Posts by BenWilson
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Sacha,
His suggestion that announcements be made at platforms for people to follow "Plan B", is a good one. For those who, unlike me, aren't capable of making a Plan B for themselves.
My only thought about why people might have opted not to goes to my own reasons for using PT in the first place. It wasn't because I anticipated any difficulties getting into the city - in a car, this is pimps, that's why everyone uses them. It's because I anticipated drinking.
Which I actually didn't manage to do, in the end. It wasn't just PT that was overloaded. But I was able to go to a nice, cheap private party after the parts of the ceremony that I actually wanted to see were done with. This was Plan B for me, and there was a Plan C and D which didn't get exercised. From their back garden I was able to see the whole city lit up with fireworks from one end to the other, with a glass of wine and a slice of pizza in hand, a smoke on the table, a big screen TV to watch, good friends to chat to, and a fire to put my feet up in front of before the main event started. The only thing that really jeopardized any of that was the overloading of the cellphone networks.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I'd take from that that if you have an adequate public transport system that's used by a majority on a normal basis, than it'll cope with special events without too much strain.
I think that good public transport will always help, but you're not comparing apples with apples - London's public transport is designed to cope with a city of 15 million people. A major sporting event there (and the RWC is not really that major for London) causing only a blip on the transport experience is likely. They have excess capacity for Africa. They have massive ability to reroute.
To make something remotely comparable to what happened here on Friday you are talking about handling a reasonably sudden choice of 2 million people to descend onto a some London central city riverside venue. Even then, that would probably only cause local blockages, because the various ring loops and other lines wouldn't be affected. We just don't have anything like that here.
Scapegoating the train operators is ridiculous. It's decades of decisions not to expand our rail network at fault here, and even then, those choices were dictated by the comparatively small population of Auckland, and its extremely hilly and harbour-divided geography.
Furthermore, there was a lot of advice the day before to travel early. They knew the capacity was not there. I knew it was not there, and I don't even use public transport - my trip on the bus on Friday was the first (outside of Waiheke) in 20 years (and was a very pleasant surprise). Common sense tells you that if you quadruple the number of travelers, you will grind it to a halt. In the city of the automobile, which moves most of the working population in and out of the city every day using automobiles and buses, the capacity of THAT to cope was clearly there. If I'd got to a train platform and found 500 people waiting, and had a ticket to the ceremony in my pocket, I wouldn't have boarded the train in the first place, would have just got my car, driven as close to the stadium as possible, and then caught a cab or walked the difference. Possibly offering a lift to 3 other people if I felt public spirited. Or ridden my bike, or hitched.
I know sometimes these things creep up on you and feel compassion for those who missed out on the opening ceremony. But scapegoating doesn't really help anything. We've never had anything near the scale of the RWC happening here before, and Kiwis need to take a long look at the attitude of dourly underestimating their interest in things, then suddenly changing their minds at the last minute, and then complaining that plans weren't made for that. It's an unattractive part of the national spirit to me.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Tom Semmens,
It is only round one of the RWC, but looking at the performance of the teams from the Heineken cup countries, I couldn't help wondering to myself if the same baleful influence of to much money and greedy clubs isn't impacting team performances in the rugby world cup also.
If so, that's all part of the beauty of a World Cup, which injects a periodic dose of reality into their scene, as it does for English Soccer.
On professionalism, one thing I do notice is that it browns the sport a lot, because it becomes all about whether you're any good at the sport, rather than if you can afford to take the time out of your real job for it. Teams are still, on the whole, formed from nationals, but their top notch immigrants get a look in, and their society as a whole becomes well represented.
But I'm not convinced that the spirit of sport is well represented by commercial interests. For instance, the USA is unable to find a group of people who would dwarf every other team? Only because American Football and the big bucks floating there drain it all away. Consequently, all those athletes never experience international competition.
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I dunno, Tom, I think you're underrating that every single team has improved. The first thing that struck me this time around is that you can't see anyone who doesn't look very athletic. Where they have mass, it seems to be muscle. And we're not seeing much by way of deliberate attempts to take a breather, kicks to touch outside of a penalty have been rare. I'm presuming rising professionalism has been the cause of this.
