Posts by Tom Semmens
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Pffft. Taranaki? They've got a stoopid cow as a mascot and they all marry their cousins over there.
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Just as the herald finished air-brushing out Trotsky, along comes editingtheherald with the original negative.
No wonder APN hate that site!
That little bit of revelation alone should qualify the site for a nomination for a Qantas Media Award, or failing that a mention in dispatches on Media Watch this Sunday.
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Well to be brutal Kyle, the questions of failure are for those who have failed to answer. Keeping a better organisation, better team and more enthusiastic fan base out because it all seems to hard for the losers to work out what to do next is not a good way to make decisions.
The whole issue would be avoided if the best Air New Zealand Cup teams played in the Super 14. using a draft system would ensure top players could be farmed out to the successful Air NZ Cup teams. Such a policy would have seen Super Rugby in Invercargill, Tauranga and Napier.
Much more to the point, there would be no Super Rugby at all in Dunedin, Hamilton and Auckland in 2009.
But really, is the long term interests of rugby in New Zealand REALLY served by jaded and listless Aucklanders, and moaning Dunedinites? Sure, the Chiefs did well this season in making the final but really their performance in the finals showed they flattered to deceive.
I think a Super 14 season this year of an empty Eden Park and Waikato Stadium and Carisbrook would act as exactly the sort of real, sharp, kick in the pants administrators and fans occassionally need to stop them taking their privileged position in NZ rugby for granted. And the sort of enthusiasm and excitement Super Rugby would bring when they games were played in Southland or BOP or Hawke's Bay would be quite a tonic to rugby in this country IMHO.
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And the Highlanders will be screwed if they can't import half the Hawkes Bay Air NZ cup team. Something has to give.
It should be the Higlanders who are dumped. Their Super 14 team is our poorest performer and their Otago Air NZ Cup team has consistantly performed poorly. They have small crowds and those who do turn up seem to moan all the time. In contrast,Hawke's Bay rugby is on an absolute high right now. Support and enthusiasm is at an all-time high. They've built a flash new stand and upgraded their lights. No one will moans about the cost of the new stand and they'd pack out their stadium every week. If you include Palmerston North, they've a bigger population than Otago to draw on and the weather for night rugby is better as well.
No one has a absolute right to host a professional franchise, change to an area which is more enthusiastic and more united behind their team can only be good for rugby.
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Having said that though, I don't support the bid. I think our player resources are stretched as it is and New Zealand cannot support six franchise teams.
The get rid of a non-performer like the Highlanders and give someone else a go.
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Yes, the new Air NZ Cup looks good at first blush.
Also, what the devil - Hawke's Bay want their own Super rugby team!
This bid will be a good test of whether or not the NZRFU is open to different ideas and approaches. I am not hopeful since they track record indicates they have a bad "not invented here" syndrome.
My spies tell me a very large sponsor has been lined up if this gets the nod. The team already has 12 Super 14 players one of whom is a recent All Black. Indeed it is heady to imagine that Hawke's Bay will start as favourites against Auckland at McLean Park next Saturday, but Auckland's provincial team is loaded with no-name club players. Hawkes Bay are well coached and if they have the money then they can easily attract the additional players to be 100% competitive.
I've always thought the best solution to the Super 14 teams is to have the top five provincial teams plus, say, a draft of up to five out of province players to allow All Blacks who miss out to play in the Super Competition.
McLean Park has a flash new stand and can apparently now hold 24,000 people. I've heard capacity estimates for the ground as low as 12,000 and but I've been to games there when the crowd was around the 25,000 mark and the place is packed to the rafters. But that was a long time ago and I doubt the modern control freaks of rugby admin would be comfortable with creaky temporary stands and milling throngs of excitable fans but metres from the touchlines.
Which brings me to...
I heard Walsh and thought a lot was nostalgic rubbish.
I agree. he clearly never saw an Otago pack in the full flight with bits of flesh, clumps of mud and pieces of shirts flying out the back of the ruck in a passable impression of a tree mulcher. Or the unsportsmanlike, loathsome thuggery of Alex Wylie's Canterbury team.
But I also think a lot of professional sport is a little like watching porn. It sorta looks like what you and your fellow amateurs do up and down the country every week, but the bodies look odd and no one is smiling much.
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Maybe, Tom, you should take a deep breath before you come across as a patronising, sexist arse.
Given the general level of vitriol from others here being directed at Abblet-Kerr, I am not entirely sure where you got patronising from.
And sexist? What little dark corner did you dredge up that from? Criticising a female is sexist?
What planet do you live on - oh... wait... it IS you Craig.
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by her (then) LA Law type grandstanding.
This is another reason cameras need to be removed from our courts, pronto. It was clear that the Bain defense team were playing with one eye to the gallery out there in TV land. Ablett-Kerr was also playing it to the house - why? Who knows, maybe it is as simple as she can't can't control her ego. But in high profile cases, expect more and more the first trial to be played out on the six o'clock news, with one eye on making sure if there is a retrial/appeal, you win the P.R. battle first.
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Because you are squealing about the horror of it and you have it within your power to turn it off.
So you enjoyed it did you? I suppose you must be the TVNZ base, in both meanings of the word?
I did turn it off. I try and keep a sense of decency and sense of still being able to shocked by bad things. It is why I don't watch much TV anymore. I refused to watch any of the trial. Like others here, the bits I was involuntarily subjected to in the background noise of my life were enough to turn my stomach.
But you know - thee comes a time when you've just had enough of the ratings driven holocaust we are subjected to every night. Like it or not, TVNZ and TV3 are still the primary sources of news and information for most New Zealanders. The utter abdication of any sense of morals or even ethical responsibility by television news in this country means as far as I am concerned they've got no more right to be in our courts than a Mr. Whippy van.
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Tom, use the 'Off' button (on your tv...)
Why should I have to?