Newsgroups: rec.sport.rugby
Subject: Re: Otago beats North Harbour
From: K.Spagnolo@massey.ac.nz (Ken Spagnolo)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 01:58:22 GMT
Organization: Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
X-Reader: NETNEWS/PC Version 2c

In article: <1992Sep29.023602.17429@cs.aukuni.ac.nz> awil2@cs.aukuni.ac.nz
(Andrew Willmott) writes:

>> ...Various rantings from an Otago supporter...

>You're a pretty sad lot from the south island, aren't you! When you take more
>pleasure from seeing another team get beaten than seeing your own team win,
>well, you must have a fairly large chip on the shoulder. As for Aucklanders
>being arrogant, if the net had seen one tenth of the excited comment from us
>that we get from canterbury and otago supporters every time their team wins,
>the whinging from you lot could be heard from the Chatham Islands.

I think, Andrew, that you'll find the pleasure was felt everywhere south of
Manukau and north of the Auckland Harbour Bridge! Those of us at the Manawatu-
Taranaki game on Saturday were given any updates of the score from the
Auckland-Waikato game, but I'm sure if we had, there would have been an
enormous cheer ringing around the Manawatu Showgrounds. BTW this sort of 
thing (big city bashing) goes on around the country. Teams like Manawatu and
Wairarapa-Bush love to deal to those Wellington wussies, or West Coast knock
the stuffing out of those Canterbury blouses! :-)
  
>Lets face it, Auckland's track record over the past few years has given you
>the perfect chance to moan and whine and complain. Auckland rugby is boring!
>Their grip on the shield is killing the game! Fox is as useless as udders on
>a bull! :-) You've only got to pull on an Auckland jersey, and you can walk
>straight into the All Blacks! The Auckland players should have played five
>games the day before, and have both hands tied behind their back when playing
>a shield game to give other team a better chance! Ok, so that last one sounds
>*extremely* arrogant, but it seems to be the natural extension of some of the
>things I've heard from the south. How about, and this is a really radical
>concept, beating Auckland by being the better team on the day! Just like
>Waikato!

Seems fairly logical to me! :-)

>And then there's Bill Taylor who seems to find it necessary to label us as
>characters out of The Lord of the Rings! :-) Bizarre!

>Aucklanders know perfectly well how good/bad their team is. If you'd listened
>to the local 1ZB coverage of the match (ok, so it's difficult from America :-)
>you would have heard Murray Deaker predicting that Auckland would lose that
>afternoon. We've had so many shield games over the last few months that even
>ardent fans are getting sick of it all. God knows how the players must feel.


>At least we've finally got to the stage where Otago, Nth Harbour and Waikato
>are as good as or better than Auckland. Next season promises to be an excellent
>one.
 
This one ain't over yet!

>Andrew

>N.B. My personal opinion is that we should scrap the shield altogether. We've
>got semifinals and finals in the national league now, so what's it good for?
>It's not really an indicator of the best team in the country, and in my view
>it's a weight around the neck of the holding team. Comments?

Rubbish! Sure it's great we've got a strong league now, but let's not go
chucking tradition out the window. If Auckland don't want the shield then it
should be given to a team who woul hold it with pride. What about giving it
to a team like Manawatu? :-) 
-- 
+--- Andrew Willmott ------------- awil2@cs7.cs.aukuni.ac.nz ---+
|  Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job?         |
|  A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. |
+---------------------------------------------- Auckland, NZ ---+

Predictions for the Weekend:

1st division: Otago by 3.

2nd division: Counties by 3.

3rd division: Horowhenua by a TKO.

Rob
-- 
Ken Spagnolo - Ph: +64-6-350-5160
Systems Programmer, Network Support, Usenet Admin, etc.