blogging it real

Blogger.com finally loads up after 10 fucking minutes!!!

Right. I'm on 'holiday' after being out sampling students for 4 weeks. Though 4 assignments in the next 4 weeks will sort me out. Sheer bliss though compared to the 5 in 3 days last term.

Went to the All Blacks v Fiji game on Friday night on a whim. My wife wanted to see Daniel Carter up close and when he was in action in our corner early on she said "we can go now". We stayed and actually watched some of the game as well. Though 90% of the block we were in spent more time looking at the scuffles on the embankment and certainly nobody spent any time actually talking about the game. It was a shame that the All Blacks have got so slick in the professional era while countries like Fiji and Samoa (as we saw on Saturday v a goo but not great Wallabies) are still playing in the amateur era. Stephen Jones was talking his usual absolute tripe in the Sunday Star today. He manages to blame everything on NZ including the Fijians performance as though we are somehow responsible for the crap play of the pacific island teams. Perhaps he might like to take a look at where half of the fucking players learnt to play rugby to a good level. Or maybe he wants to look at who was getting money from the gate takings. Or maybe he wants to turn his attwention to the IRB who are actually the ones responsible for funding the game in the weaker countries. Or hell, maybe he wants to look at the northern hemisphere teams who often won't even release their players for full internationals, or talk their foreing players into turning down the jersey.

Staying on Stephen Jones for a minute. I know he is writing for a snobby British reader but if they seriously go along with his writing then they have no idea of rugby whatsoever. He's deliberately proviocative but it's a broken record with little or no intelligence at all. he excused the inept Lions performance by basically saying that it wasn't their test side. Well so fucking what mate?! It was one of teh strongest sides they could have put out there and they were absolute shit. Woodward has also come out and said he saw good things and they will win the tests. Well maybe you will Sir Clive but what exactly were the good things?

In 80 minutes they threatened the NZ Maori line about twice perhaps? Excuse me if I'm wrong again but isn't the whole point of the game to try and get near the opposition line and score some tries? And isn't 80 whole fucking minutes long enough to do that? Their scrum looked good and times and average at times. Their lineout was woeful and if fatty is going to look good at hooker in the scrums he might want to try looking good throwing the ball into the lineout as well. They were dicked at the breakdown, got no ball, didn't fire a shot in the backline, Jones kicked with no tactical plan at all it seemed and they split the ball constantly. The only good thing I could see that the Lions did was that they defended well. But if they faced a slightly higher class of game breakers (like exist in the ABs) they would quite possibly have lost last night by 40 points.

Wilkonson will be in the first test side for sure unless somebody cripples the poor bastard in his one or two hitouts before the first test. And he will be key for them. They are certainly going to have a solid platform at the scrum and they will probably win 90% of their lineout ball and a bit of ours, and they will disrupt the AB ball and Wilkonson will kick nicely into the corners and nicely through the sticks and they will defencd staunchly. So the ABs will need to crack the Lions early and skip out to leads of 12+ in the first half an hour in my opinion. I think they team that can get the lead will be very hard to overcome in these games. Kind of goes without saying but you see teams defensing a lead lift a lot more than they do when they are behind.

Right. That's more than enough rugby.

I went to the Warriors today. My 5th time this year and I still haven't paid to gat in muhahahaha! They played bloody well and at 24-16 the score severly flattered the Storm. The Warriors looked slick on attack and should have wrapped it up on the break with Jones falling centimetres short (or did he scratch that line?) to potentially have put them out 26-4. then they came within inches of scoring twice more after the break and then again later in the match.

How the fuck the video ref came up with a penalty try is not beyond me beacuse the video ref is a cheating c*nt like he always is v the Warriors. The Warriors NEVER, EVER, EVER get any 50/50 calls from the video ref. Go back and check. They would lose every fucking one of them. And when was the last time a penalty try was awarded?! I have seen plenty of times a lot closer than that when player has been tackled before catching the ball when all he had to do was fall over and all the refs do is bin the tackler and award a penalty. That was a disgrace and to make it even worse he watched it over and over again in SLOW-FUCKING-MOTION!!! Calvin Cronk or whatever the fuck his name is would have had to have had wings come out his arse to have rounded up that kick and grounded it.

Anyway justice was done and the refs couldn;t even manage to fuck things up. The touch judge on the camera side of the field needs an eye re-alignment with all the forward passes he missed and where was the benefit of the doubt to the attacking team with Toopi's grounding of the ball?

Look out for the situation with the refs v the warriors to blow up in coming weeks as there will be several tight games for sure. The Warriors have the Eels, Broncos, Roosters and Cowboys coming up and even 4 points would be a decent effort and keep them in the hunt for the playoffs. They have a good chance of picking up 8 points in their last 4 weeks so if they can work themselves into copntention I think they have the team and the attitude to get there.

Points table with adjustments for bye points...
Broncos 22 (127)
Eels 18 (75)
Sea Eagles 18 (29)
Cowboys 16 (62)
Dragons 16 (36)
Sharks 16 (2)
Storm 14 (127)
Warriors 12 (33)
Roosters 12 (23)
Raiders 12 (-26)
Wests Tigers 12 (-30)
Bulldogs 9 (-45)
Panthers 8 (-34)
Rabbitohs 7 (-129)
Knights 0 (-250)

I told you the Sea Eagles were gonna crap out some time. Title contenders can get dicked by 40 points and still come back later in the year.

Except when it's by SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS 44-6 muhahahahahaha!!!!!

Although they do have the Knights (poosibly the worst side the comp has seen in two decades) next week at Brookvale followed by the Bulldogs, Tigers and Panthers. All the cellar dwellars. If they can come through that wil 6 points I think I'll have to admit defeat and allow them a place in my top 8.