Much improved
Well, a far better effort from the AB’s tonight, with a much needed win over France, 14-10. A collective sigh went up around the country. Except I fail to understand why Piri Weepu kicked the ball out on fulltime when the opportunity to go for the try was right there, and would have meant we retained the Dave Gallaher Cup, having to win by 6 or more points. Did the coach forget to tell him it wasn’t just the win we needed? Say goodbye to another piece of silverware. A little ironic that it ends up on French soil, where Dave Gallaher lost his life in WW1. Oh well, it’s an ugly trophy anyway :p
Would be nice if the rugby commentators got their facts straight too. “With the win in Dunedin, the French have got one hand on the trophy already.” Um, actually, no. Last week’s game wasn’t the challenge match. Whether we had won or lost it, would have made no difference to the cup challenge. There can be only one challenge match during a test series, and this week’s game was it.
Back to the win however, it was nice to see a team playing with more fire, more passion, more pride and more confidence than last week. Mils lead by example, Keven Mealamu had an awesome game overall, Nonu finally woke up and remembered how to play with spirit, Brad Thorn made a heroic try-saving tackle, and how good was Kieran Read at No. 8? Definitely my man of the match, and hopefully that shut some critics up.
I still think Jimmy Cowan is an arrogant ass, his game does nothing for me (and sing the fucking anthem, you ignorant little shit), and Stephen Donald seriously needs to go back to club rugby and practise kicking. Or take up another sport. His kicking was just horrible to watch. What was Graham Henry thinking, leaving him on till the 62nd minute? With so few tries being scored, we simply cannot afford to miss so many kicks. It could well have been the difference between a win or loss tonight, luckily, thanks to the swirling Wellington wind, the opposition weren’t having the greatest luck there either.
On to next week, and Italy in Christchurch.

