According to this report its not good news for Lancaster Park or the Cantabs in 2012. Looks like large parts of the ground need to rebuilt or even demolished.
They should be wary of temporarily moving out to Riccarton though - just ask Matthew Johns.
Now Piri has decided to follow the drift north to Auckland to play his Super 15 rugby there. The Wellington senior players are really teaching Hammett & his paymasters a lesson. Eaton to Kirkpatrick to Hobbs next year is not going to frighten many sides.
They are still struggling to keep Gear & Jane but the NZRU is still talking up their playing squad for next year. This is just insulting to the intelligence of Wellington fans & as previously predicted its going to be a long season for them next year.
Sonny Bill Williams has resigned with the NZRU for next year. He has stated that he owes NZ fans something for their support & it will be interesting to see if that extends to Cantab fans as he is yet to decide who he will play Super XV for next season. Love him or hate him its still a good signing for the game's profile in NZ.
Seems that there are a few pundits (paid & unpaid) that are connecting the win by the Banana Benders in the Super XV final to Wallaby dominance this year & trouble for the All Blacks at the RWC. You only have to look at last year to know that international footie is a totally different beast.
South Africa had clearly the best 2 teams in the Super 14 & yet couldn't string 2 decent matches together the rest of the year. Meanwhile NZ only had the Cantabs in the top 4 yet won everything in sight (bar an exhibition in Honkers).
So game number 123 of the Super XV turned to be a bridge too far for the Cantabs and a long & harrowing season ended with a narrow loss to Queensland who became only the 5th winner of a Super Rugby competition. Here are the video highlights.
The dominance displayed by the men from Christchurch the week before in Cape Town seemed to distract us from the fact that no one has travelled those sorts of distances over 2 weeks & been able to win the trophy.
And so it proved. They started well but needed to convert that early pressure into points & the fact they had nothing to show after dominating the opening 20 minutes should have sent the alarm bells ringing
I was tempted to name this "All Hail the Cantabs II" but last time I came out with that (after they had beaten Western Province) they lost the next week so I won't jinx them. First of all here are the highlights from the games in Brisbane & Cape Town.
But really what more can you say about the Cantabs, who are now just one game from what must be described as the greatest Super rugby season ever surpassing their unbeaten Super 12 season of 2002? From the moment Richie McCaw came out for the coin toss you could see they were up for it. He barely greeted Schalk Burger, almost forgot to shake the ref's hand & there were no niceties at all. They took this onto the field & just blew Province away to lead 23-3 just before half time.
Ma'a Nonu has resigned with NZ rugby & will play his super rugby for Auckland. He has also been given a sabbatical to play some club footie up in Japan at the end of this year. I pity the poor Wellington midfield that will face Nonu in the Blues jersey next season.
Seems NZRU think these sabbaticals are the way forward for players retention but its going to get very messy controlling all this. I thought the players were claiming they needed rest as well due to too much footie?
Last week saw two more teams headed for Mad Monday & it came as no surprise that it was both the visiting teams. History shows that Super rugby playoff games are virtually always won by the home side with travel being a big factor at that stage of the season. Let's hope that the Cantabs can buck that trend this week after losing semi finals at Loftus the last two seasons.
Have a look at the highlights of the Auckland & Nelson games.
Both playoff games last week were similar in style & outcome.
I thought it was a bad joke when I heard Bryce Lawrence & Chris Pollock (!!) were going to be refereeing the playoff games in NZ against a Japie & an Aussie side. Why couldn't SANZAR appoint neutrals to avoid the whiff of home town bias? It totally defied logic unless its cost cutting.
I thought it can't be "on merit" but then I find that Lawrence has been given control of the final - if he's the best there is in the southern hemisphere then there's big problems.
This was too good to be lost in the weekend review.
Andrew Hore left the Wellington jersey with this classic enquiry to the referee Chris Pollock "Are we not allowed to tackle Carter" after a very marginal late tackle call against Nonu after Carter had passed the ball. Have a look (its about 70 seconds through the video.)
