blogging it real

That's my advice to Steve Davie. He's a sports broadcaster from down Otago way. Whilst I like listening to his cricket commentaries and find him to be good at that side of things he should engage his brain a little more when he decided to start tapping out things on the internet.

He goes off the rails here describing Auckland's sporting media:

It seems the Auckland rugby media has – like its rampant Ranfurly Shield side of 1985 to '93 – forgotten how to win or lose graciously. Why else would the Stormers' last gasp qualification for the Super 12 semifinals be described as 'sneaking in' and 'stealing' a top four place from the defending champions, the Blues?

One story out of Auckland yesterday suggested the Stormers' place in the top four (they finished third) was courtesy of the bonus point for scoring four tries in the 31-24 eclipsing of the Sharks in the last match of the preliminary series. Conveniently forgotten is the fact the Stormers won seven of their 11 games while the Blues won six.

If either of that pair was going to 'sneak' into the semis by virtue of the bonuses on offer, it would have been the Blues, who finished one point shy on the ladder.

I believe what he is referring to is this from the tvnz.com website. The same story also appeared online in The New Zealand Herald.

Where it states:

The Stormers won a frenetic South African Super 12 derby against the Sharks 31-24 on Saturday to sneak into the semifinals courtesy of the bonus point for scoring five tries ... But the Stormers, needing to score at least four tries and win the match to pip their nearest rivals, the Blues, for a playoff spot, kept their hopes alive with two first-half tries of their own.

I'm not quite sure what the problem is because quite simply if the Stormers had not scored their fourth try about 13 minutes into the second half and then hung on late in the game with a two point lead and The Sharks attacking them they wouldn't have made the semi-finals. The statement is true and a perfectly reasonable one to make. It's also a fact that The Blues went into the game 4 competition points ahead of The Stormers so if The Stormers scored 5 tries and secured the game in the last few minutes then they DID pip The Blues.

I think Mr. Davie is seeing things that aren't there. Another chapter to add to the Auckland conspiracy theories that abound in one of New Zealand's islands.

He goes on:

Another article described the Blues as able to 'consider themselves unlucky after their 50-22 victory over the Highlanders, completing a maximum 15-point haul from their last three matches'.

Yes, the Blues had put together a very fine end to their round robin – the very best possible – but they were still short of the ultimate requirement because of a sluggish start.

No mention of that.

Perhaps this is what you are looking for, in today's NZ Herald (which doesn't come out on sundays so you have to give them a chance I think).

Wynne Gray writes:

As his television beamed in live from Durban until close to dawn yesterday, Sloane begged for a Sharks win, which would have let the Blues sneak into the semifinals.

So now The Blues are doing the sneaking.

And probably the funniest thing about all of this and kind of my punchline at the end of the blog ... It says "-REUTERS" at the bottom of those articles. Does he live in Auckland? Where did he grow up? It sure is an odd name.

Here, you can even read the original report ... which came out of Durban in the South African Reuters online site.

DOH!