Torn between Edendales Crank Up day and Invercargills Highlander game
January 25th, 2008, 6:34 pm Hobbies News
Forgive me for being disloyal but I just cant get excited about rugby, especially Super 14. Its January for Gods sake! This is the tennis and cricket season and havent we been treated to some glorious displays across the ditch in both codes.
The Henin-Sharapova and Federer-Blake games this week have been superb viewing, while the Federer-Djokovic semi-final promises to be the match of the tournament. For a gentlemans game you will not see better gladiatorial theatre than the fourth Australian-Indian cricket test at Adelaide.
The problem rugby faces is, by comparison, its just plain boring.
Where do I start? The season starts too early, finishes too late with too many games against the same old teams. The players often look tired, at best, and bored, at worst. Its now a defense-orientated game and there is no longer a place for men of all shapes and sizes as the Almighty divined when he first suggested we play with an odd-shaped ball.
Hopefully the trialing of new rules will alleviate some of the boredom. For its part, the long-suffering NZRU is to be commended for making an effort to spice up the All Blacks end-of-year tour with mid-week games against the likes of Munster. Now, if we just threw in Llanelli and Newport, wow we would have three mid-week games of real historic significance! So, Im afraid folks, the lure of Edendale, shearing aside, and a few beers with two of my favourite New Zealanders, the Mad Butcher and Dick Tayler, is more fanciful than the footy. Today marks the 34th anniversary of Taylers iconic 10,000 metres triumph at the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games. Tayler will be holding court at the Pioneer Tavern in Edendale tonight. A bloke could do worse than wet his whistle and reminisce with Dick about a bloke who wet his whistle the day before he discovered gold!
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