Drizzly misty morn-not a squeak from the sons of Erin-safe to walk to the porta loo in my polarfleece night shirt-just right for this purpose. Then for NZ radio news-the farming program-They were excited that lambing was in full swing and that Hoggets were on turnips! Even better Pommy tourists were equally challenging supplies of bangers and mash. then they got to Mike Tyndall's (Princess Anne's daughters new husband) hi-jinks in a Queenstown bar(nose rubbing in cleavages when the Maori greeting requires a mutual caress of noses)-caught on cc TV and sold to the media by a "morally righteous" bouncer. He(the bouncer) is on bail pending a court hearing(only in Queenstown-home of "extreme adventure"
Very desolate Sat morning suburban area-even Burger King not open until 8am!! and one can more easily get an Aussie paper in Barcelona than here. The local Sat broadsheet-clearly a Fairfax offshoot has rugby on page one and after that its murder and mayhem in the suburbs. A visiting English rugby big-wig was delighted to be in a country where rugby was on every front-page every day!!
My friend and former ACI colleague Rex picked me up and gave me a comprehensive tour of super beachside suburbs, where he played and ran free as achild, which now look like Balmoral/Vaucluse and real estate is priced accordingly.
ADVANCE AUSTRALIA WHERE???
About the evening game against the Irish-least said the better. Australia didn't seem to have come to play and it was down to a kicking duel that Wilkinson would have relished. The irish were at their usual unpredictable best but with northen hemisphere style stop start refereeing by an NZ official and so many Aussie errors it was more a matter of a supine Australia losing ugly than Ireland winning convincingly(it will be interesting to see how they fare against really "brutal" teams. Speaking of which -how the Boks destroyed Fiji!!
The roar from Irish supporters(suspect by the numbers there were more from Aus and NZ than Dublin) was as good as one would have expected at Croaig Park. A drunken Aussie would be cheer leader was reasoned with by giant Maori security guards and "volunteered" to leave before half time.
Australia's supposedly improved forwards played as though on mogadon, especially Samo who was at walking pace. How they missed the thrust of Digby Ione(broken finger) in the backs and Pocock around the scrum. The much vaunted Quade Cooper was all "flash without a pan" and as testified by the universal boos that greeted his every touch-his temperament and behaviour might better suit an NRL team.
EVEN PRAYER BEYOND WALLABIES
I was three tiers up in a very big stand and as I left I was grabbed by a concerned official, who had seen me coming up the many flights of stairs and admonishing my behaviour "at your age!!!!"guided me solicitously to a lift.I like that kind of unnecessary,Kiwi help.
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