Sports rant

If this side can stay fit, I think next year we will have a pretty competitive team. I just hope that our top 8 chances won't come down to a point's differential. If so, all this great form will amount to an early holiday.

So while the Warriors are proving they can play some decent footy for a change, the All Blacks have taken on the role of incompetent lollygaggers of late.

Their Sydney match against Australia is probably the worst I have ever seen the men in black play. Sloppy tackles, poor backing up, turnovers, and don't get me started on handling errors. Was there even one occasion that Lauaki didn't drop the ball? I have always thought Lauaki made an okay bench player, but now I'm not so sure. I am still unable to believe that Elsom try.

While I'm bitching, can someone please give me an explanation as to why Somerville and Woodcock were (at the same time!) continually standing on the wings while Andy Ellis was often forced to be the blower-overer at ruck time? I can understand why we sometimes don't contest lineouts, but not contesting rucks is a new tactic in my book (out now at all good booksellers, only $39.99) which makes about as much sense as a defensive bomb (another tactic we tried).

Did the props really think that their chance to outrun the Aussie backs is more important than securing the ball? Even on the occasions when we did manage to retain possession and the ball made it wide to the big men, they would only ever make a few metres before being chopped down by the solid defence.

The really sad thing is that our backs were all over theirs, and if only our forwards had done their job right, we would have carved them up. But alas, we didn't. Carter, Muliaina, and Sivivatu were all impressive, and the rest weren't bad either. The Aussie backline without Mortlock was weak, and too often we broke through it. But once we did, there was no support to back it up. Maybe it was a lack of leadership, but there was absolutely no structure to our game plan and we often resembled the Warriors of old; just passing and hoping.

Perhaps the reason as to why I am so angry is that I know we are so much better than Australia, and if we had played half-decent, we would have won. I was okay after the loss to South Africa as their forward pack and defence are awesome and our forwards were comparatively inexperienced. SA deserved to win and we would grow from the loss. But this time we may as well have been drunk on the field.

So as it stands, my high All Blacks hopes have been stampeded upon, and my low Warriors hopes have been filled with helium and sent to Venus. Ergo, I am torn. Why can we only have one successful oval ball team? And when will the natural order of balance return to our winter codes?