and the players who were not kept in cotton wool, like Hoare and Williams, were the best on the park. When the ref was clearly against us, where was the Fitzpatricks, the Gregans, the Brookes, and the Martin Johnstons???? They choked - not just the players, but also the coaching team.
Individually, in the backs - Yet again McDonald has been exposed at the top level. Surely Rokococo has played his last game as an All Black. Sivivatu looks disinterested get rid of him we want players who might be less talented but are prepared to roll their sleeves up and do the work. Muliana is currently our best back and was played out of position to pay for the selectorial failures of Wayne Smith. I've never favoured McAlistair. Carter needs to stop being a cry baby pretty boy (What were those, tears when he came off? For fuck's sake grow up and start acting like a man!) and start earning his salary. Kelleher was a waste of space, more of a hazard to his own side than the opposition.
Forwards - our forwards did everything expected of them; Ali Williams should be made the All Black captain.
After the battle of Jutland in 1916 -no! Stay with me! Admiral Beatty made a famous quote after discovering three of his battlecruisers had been blown up - "something seems to be wrong with our bloody ships today." Less often quoted is the second part of what he said, "And there is something wrong with our system."
Its not that we've lost these games. Something is wrong with our system. Our age group system is biased towards athletic and physically imposing, but - let's be honest - thick players. Our professional sides prefer to pick fickle and dissolute circus performers and genetic freaks over toilers and sly cunning. Our nation and its rugby administrators and coaches are infected with an all pervading hubris that sees us adopt a condescending and patronising attitude to the style and tactics of everyone else, epitomised by Mr. Henry's comment that he would rather lose than play boring rugby. Well, Mr. Henry got his wish, didn't he? Once again, our arrogance has come back to bite us on the arse.
Its time we realised that our rugby players sit down to shit like everyone else, and winning by foul means is as sweet as winning by fair at this level, and its time we got back to a team and a coach and a country that are not so full of their own P.R. bullshit and full of admiration of their own rugby reflection in the mirror that they don't mind winning ugly as long as they win.
You know, everything that is wrong with New Zealand rugby was summed up when McAlistairs pathetic, desperate drop goal attempt went wide. The Boks, the English, the French, the Wallabies, hell even the Pumas are not so full of themselves that they would not have had a organised, practiced set piece to calmly drop a goal. We all know how many times penalties and ground out drop goals win tight tests. Its time we remembered that rugby is a simple game - its just about having more points on the board at full time than the other guys.
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Howlett? Who wants a mayor mired in yesterday's men? Zac Guilford FTW!
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Getting.To.Excited.
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The French play Northern hemisphere, A.K.A. Kick and chase. Its seems pretty clear that the Frogs lined up their backs and picked the seven who could punt the ball the greatest distance. That, together with picking a geriatic but technically good forward pack, should tell us what they are going to try and do - kick the ball as far down the field as they can and hope cobble together enough points from drop goals, penalties, and if they are lucky a turnover try (actually maybe not so lucky given the All Black error rate) to be in front at the finish. Its an admission they can't compete with the All Blacks in a mobile encounter. Remember, the French tried to play a la outrance in the spirit of Grand-Maison's in Lyon in 2006 and we stuffed them better than the Hun's in the Battle of the Frontiers, the following week they reverted to a kicking game and while we won it was only by 12 so now we will see if coach Petain and his his version of the Maginot line can stop the Black blitzkrieg.
Our pack has been picked with an eye to dealing with any French shenannigans a la 1999 with Mssrs. Robinson and Oliver there to ensure we have sufficient trench fighting capability before we unleash the All Black fifteen man game. Muliana's selection is an admission that the selectors stuffed up perservering with Conrad Smith and Toeava and the idea of either of those two marking Sterling Mortlock clearly has been keeping Mr. Henry awake at night. Muliana will makr Mortlock if fit. And if he gets injured before the semi - I think that would make the Aussies favourites.
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Once upon a time, the tour promoted the album which paid the cheque that built the house the rock star lived in. In the download age, its become the other way round. Artists need the tour money and the resulting merchandising and sponsorships to make any bling. The actual music is becoming the free bit.
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I've got twelve friends coming over for a Sunday morning pajama party. There will be home made donuts, pancakes with maple syrup, and my friend Amy's world famous lemon muffins & champers before kick off, followed by the full bacon, eggs and hash browns number at fulltime.
That way if the All Blacks lose, I can just hide in the kitchen and do some denial cooking.
I've even ordered in an extra George Forman so the bacon isn't to unhealthy.
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"...not sure if the European club competitions can be blamed for this drop in standards.."
Well I can't think of any other reason. They seem to lack inventive players in the key positions (because those players are all imports in their club sides?) and to me the general lack of dynamism and explosive power points to players paid far to much money to play far to often at far to a mediocre standard. In other words, burnt out and complacent players who when push comes to shove don't give two hoots about the international game as long as the club cheque keeps coming. And given the low take-off point for previously second tier teams like Tonga, Fiji and Argentina it is possible for their to be both a simultaneously decline in standards for the Six Nations and a rise in standards for poor countries benefitting from having professional players in their ranks from the European club teams.
I suppose the different approaches to the game - top down control in NZ, bottom up in Europe - reflect the different marketing imperatives of the professional game in the two hemispheres. But at the moment, we are producing by far the better rugby players by making the international game the centre piece of our game.
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Hmm, the World Cup. the big story for me has been just how truly awful the northern hemisphere teams are. They haven't just stood still since 2003 - they've gone backwards. The Six Nations is a now a second tier tournament. Objectively, its rediculous that hugely funded teams of highly paid professionals should lose to Fiji and fear Tonga. South Africa would be mad to leave the tri-nations, their rugby would go into a steep decline if the hopeless fodder of Europe was their constant opposition. And Argentina is surely now one of the top 4-5 rugby nations with consistant victories over the declining Europeans. In sum, it seems the impact of the clubs on rugby in Europe has lead to a steep decline in the international game over there.
Until this weekends matches I have found the RWC quite boring, with to many mis-matches for my taste. So... Hawkes Bay has made the quarter finals of the Air New Zealand cup and the provincial sides are pulling record crowds to ANZC matches. I grew up in Napier, I can remember the thriller in 1977 when the Bay took the Lions down to the line and no other team, even the All Blacks in a World Cup Final, can have me yelling at the set, cursing the referee's first born and - at one stage in the 10-6 win over Wellington - inexpicably finding myself standing on my armchair covering my eyes. Parochial provincialism is the heart of the game, where people identify with their teams in a way the insulates the game from the fair weather friends who regard it as another form of entertainment. And given the way the main centres seem jaded and burnt out from over-exposure to professional rugby its a lesson that the NZRFU should take note of!