This contributes a great deal to evening up the odds - there's only so much to be gained from more strength and fitness training. Also, the tactical understanding of every team seemed to be good (with exception of some bizarre moves by the Italian kickers, I wonder if they were trying to show flair when they kicked a penalty ball straight into the hands of the Australians massed on the other corner of the field). Great balls skills can be seen everywhere, this always tends to rise with fitness.
So I agree with the English commentary that the gap is becoming smaller. Or perhaps this first weekend was just a matter of very spirited "minnow" performances, and nervous conservative play by the top teams. It's easy to forget that playing the World Cup in NZ is something that is going to mean a lot to rugby players - there's nowhere else on earth that nearly everyone they meet is going to be aware of rugby. Everyone is aware this is the stomping ground of the famous All Blacks, and the place where this tournament began.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Russell Brown,
It was still only England who could score a try, though. Argentina deserved to win, but they couldn't put it away.
Yes, that was my point. England finally decided to kick for position, backing their runners, and pulled off the only try, a perfectly decent one. Good on Argentina for teaching them this lesson, that a kicking strategy against a weaker team is a stupid approach, and could easily cause an upset.
They can do better, and I hope they do better.
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Thanks Caleb, very interesting. Certainly, of the Americans I know outside of NZ, if they know about rugby at all, they love the All Blacks. One colleague told me a few years back that the All Blacks were the only thing he was interested in following in the rugby, that the pre-game antics were a huge part of it, that such a psyche up before a game is really unusual and compelling.
I hope the Eagles improve upon previous performances - that is the most realistic aim from a World Cup from a rank outsider, that they reduce the level of thrashing from the top teams, and give the next team up on the ladder a run for their money. Then they can feel proud. Bonus points for any individual brilliance.
There's no reason in the long run that the Eagles couldn't be competitive - the USA has no shortage of massive strong athletes. I expect that Gridiron takes almost all of these, looking for the big money. But it would only take one of the plethora of Jonah Lomu sized characters to take to the field and run straight over the top of some top seeded backs to give the Eagles a huge profile lift. Then, of course, there's the colossal immigrant population to pick from too.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Sacha,
My fingers were crossed. I detest boring rugby.
Yes, although I think it was all about kicks because it was so tense. Several times Argentina got penalties that they could have kicked for territory, backing their chances of a try. But being only 6 in the lead makes going for any kick you can get compelling (on both sides), when it's a close game against a team that is higher seeded. I didn't really find it boring, there was a lot of running play. The only problem was that so many kickable opportunities came up from the running.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to recordari,
Last night was more angst inducing than I would have expected. Really really wanted Argentina to win.
Yes, they were fantastic. I loved how they were so excited that it looked like one of them almost fainted during their national anthem. They really wanted to win, and played like it.
But in the end it was a massive ask for them to beat England, and I think the most telling factor in the end was physical condition. The English played bruising rugby, and I don't grudge them their style. But Argentina taught them to run the ball. Playing a kicking game alone, relying on Wilkinson, very nearly lost them the match.
Japan had a great game too, possibly the best rugby I've ever seen them play. France wasn't awful, Japan just played a really smart game. Initially, I was just hoping they would score at least one try, so they blew my expectations out of the water. I would have loved to see them seize the lead in the middle of the second half, they came so close. But even then, I expected the final quarter to be telling, France are just too big, strong, and fast. They're still the team, aside from the All Blacks, that I'd most like to see win this tournament, really exciting with ball in hand.
Yesterday, it felt to me like Tonga had set the tone for this tournament, dealing out inspiration to all of the minor teams that it is within their power to give any of the top 5 teams something to be concerned about, if they set themselves reasonable targets. Being able to control the ball when they have it has led to very well earned penalties and tries.
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Great games. The narrowing gap between minnows and flounder bodes well
Reckon, All the underdogs have played well so far.
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Hard News: Just don't call it "Party Central", in reply to recordari,
Not meaning to be snarky, but if you can find a statistic for drownings off fisherman's wharf in San Francisco Bay I'd be interested. I couldn't.
Isn't that particular body of water famous for swallowing its victims without trace, though? That could mean a whole lot of random drunken drownings could never be confirmed.
FWIW, I saw on the news after the game last night that they'd already fished 20 people out of the water around wharves. The first person who cracks their head on the way in ...
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