And I can now face intentionally talking about sport and rugby in particular!

Prior to my return to the Fern (I don't think I'd posted since October 6th) I'd not seen a single rugby match and barely a highlight for three weeks. It must be the lure of S14 squads being named in a couple of days but I'm starting to get my footy mojo back.

Phew. It wasn't that I was deliberately avoiding rugby and don't begrudge South Africa's glory in any way, I just dramatically lost interest in a split second, following four years of steadily increasing anticipation, amplified by (it now seems) exalted expectations of the All Blacks' performance levels.

At approximately the same moment as a severely troubled Voltman (not sure if it was the result or the large bag of shrimp crackers and fizzy drink he'd consumed for brekky, to be fair) left my lounge at around 10am on October 6th, I became in essence a rugby philistine.

Temporarily. But not before a handful of fairly vitriolic posts directed largely at Mr Wayne Barnes and to a lesser degree the AB selectors and a couple of dubious selections.

Now I've taken the time to do plenty of thinking about the game. That couldn't be helped. Reminders have been everywhere. I've absorbed many columns from David Moffett, Grant Fox, David Kirk, Phil Gifford, Wynne Gray and many others. I've chatted briefly to some other ordinary punters. I've formed my own conclusions.

For those of you who have read enough (and forgive me but I'm not going to scan through three weeks of topics and posts to see how many like spiels there have been), don't read on. For those of you who still somehow have some perverse interest in yet another opinion on what went wrong, please read on.

In no particular order:

1. There was little wrong with the rotation system, it just should have been shelved after 2006. I don't care what anyone says, no-one was complaining about it when we cruised through a Grand Slam with two separate and equally as effective test teams in late 2005. I would very much like for some media commentators who have since poured scorn on it to please, please, dig out their columns from November 2005 when they questioned the system and offered an alternative approach.

2. There was a lot wrong with the reconditioning window. Aside from a storming finish to beat the eventual RWC 2007 champs on their own turf earlier in the season, we saw no benefit come from it at all. It fucked up the S14 for NZ and gifted a confidence boost to SA and we still suffered injuries to Carter and McCaw when we needed them firing most. A handful of players would have no doubt required 'managing' through the season's workload, but the majority would have been better off with consistent match play.

3. The top XV needed to be played (as much as fitness would permit) throughout the 2007 internationals in order to build combinations and to give second tier players something to seriously play for.

4. The top XV simply had to be played vs France. Comments from Henry himself indicate he seriously thought France would simply be another match we could coast through with a less than full strength XV, like we had in the last few years in most NH tests, home matches vs NH nations and home tests vs SA. It was a fucking knock-out match. If Robinson wasn't the best choice to start and was just starting to get him into some sort of nick, then he shouldn't have. If Mauger and Howletts' experience was deemed in the slightest bit useful - and it may well have been - they should have started.

5. Wayne Barnes. We can roll out all the platitudes we like about selection, rotation, rest and reconditioning, luxury hotels, match preparation, the psychological effect of the England v Australia result etc etc etc, but at the end of the day, the referee committed some thoroughly , utterly, inept errors. The only New Zealander in the world who should be in any way happy about or satisfied by Barnes' performance, is Paul Honiss, because finally there is a ref who makes him look competent.

6. Let's stop trying to educate the world in how to play flowing rugby at World Cups, and just play tight, fairly boring rugby if that's what's required to win World Cups. Entertainment at RWCs? Fuck that. I'd rather be dour and win a couple more. That includes key players practicing kicking dropped-goals. We have this ideal that we will take another RWC by storm like in 1987 and to a lesser degree 1995 and blitz the world with our running rugby and change the face of the game forever. We can do that between RWCs thank you. When the time comes, show another game plan if need be.

7. I never, ever, want to hear a RWC match losing All Black state that he didn't feel we were at any point of the match in trouble. You fucking what now, you fucking tool?????????

I think that covers it and it's pretty much all out of my system.