Archives for "November, 2008"

Posted by Dave on 14th November 2008

r-l-w-c: all fun and games till someone gets poked in the eye

oh errol

Oh, kittens.  The Errol office is so sad at the moment.  It’s semi-finals time in the World Cup, which means that all the teams we met and fell in love with on the footy field are gradually packing up their bags of boomerang souvenirs and VB accessories and heading home.  

Papua New Guinea have been booted after coming fourth in the pool of death. Tonga and Samoa have taken their wardances and gone home. The Frenchies are returning to (a probably frosty reception in) France. Perhaps they can use their wooden spoon to make a nice souffle to cheer themselves up?  I hope so.

And Kiki is busy drying her tears at the moment, but once she manages to stop crying into the keyboard, she’ll also fill you kids in on the Errol trip to the Gold Coast to watch the Irish Wolfhounds play Fiji in the quarter finals, and saying goodbye to our adopted Irish team.  WE MISS YOU ALREADY BABIES.

Sif all that wasn’t bad enough, we also lost Errol favourite Corporal Campese from the Aussie team.


I feel so uncool.
Pic: Ian Hitchcock


In a tres dramatical incident, T Camp was poked in the eye by Neville Costigan in the Australia-PNG match, and had to bow out of the rest of the World Cup.  Poor baby could have gone blind.  I’m not even kidding.  A footy career ended by a poke in the eye.  YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.  

So now it’s all come down to Australia (sans Terry), New Zealand, England … and Fiji.

It feels a bit like the end of holiday camp. All our friends’ parents have come and picked them up already, except because our mum is running late we’re left sitting on the steps with the kids we weren’t even friends with anyway.  Making awkward conversation about if we’re coming back next year, remembering how someone said they wet the bed and we kind of believe that they do.  Avoiding eye contact, exchanging email addresses even though we’re totally never gonna write to each other. 

Sigh.

I’ve think we all know by now I have a problem cheering for the Australian team. Not even seeing Toops and Fitzy on the bench can change that. And now that Baby Hayne has announced that playing for Fiji has changed his life and chased away his demons I am 100% team Fiji.  What’s not to love about a team that can make the semi-finals and provide informal therapy?


Are you there, God? It’s me, Baby Hayne.
Pic: Phil Hillyard


Remember how I called the World Cup a soap opera? Aside from a good demon possession, there was only one thing the cup was missing: a redemption arc, and someone finding God.  DING-DING-DING JACKPOT!  Thanks to Baby Hayne this is now officially the Most Dramatic World Cup Ever. I love it. GO BABY HAYNE, GO!

And really, how can you not love Fiji? This is the team that sings in harmony on the football field. Those bitches are talented.

They also freely admit to being unfit. ME TOO! Athletic ability is totally overrated.

Darren Lockyer says their biggest danger is that they play ad-lib in attack.  ME TOO!  Well, ok, not in ‘attack’ as such.  And not in any sports of any kind.  But I still think planning is totally overrated in general.  I care not for preparation and gameplans.

While we’re talking Locky, he also doesn’t seem to remember who’s in the Fijian team.  This worries me.  Are you feeling ok Darren, baby?  Just the other day you couldn’t remember who was in the English team either.  Has he taken more knocks to the head than I realised?

Pic: Peter Rae


If I’m not mistaken, Daz also turned up to the Fiji-Australia photocall without his shorts.  At least that’s what the Herald says.  Just look at the ones he had to borrow.  Are they … clown shorts? Oh my god, are they CULOTTES?  Green and gold culottes?  Maybe they had them made when they were making Steve Price’s custom green and gold bucket hats.

I am becoming a bit concerned actually that Darren may be losing his damn mind.  If someone doesn’t get him some Omega 3 and write the boy a list of who he plays for and what to bring to the game I honestly think he we might see him run out to play Fiji completely pantsless, play the ball backwards, then accidentally tackle Billy Slater.

And if you think I’m a little harsh on Australia, I apologise.  I know Greg Inglis is all put out that the Kangaroos don’t get enough love

I think we thoroughly deserve the praise that we should be getting but we’re not.

Firstly, that sentence is intense. Is he using the subjunctive? I think he may have created some new kind of grammatical structure.

But also, I’m sorry, Gregory. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, even though you chose to become a dirty Queenslander. You’re right. It is a little bit unfair. And it is a little bit to do with the team being so good.

The Kangaroos are the Roger Federer of rugby league. Too professional, too efficient, too … Swiss. Footy is all about emotion, and the Aussies just don’t give me any at the moment.

