rants

The dreaded term - Rest & Rotation - seemed to have been buried but is starting to rear its ugly head with Graham Henry discussing the need to start Aaron Cruden in some tests this year "sooner rather than later".
 
One of the positive aspects this year has been the consistency in selection with combinations being developed.  Players such as Kaino & Mealamu have gone to a new level with solid game time.

New Zealand Cricket CEO Justin Vaughan has struck out at the behaviour of some NZ rugby fans at the Bledisloe Cup match in Melbourne last week.  He has used it to generalise about NZ rugby fans, drinking & even youth culture at large.  As for the mention of xenophobia by NZ fans in Australia - you must be joking!  This guy has obviously spent too much time sipping chardonnay & eating canapes from the comfort of numerous corporate boxes. 

Here lies the sad tale of Isaac Ross.  Twelve months ago he was in charge of the All Blacks lineout but has since been dropped by the All Blacks then the Crusaders & then even Jarred Hoeata was picked ahead of him for NZ Maori!  Once Steve Hansen puts the word out about your problems its all down hill!
 
Makes you ask what Steve Hansen saw in him in the first place & was it similar to Campbell Johnstone's right shoulder?

Interesting article from New Plymouth about the pre-season player movement in the NPC.  Seems they were quite bullish about their acquisitions & prospects for the season.
 
Well that was before they met the Mighty Kauris in the first hit out of the season anyway.

As they say - Australians were originally hand picked by England's finest judges.  Now they seem to have enlisted a photographer to snap some of Ted's playbook for this coming weekend & published it in their daily papers.  The All Black management have been known to suffer from a bit of paranoia in the past but any reaction this time seems justified.  The interesting thing will be to see if the Aussies are able to decipher much from that lot.

Ever since the Wellington test the South Africans seem to have taken whinging to a new level that would put the Poms to shame.  First of all PdV moaned about cheating & said how well the Boks had played.  Then SARU have asked a judge to investigate bias by refs against the Boks.  I don't remember any of this moaning when they were winning last year.
 
To top it off PdV has now stated that refs are favouring the All Blacks so tickets can be sold for next year's RWC? 

With the Tri-Nations in full swing the Ranfurly Shield campaign of Southland probably needed as much publicity as it could get.  But what it didn't need was old Big Mouth himself (Michael Laws) labelling Southland a bunch of poofs.  I'd like to see him say that in a Bluff local.

Amongst all the publicity of SBW's decision to play for Canterbury in the NPC, the return to NZ of an All Black legend he is likely oppose at some stage this season is probably more noteworthy.
 
Last night Tana Umaga made his Counties debut in the inauspicious setting of a club ground in West Auckland.

Interesting article from Taine Randell last week about the Cantabrification of New Zealand rugby.  There is an old saying "When Auckland rugby is strong New Zealand rugby is strong" which is logical given that a third of NZ's population resides there.  However given the relative performance of Auckland & the Blues in the past 10 years compared to the All Blacks this link is now less certain.
 
What is disturbing as Randell points out is that the Crusaders success in Super 12 / 14 rugby has led to people associated with that success taking control of NZ rugby.

It only took one small tug on the jersey within the first 90 seconds of the match for Bakkies Botha to lose his rag & give Jimmy Cowan a blind Liverpool kiss.