The Spineless Jellyfish Award: The New Zealand Top Order Batsmen
A limp-wristed batting effort the likes of which Bangladesh can only look down on in awe. 45/5 and 28/6. About as much use as me & Bart opening the batting with Mingster at first drop.  

“Oh! But the pitch was oh so tough! Bleat, Sook!”
“But the new-ball was seaming about so nastily! Whinge, Wail!”
“Oh but we need a new-ball watchman! Sob, Cower!”

Really?

- Didn’t both teams have to bat on the same pitch? 
-   Did you all have to flail maniacally outside the offstump in the second innings when you had over a day and a half left to bat?

There seems to be little genuine grit in these guys - admittedly outside of Hamish Marshall in the second innings. They’re all interested in easy runs and not prepared to fight the same way that the likes of a John Wright or a Steve Waugh would have. Sir John Wright was never the prettiest batsman to watch, but he always fought tenaciously for his wicket – just the approach needed on a dodgy pitch where Oram was the only batsman to be completely sawn-off by the state of the pitch. And as for the concept of a new-ball watchman… ARRRGAHHH! Can we replace our entire top 6 with Jason Gillespie if that’s the path we’re going to go down? Which brings me to:  

Fluky Bugger Award: Jason Gillespie.
Actually, that’s a bit unfair as the Ex-Mullet is a hard working player and a doggedly annoying batsman, but you can bet the likes of Mark Waugh and David Boon had the odd rueful thought about retiring before the Bangles came on the scene - given Gillespie now has a higher top test score than them!

The Infuriatingly Predictable Bloke Award: Stephen Donald
Cometh the ball, cometh a chargedown. Enough said.

The “We seek him here, we seek him there” Award: Sitiveni Sivivatu
Where does he go on cover defence, and why does he stop so soon?

I was originally going to call this the Lazy Bugger award but then it would have had to be awarded to Donsteppa and Willie the Weka for threatening regular  weekly articles but not following through. “Dump: The Writers” anyone?  

The Ping-Pong Award:
Goes to Super 14 sides with the ball in hand. Hurrah! Another misdirected midfield bomb!! I bet the opposition fullback never guessed that one was coming!

Right, bored with awards now, so some concluding random thoughts on the Crusaders and the Warriors:

The Crusaders:
I suspect like most people I’m still trying to figure out what the hell happened there on Friday night. Looked like way too much complacency in the Crusaders ranks, and I also recall Bart saying at the start of the season that the Crusaders lacked depth in their tight five stocks. Seems you were bang on the money there Mr. BartMan…

The Warriors:
Two points on the ladder and no-longer last! Keep aiming for that 8^th spot and make sure that Rueben Wiki and Stephen Price never, ever, EVER get injured…

That’s enough till I’m next out of the asylum. All resulting Brickbats, Bombs, and Beatings can be administered on the Forum.