But now that I’ve said that … suck it up Inglis. SUCK IT UP. You’re about to (probably) win a World Cup.   You’ve won a premiership and an Origin series. People have called you the best player in Australia.  Um, what more do you want, mate?  So a few people think the team’s boring. At least you didn’t get POKED IN THE EYE.

There is far too much whinging going on and I don’t loike it. Inglis thinks no one loves him (in at least four tenses). England hate the refs. Ade Gardner hates the grapple(don’t we all?)  Benji Marshall is all offended that the English turned their back on the Haka.

 

Can’t we all just take a leaf out of Flossy Nightingale and Sam Perrett’s dayplanner and have a nice waterslide?

Posted by Dave on 11th November 2008

Really? It’s getting embarassing now

Haka england new zealand rugby league
Now England came here with all the usual pomp and circumstance and threats of actually putting out a rugby league team who could do something and they’ve left everyone very much wanting. Throwing away a half time 24 – 8 lead to lose to the Kiwi’s 24 – 26 with some absolute dire defending was just embarassing. They can argue about resting a few players but there certainly wasn’t that much of a lack of first choice calibre that it could really be seen as an excuse.

I could have easily told the England team that Manu Vatuvei was going to run hard down the wings, and surely that would give you an idea that you should stick out on your wingman. But no they all decide to leave him unmarked and get dragged into the middle of the pitch and you’d think that having done it 3 times they’d learn, but no the beast is left to run rampant and put the ball down for 4 and for me that sums up Englands problems at the moment. They are making stupid mistakes and playing the way you’re under 8’s coach would go mad at.
Still there are a lot of apparently world class players in the team, or at least good players, and they should all be playing a lot better and my hope is that they start to do so from next week because otherwise they won’t have another chance at all.
But still there was other rugby on over the past few days and whilst I generally missed the ranking games, a tired Scotland getting battered by Tonga and France putting 42 on Samoa, I actually also missed the PNG Australia game which unsuprisingly saw PNG losing Australia 46 – 6. It ends a bit of a harsh world cup for PNG, having been seeded in the hardest group they never had much of a chance of progressing and the promise of a first game upset against England has since faded with defeats to the Kiwis and the Kangaroos.

To settle the semi final line up, which as far as group A was concerned is much as predicted with Australia topping the group and England and New Zealand playing the other semi final, Fiji took on the suprise package of the tournament the Irish. The wolfhounds lined up against Fiji with no one doubting that they could cause another upset in this tournament but sadly it wasn’t to be. A good performance from the Wolfhounds fizzled out as they went down 30 -14 against the Fijians, still the Irish have had a great world cup and I’m sure they’ll all be pleased.
And finally as usual the FFGRLWC. Now I forgot to send around to say that the semi final qualifier was between samoa and fiji but it’s been played now so it’s a little late. The revised rules are in play from now on  and the weekends results are as follows : 
Ireland 0 – 0 Samoa
(Ireland win as game winners)
Scotland 0 – 26 Fiji
England 46 – 0 New Zealand
Australia 8 – 24 PNG
Semi final qualifier
Samoa 4 – 16 Fiji
Which leaves group A as follows
Pool A

   Pts
 England 6
 Australia 2
NZ
PNG 2

Sadly a PNG win against Australia wasn’t enough to see them through having been beaten 200 -0 in the first game by England.
So it leave the semi finals as:
England v Fiji and Australia v New Zealand
and every 5 group members = 4 points!
(image – gettyimages)

Posted by Dave on 10th November 2008

r-l-w-c w-r-a-p: go you irish, go!

oh errol

So I have an apology to make. There has been no World Cup news from me for aaaages, and I’m sorry kittens. I know, I know, you’re all jonesing. But you see I have been extremely busy doing Important and Urgent things, like giving myself pedicures, buying spangly cardigans from St Vincent de Paul, and getting drunk and going to see Richard E. Grant in My Fair Lady. By the way yes, I LIKE MUSICALS. MUSICALS AND RUGBY LEAGUE. I’m pretty much a renaissance woman.

And now cause I’m sleepy from sunbaking, let’s just go over the important bits, shall we?

AUSTRALIA … NOT LIKABLE ENOUGH FOR A DECENT TITLE


New Zealand played England. Australia played England. England lost. Twice. And the truth is … we didn’t really care.  About any of them.

But I’m kinda starting to think maybe someone has tipped off the Aussie team in particular that the kids here at Errol HQ care not for the Kangaroos, because it seems like those bitches have been working overtime to win us back.

After trying to lure us back by pimping out the adorableness of Prince Scotty the Caramel on the field (… almost worked, but not quite. HI SCOTTY!), they upped the lovable factor by naming Terry Campese in the squad to play Papua New Guinea tonight. Or, as we like to call him, Corporal Campese of the Light Horse.


