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Written by His Bobness
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Tuesday, 12 June 2007 |
What is all this nonsense about the All Black -Canada game being a non-event?
Like many others rugby fans, I have vivid childhood memories of of filling school scrapbooks with Bryan Williams' exploits and listening to All Black matches against obscure South African provincial sides on a transistor radio under the pillow late at night. Put simply, if your early years were enriched with such experiences of the All Blacks, the magic never leaves you.
Just this last weekend, I was away in the NSW wop-wops in the middle of a raging gale and staying in a rented house with no Fox Sports (in fact now power at all). Firstly, I had to encourage my AFL-besotted mate that a live telecast of an All Black test was worth venturing out for. Having done that, we had to convince the women folk that we could leave them with the kids for a couple of hours. That achieved, we scoured the storm-ravaged countryside and found an old fishing club that had Fox Sports on. Then we had to persuade the surly Bartender to switch over from Mungo-ball to the All Black-France test.
Our determination paid off. A few rusted-on NRL fans gathered around to watch and seemed to enjoy the whole experience. During the haka, I heard one of them say to his mate: "Those Kiwis, tough bastards". After Joe Rockoko's second try, another was heard to say "Jeez, they want the World Cup badly don't they?" And when the ninth try was scored, another Aussie voice rang out above the (now) multitudes surrounding the TV set to say "Guess that's their form of payback for the Rainbow Warrior".
This is a long-winded way of saying that it doesn't matter where the game is being played, what time it is being played or who the opposition is; if the All Blacks are on the field, it is worth watching. Even the Aussies will tell you that.
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