I See Red

Virtual Rugby

Had my best season yet with the Super 14 Virtual Rugby.  Ended up 2389 out of over 125,000 players. 

Crusaders win Super 14

The Crusaders have won another Super 14 final - their 7th Super 14 (and Super 12) victory.  The key strength of the Crusaders is that they are a champion team, not a team of champions - a lesson that Graham Henry should learn.  Henry has a lot of talent to choose from in NZ rugby.  But sometimes experience, and game familiarity with other players is worth more than individual talent.  Judge for yourself whether Henry and the All Black selectors have selected a champion team or a team of champions.

I had my best virtual Super 14 yet.  After trailing Chris Hipkins throughout the year, I caught up with him in the final week.  We both ended up on 468 points, place 2174 out of over 146,000 players.

Crusaders in Super 14 Final - again

The Canterbury Crusaders have made another Super 14 final: their 9th final in 13 years of the super 14 (super 12 pre 2006).  They have won the competition 6 times, of the 8 finals they have reached.  Of course, much of the credit must go to coach Robbie Deans (coach since 2000), who the New Zealand Rugby Union unfortunately rejected as All Black's coach (he will instead be coaching our main rivals, Australia).

This season has been my best Telecom Virtual Super 14 result - I currently have 460 points and am ranked 2612 out of over 145,000 players.  I've been chasing Chris Hipkins (and slowing catching him!) who currently has 463 points and is ranked 1892.

Crusaders kick-ass

Apart from the first five minutes the Force were never in the game.  It was a fantastic game to watch at Jade Stadium.  I was expecting it to be a close game given the Force are number three on the table and Australia's top team.  But the Crusaders just tore them to pieces.  It was an extremely skillful performance from the Crusaders - awesome to watch.

There has been a major upset at the World Cup with Bangladesh beating South Africa.  While this is a big deal, I don't think it will impact upon who will be in the top four.  Australia should be able to put the final nail in England's coffin tonight/tomorrow.  It does increase New Zealand's chances of being in the top two though, which means we might not need to play Australia in a semi.

NZ should make top four

Todays match (England v Sri Lanka) was a close one.  England needed 3 runs off the last ball - but instead Fernando bowled Bopara out for a Sri Lanka win.

By my calculations that now means that from the remainder of the games the likely outcome (unless there is a major upset)

Team           Min points        Max points

Australia           10                   14
New Zealand       8                    14
Sri Lanka            6                   12
South Africa       8                    12
England              4                     8
West Indies        4                     6
Ireland               2                     2
Bangladesh        0                      0

Therefore the top four team should be Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, and South Africa.  The only way New Zealand won't make the top four is if New Zealand loses all of its remaining matches, and England wins all of its remaining matches.

New Zealand still has to play Ireland (which we should win - enough to get us into the final 4), Sri Lanka, South Africa and Australia.  I would hope that we would also win at least one of those three matches.

England still has to play Bangladesh, South Africa and West Indies.  They should win two of those.

So (touch wood) it is all looking ok.  However, the Black Caps are often a mixed bag of brilliant and disastrous, so I'm not counting any chickens yet...

Amazing Game

I take back what I've been saying about McMillan - his last couple of games have been match winners.  I left work at 7.10pm and things didn't look good at 41/4.  By the time I arrived at the airport things were looking a little better on 155/5.  I was even more surprised to find the score at 280/5 when I hopped off the plane at Wellington at 9pm.  The airport was deserted apart from me and about 20 others huddled around the screen watching the game.  And what a fantastic game it was.  To kick Australia 3 zip in such a stylish way (defeating them by 10 wickets for the first time ever and then overhauling our biggest scores against them twice in a row) was pretty special.  It certainly opens up the World Cup competition a little more.

The difference one person can make

Finally Jacob Oram was brought back into the Black Cap teams and made the difference between victory and defeat in last nights game.  Now they just need to get Styris back into the team, sort out and stick with a top batting order, and calm down on the rotation policy and we might be in with a chance against Australia.

Go Black Ferns

The Black Ferns are on target for a threepeat at the Rugby World Cup for women.  They have made it through to the final.   This is a big deal (not that you would know it from the poor reporting of female sports in New Zealand).

Info on the Women's Rugby World cut is available here.  Info on Black Ferns here.  IRB website is here.