When we suggested Terry can rock a hat, this isn’t what we had in mind. 

And in what is kind of like the footy equivalent of sewing knives in your suit sleeves or hitting below the belt in boxing, then those crafty bitches went and did this:


DO THE JITTERBUG!


Damn you Kangaroos! LOOK HOW CUTE THAT IS. Four Kangaroos cruisin’ around in their tiny pink jeep, like Derek Zoolander and his freewheeling model pals. Drinking orange mocha frappaccinos. Singing to Wham, frolicking in petrol stations.


 
The only difference is that I’m pretty sure that little pink Jeepy, or mini-moke, or whatever those crazy Queensland folk call it, is working a wholllle lot harder than Derek Zoolander’s Jeep.  That poor little engine is pushing around four International league forwards.  WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CARBON EMISSIONS?  In other news, is Brent Kite throwing gang signs? For serious?

Either way, I’m almost starting to … care. This is horrifying. But fear not children, everything will be ok. Just trust Aunty Sassy and look at the Queenslanders. FOCUS ON THE QUEENSLANDERS.


… gasoline fight!


ABORT ABORT! Ok, I’m back to mild distaste and indifference now. That’s more like it. Let’s have a quick gin and get back to things we actually care about.

THE WOLFHOUNDS GET THEIR ROAR ON 


We’ve been on Team Wolfhound since the World Cup started, and now that the Irish boys have decimated Samoa and topped their pool, everyone else is too. ABOUT TIME, BITCHES. You know it’s lonely out here sometimes, being totally cutting edge like we are. *flicks hair*

And WE ARE SO PROUD OF OUR MANS. Not just because that was some fucking entertaining footy, but because they had a blinder.  WE KNEW YOU COULD DO IT, BABIES.  Pat Richards grounded three tries, and kicked enough goals that I’m actually rethinking whether the Irish will have to bring in some kind of Priest to exorcise the bad spirits from his goal-kicking Leg of Doom.

As we suspected, Wayne Kerr is a foolproof good luck charm whenever he’s named in the team.  At the very least he has a 100% success rate so far.

And everyone’s favourite hot ginge (sorry, Prince Harry) Sean Gleeson almost made Kiki spill her drink in excitement when he ran in his try.  We’re only a lil bit sad that we couldn’t make the trek out to sit with the Blarney Army again.  We love those crazy kids.


Disclaimer: may not in fact be Sean Gleeson


I would love to analyse the game for you, but I was a little nervous on the boys’ behalf, and I may have been drunk SO THIS IS WHAT YOU GET. And the end result is that Lozzy, Kiki and Marlo are jetting up to the Gold Coast on Monday night to watch the Errol-approved Wolfhounds take on Fiji for a spot in the semi-finals.

I have a weird feeling that watching the game back at Errol HQ with Intern Danny Wicks and work experience boy Lachie while we hold the fort is gonna be stressful. As if it’s not tricky enough on a normal night trying to make sure Danny Wicks doesn’t eat all the chalk from the stationery cupboard again and deflecting Lachie’s questions about why people call Intern John John ‘hotdog’ and where babies come from. Now I have to choose between our Irish and the Fijians.

HOW CAN YOU CHEER AGAINST BABY HAYNE? It just Doesn’t Seem Right. I also have to make a really tough decision between whether we go for Irish Whiskey or vodka pineapple (my Fiji happy hour drink) for after-work bevvies. My life is so hard.  Perhaps I shall have both.

Posted by Dave on 8th November 2008

Tipping Baby : Rugby League World Cup – week 3

Tipping Baby is doing well this world cup with 70% of his predictions being correct. So week 3 it is, you can click for more to see the full round up.

Week 3 Tips

Scotland v Tonga
New Zealand v England
Samoa v France
Australia v PNG
Fiji v Ireland

Week 2 Tips

Samoa v Tonga
Fiji v France
New Zealand v PNG
Australia v England
Ireland v Samoa
Scotland v Fiji
Week 1 Tips 
England v PNG
Scotland v France
Australia v New Zealand
Tonga v Ireland

Posted by Dave on 6th November 2008

It’s good to be green

Ireland fans, world cup samoa
It certainly is good to be green, or at least an Ireland rugby league supporter as they pulled out the suprise result of the competition so far, not just beating Samoa but topping the group and getting to the semi final qualifier to face the Fijians for a place to play against Australia.
They needed to win by 6 points to top the group and in a great game played a few nights ago they well an truly humbled Samoa with a 34 – 16 win, and it could have been more had Pat Richards turned up with his kicking boots. Despite that Richards still totted up a personally tally of 22 points.

