V8 Supercars is marketing the COTF in 2013 as the half way point between DTM and NASCAR, which really continues the same philosophy that began in the early 1990s. The V8s really need to get a bit quicker, which I think the COTF will provide. Hope they don’t lose the ability for pre and in-race engineering trickery.

If some of the All Blacks persist in ending this latest version of the haka with a throat-slitting motion, they will be using a very big stage to remind people the Maoris once engaged in unspeakable conduct, which we don’t discuss any more. I’ll simply allude to this by quoting the journal of Captain James Cook: ”There was not a man aboard Endeavour who, in the event of the ship’s breaking up, would not have preferred to drown rather than be left to the mercy of the Maoris.”…..the violence suggested by throat-slitting gestures has no place in sport or sportsmanship, especially in the national colours.

It is a highly offensive gesture in any culture and had no place in Rugby – a sport that is becoming more global and crossing more cultures. I don’t know why the ABs are even allowed to perform the haka and enjoy their national anthem. They should be made to pick between either of the two.

We did not play our natural game and the coach has to take the blame for this. If we are going to lose we may as well have done it on our terms. The drop goal in the 1st half by the Wallabies was a symbol of what type of game we were playing. I cannot recall the last time a Wallaby did that right on the opposition’s try line. Barnes is the only good in-game kicker we have, yet Quade Cooper and Genia would aimlessly kick into the NZ half whenever we got the ball and the ABs would high ball it back to us straight away. We failed to counter this.

The coach told the Wallabies to play this stale ‘kick-first’ style. We didn’t play the type of style in winning the tri-nations or our two world cups. What on earth made the coaching staff think we could win playing a completely different style of game for this world cup?

While easy to criticise, to be fair to Quade Cooper our forwards did not provide him and our back line with a platform to attack effectively. Our scrum let us down again. The number 8 has to take responsibility – Samo kept coming up too early. Once again this seemed like coach orders. Nevertheless, Barnes would have been a more stable option at fly-half than Quade Cooper if we were going to play a kick and see game.

Scott Higginbotham should have come off the bench. Many pundits have written about this numerous times. I don’t want to re-hash this issue here.

In total though I don’t think our players are as rugby smart and aware as our players of yesteryear. For instance, in the final 5 minutes of the game we were on the AB’s try line in the corner of the field with our forwards trying to muscle the ball over the line. We chewed up about 3 minutes doing that. Even if we had scored it would have been a tall order to kick the conversion on that angle. By the time we spread the ball to our backs it was too late. Genia failed badly in that regard.

The Wallabies deserved to win. South Africa had the ball for most of the game but couldn’t break our line. A team that can’t score with all that possession does not deserve to go to the semi-finals. We earned it.

Furthermore, parts of the NZ commentary were thoroughly biased against Australia. Are they worried about what comes next?

UPDATE

It was ugly, though not as bad as the RWC 1995 encounter.

Four Corners reporter Quentin McDermott investigates the strategy and the people used by Football Federation Australia (FFA) in its failed bid to win the right to host the biggest sporting event on the globe. Talking to insiders who have never spoken at length about the World Cup bid, he asks how $42 million of taxpayers’ money was spent to win just one vote from football’s international governing body FIFA.

The FFA receives $35m annually from tax-payers to help it operate. The ARU in 2010 received $300k. Unlike the ARU, the FFA’s financial statements are not published. I wonder why?

Channel 9′s decision not to show the RWC live on one of its alternative channels speaks volumes of 9′s desire to kill the RWC in Australia to protect the NRL. It also does not say too much of the ARU’s decision to let 9 have the free to air broadcast rights.

Tonight is England vs Argentina, a delayed broadcast at 10:30pm after two NRL finals. Once again 9 is not going to broadcast the game on any of its alternative channels. The situation is farcical.

UPDATE

All the games so far have been pretty competitive. Even the Namibians gave a good showing for themselves against Fiji with a couple of tries, although they let themselves down in the final 5 minutes. In fact that seems to be the main problem with the weaker sides, they struggle in the final minutes of the game. Tonga had a great second half against NZ, or more to the point Taumalolo had a great game when he came on. He single handily destroyed the NZ scrum.

UPDATE II

Noticed that the stadium for the NRL games on Channel 9 last night were basically empty.

UPDATE III

Watching Channel 9, we just got a dose of sports betting odds for the Australia Italy game. Basically a paid ad dressed up as some type of informed commentary – an info commercial. For Channel 9 some things never change. They can’t help themselves.

UPDATE IV

More Channel 9 programming skulduggery. The Australia Ireland game will not be shown live, instead Australia’s Funniest Home Videos, The Antiques Roadshow and something called Mighty Joe Young will take precedence. All to protect the NRL and their empty stadium games.

Been running the numbers on the NRL final and RWC games. On average, the points difference between NRL final games has so far been 21, but at the RWC it has only been 17 points. That is more remarkable given that the RWC awards more points to the attacking team than NRL. This seems to indicate that the RWC has so far been more competitive than the NRL finals, and that the minnows are slowly catching up to the bigger countries. Having said that the USA now has more registered rugby players than Australia, and with the re-admission of Rugby into the Olympics player numbers around the world will only grow along with the competition.

BTW, there are technical issues at my place which stop me from getting Foxtel, so I can’t comment on the Foxtel experience. I hear it is pretty good.

UPDATE V

No terrorists at the RWC.

NRL chief executive David Gallop has been forced to apologise after using a terrorist analogy to describe the Melbourne fans who booed him on the weekend.

UPDATE VI

Australia and the USA now have more senior male rugby players than NZ.

John Key made no effort – where are the signatures! The All Blacks jersey looks like it just came out the packet. Key still has the price label on it. Poor form. Probably an early indication of how the All Blacks will go this World Cup.

Maybe JGill is trying to channel a bit of John Howard.

Australia is safe, free and prosperous when it is run by rugby supporters.

Notice how Channel 9 have slow replays of the brawl. Says a good deal about 9′s target auidence. From this weekend as well:

I don’t care about League, so my only question is: what are the ARU thinking in allowing 9 to broadcast the Tri-Nations and Rugby World Cup?

….there’s no room for Williams in the 22 to play Australia in a match that will decide the Tri Nations title and provide both teams to stamp their authority on the eve of the World Cup.

And that could be a sign of the future.

Williams has drifted well behind Ma’a Nonu in the pecking order for the No.12 jersey now and if he can’t get a start, there just doesn’t appear to be the room for him on the bench.