Missed that one

Gratuitous rudeness alert. New Zealand's rugby league team turned up, sort of. England, and are now gone with tails between legs. Oops.

Hot on the heals of embarrassment in the world cup of the union version comes abject humiliation. In the third, final and quite completely pointless match in the three match series the England team required only a half to defeat the Kiwis; they chose to sit out the first half and watch the sheep shaggs prove that they do actually have a nodding acquaintance with the rudiments of the 'game'.

Stupid game though. Played by Sydney-types and therefore getting its first, last and only mention here.

Where's the upside in this?

England weren't supposed to progress beyond the quarter-final but they did. They played above themselves, and at times out of their skins and, ultimately beyond the level dictated by skill.

Like the inadequate Australian squad they should have departed as losing semi-finalists; neither squad has gone forward since the 2003 World Cup and that the finalists in that tournament should play off for third place, given that, would have been entirely fitting.

So why did England fall at the final hurdle? Well quality told in the final analysis. England looked to have been outclassed across the pitch and in every phase which is not something one might have gleaned from the hysterical 'expert' commentary of Matt Dawson.

I was tempted to kick off by declaring that the question first asked four years ago* had finally been answered with an emphatic YES, but that is only part of the story. England can't progress, though, until Jonny retires. The other fourteen men on the pitch are too conscious of his presence and I suspect they're limited by that awareness, which is of course a bitter irony since he is the consummate professional and the ultimate team man.

And yet ... who is the man among them to run in breath taking tries? Is there a man among them who would do it but for the obsession with penalties and drop goals? If he's there, among them, he was keeping himself very quiet during this tournament. England's point average through the course of the tournament was the lowest of all finalists in the history of the World cup and that's an unadjusted average taking no account of the expansion of the tournament to incorporate lesser rugby playing nations such as Namibia and Portugal.

There's something lacking at the middle of the England squad.

That's why they lost. They were inadequate.

The neutral supporter was the loser tonight. The game as a spectacle was something other than riveting. I couldn't help but think that a more fitting final would have involved the Kiwis or the French themselves, notwithstanding the extraordinary ability of the Kiwis who undoubtedly play consistently the best rugby any where, any time, except for those eight weeks every four years wherein the World Cup is staged.

On a related note my vote is for maintaining the 20 team competition rather than reverting to the 16 team format. The progress currently being made of the Argentina team in the face of inexcusable opposition by the 'big' nations of the European Six Nations and the Southern hemisphere Tri-Nations and the ineffectual blustering of the IRB hints at a glorious future for the game.

And so we have to look for the silver lining to this cloud. It isn't in the bragging rights now held by the Bok. Sadly there'll be no cheerfully squiffy toffs on 606 tonight and no Matt Dawson struggling to sound enthusiastic while in the grip of a raging hangover tomorrow morning. If I do spot that silver lining I'll let you know.

I guess it might lie in the fact that four years from now we'll all get to snigger as the Kiwis choke in front of a home crowd. I'm enjoying that thought already.

* that question was, of course, "Is that all you've got"

Stalk This!

Govelling apologies to anyone misreading the superficially frivolous tone, and not seeing the pain beneath.

I really want to be able to sing a Go Pumas type rugby ditty.

I had to go in and get some 'stuff' for this evening's meal this afternoon and that's how I learned that I have MULTIPLE STALKERS.

These bitterly disappointed people wanted to get me in a corner and mock; they're English and their rugger buggers stuffed um, our, er manly types.

I rarely put much thought into the clothes I'm wearing beyond ascertaining that they're clean and essentially cover all the bits that really ought to be covered (these days, and hereinafter). It was only when I walked in and the first person to spot me greeted me with "so you're still wearing a rugby shirt" I realised what I'd done. I'd gone and walked up there wearing the Cotton Traders shirt I'd over optimistically bought before the last world cup.

Bugger, indeed.

All that remains to be said (once more) is thank whatever the Kiwis were stuffed too.

Well at least I have something to celebrate after this otherwise dismal weekend - my first and multiple stalkers. Yippee.

Would you want to be on this plane?

Both the Wallabies and the All Blacks will be making their way home to the other end of the world after today's proceedings at the World Cup, which France is hosting. Would you want to be on the plane carrying them?

In some contexts I'm prepared to support the Kiwis against all comers when we're not involved, but not in rugby. In rugby they can stand on their own two feet.

Any ho. Bulldogs maul wallabies and cockerels pluck kiwis. At least 'Boks are still in the tournament, so I have someone to support - whoever they're playing.

Yoda special

Yoda's night to cop the flack with this post.

Happily I've developed the knack of fending her off by entering into what are on my part at least entirely bogus bonding moments. Such as that which we shared over The Lake House which, IMHO, is one of the saddest squanderings of however minutes it consumed of my life I've ever wasted. What a total pile of drivel. Keanu Reeves is quite fine in Speed and was quite OK in the first of the Matrix trilogy. And apart from that?* And I haven't been able to stomach that woman in anything she's been in apart from Speed.

I've digressed.

Yoda thinks the film wonderful, so I enthused over it. And terrible actress that I am yet she is so dim she failed utterly to see through the sham. She thinks we're soul mates.

Just as well as we had to spend yesterday evening in one another's company. Dealing with irate customers who have sons who have paid over the odds for their bananas and young antipodeans who've had parking warning notices gaffer taped to their vehicles because they've used our (2 hour max.) car park as their parking lot - being too tight fisted to pay the going rate to pay in the railway station car park. Probably New Zealanders. Between them Stroppy Mum and Bolshie Kiwi kept her out of my hair for a good hour and a half.

Thank you. Though I could have done without having to endure her wittering "Oh God, why do I get them?" interminably.

*On a point of order here I must concede that KRs performance in Much Ado About Nothing was marginally less terrible than that of Denzil (Am I Not Fabulous?) Washington. That doesn't make him a good actor. And neither was a bad in that film as Michael Keaton who was so awful he was wonderful, being so quite utterly shakespearean in his awfulness. And he wasn't as bad as Branagh's ex-wife in whom, as an actress, I've yet to discover a redeeming feature. But she, unfortunately, wasn't entertainingly awful.

Kiwi Fruit

If they can no longer be satirised what possible point can New Zealand politicians possibly have?

PS. this was norty of me. I am a bad girl - being a stereotypically bullying Aussie towards our trans-Tasman cousins who are, of course, magnificent rugby players and devoted to their many, many sheep.