Ireland Samoa
In the other game of the night Fiji lost to the Scotland but with Scotland needing something like a 25 point margin to top the group an 18 -16 victory saw the Fijians advance to play Ireland this weekend whilst the rest of Pool A is decided with England playing New Zealand and Australia playing PNG.
Meanwhile in FFGRLWC the results from last night have been counted and the pools B and C worked out to see who advances to our semi final qualifier.
Ireland 0 – 0 Samoa
(winner Ireland)
Fiji 26 – 0 Scotland
And the groups
Pool B

   Pts
Fiji 4
France 2
 Scotland  0 

Pool C
   Pts
Samoa 2
Ireland 2
Tonga  2
(Samoa top the group with a better points difference)

So the facebook semi final qualifier will be played between Samoa and Fiji.

Posted by Dave on 6th November 2008

Henderson and Bukuya punch up

Well as much as we love a good clean game of rugby league we all love a good punch up as well.
Ian Henderson and Jayson Bukuya have a decent go at each other in the Scotland Samoa game in the week.

Posted by Dave on 4th November 2008

Issac Luke putting in the big hits – New Zealand v PNG World Cup 2008

I think this is amazingly the first clip I’ve found of any big hits this world cup. Issac Luke puts in two good hits with the shoulder against Papua New Guinea.

Posted by Dave on 4th November 2008

Embarrasing England and more Haka-offs

Right before I get onto England Australia, and I was on the verge of not mentioning it and seeing if anyone notices, we’ve had the Aboriginal war dance against the Maori Haka but this week saw another brilliant war dance-off as Tonga met Samoa. Now despite being neighbours in the Pacific it appears the islands don’t like each other that much and the war dance’s were a brilliant way to start the night and build the tension for the game. You can watch the build up in the clip above. 
The game eventually went Samoa’s way and I’ll refrain from a lot of comment because I didn’t see it but apparently it was a good game. I actually missed quite a bit of this weekend’s games, I can’t remember what I was doing Friday but I didn’t see Tonga Samoa, I then saw most of France Fiji, which saw Fiji cause the first upset of the tournament beating France. I really reckoned France would top that group but Fiji pulled out a great performance to put the French down at 42 – 6. Then I didn’t see most of the New Zealand PNG game as I was in a pub in Taupo and there was a Mickey Mouse game of rugby union on against the Aussie’s and unfortunately the general preference over most of New Zealand is for union and not league. But a 48 – 6 drubbing to PNG left little suprise and will no doubt lead to two England New Zealand games over the next two weeks.
But being an England fan I made damn sure I watched the England Australia game and to be honest I should have gone to the cinema or something instead.

Now that’s not to say there wasn’t some good rugby on display, there certainly was, but sadly it was all from the Aussies and England looked like a third or fourth rate nation, not like one with aspirations of taking this trophy to the Northern Hemisphere for the first time in a million years. A record 52 – 4 defeat wasn’t the best and England have looked so poor in this tournament the only good news is it really can’t get much worse.
Still the Aussies are looking very good and you can see the hat trick’s from Billy Slater and Greg Inglis below.

This has of course thrown fuel onto the fire currently buring in “the world cup is pointless” camp. Which is sad really because if you look beyond Australia’s dominance there is actually a great tournament going on and without sounding like a patronising primary school teacher “it’s not the winning it’s the taking part that counts”. I think the layout has done real justice to the tournament so far and as a vehicle for promoting the tournament for those lesser known nations it is really doing a good job. It is also turning out some great games such as the Ireland Tonga game. It is unfortunate that everyone else looks so far off the pace of the Australia team but I am holding out some hope that England can turn themselves round and give the Aussies a game should they meet them in the final. But my word to all those world cup doubters is to look beyond Australia and enjoy the games and action of the rest of the tournament.
Anyway the final games of pools B and C are played tomorrow 
Ireland v Samoa
Scotland v Fiji
and I will try and go my best to not be busy and miss everything this time.
And finally we move onto FFGRLWC and thankfully the English are better are doing things on facebook than playing rugby at least. Once we progress onto the knock out rounds the rules will change for scoring tries to be as follows : 
Tries will be scored for a certain number of members joined as follows : 
Semi-final qualifier : 1 try for every 3 members
Semi-finals : 1 try for every 5 members
Final : 1 try for every 7 members
And this weeks results and tables below : 
Samoa 4 – 0 Tonga
Fiji 8 – 0 France
New Zealand 0 – 0 PNG (New Zealand win on actual result rule)
England 78 – 40 Australia
Which leaves the tables looking like this :
Pool A

   Pts
 England 4
 Australia 2
NZ
PNG

Pool B

   Pts
Fiji 2
France 2
 Scotland  0 

Pool C

   Pts
Samoa 2
Tonga 2
Ireland  0