Northern Roller Mills Rugby

The Northern Roller Mills rugby tournament was held in the first week of the end of term holidays this year at Wesley college in Counties Manakau. It is an annual tournament for the finest under 13 year old players on the top of the North Island for the weight category of under 55kgs. The nine teams in participation were: Waikato, Auckland East, Auckland West, Northland, Counties Manakau (tournament hosts), Thames Valley, King Country and North Harbour.

I was part of the Waikato squad this year and we had a great time, we lost our first pool match against North Harbour but after that we had a winning streak but it wasn't enough to secure a victory in the semi final. We came up against Auckland East and lost... North Harbour went on to beat Auckland East in the final and end their 4 year winning streak and became Northern Roller Mills Champs.

Waikato beat Auckland West for 3rd and 4th so we finished 3rd overall.

All Black Season Starts

The Iveco series has begun and the All Blacks have got off to a...surprising start? The country was in shock on Saturday night when the final whistle blew in Dunedin's Carisbrook park to see the All Blacks lose to the French at home for the first time in 15 years and the fourth time ever!!! Saturday's game even fetching comments like this "This years All Black team is the worst in history". Although I doubt that very much, the All Blacks have been at the mercy of injuries to key players.

Here are the names listed to be in the All Black squad for 2009:


Forwards: Adam Thomson, Ali Williams, Andrew Hore, Brad Thorn, Bryn Evans, Isaac Ross, Jerome Kaino, John Afoa, Kevin Mealamu, Neemia Tialata, Tenarau Latimer, Tony Woodcock, Wyatt Crockett.
Backs:Brendon Leonard, Conrad Smith, Cory Jane, Isaia Toeava, Jimmy Cowan, Josevata Rokocoko, Luke McAlister, Ma'a Nonu, Mils Muliaina (Captain), Piri Weepu, Rudi Wolf and Stephen Donald.

Some Players have not been listed as they are out from injury, e.g.Richie McCaw and Dan Carter, some of the world's best

In my opinion a interception from the French fullback was the game winning try as until that point the scores were level at 17-17 although I believe the French forwards especially the back row was physically more prominent at the breakdown which kept the All Blacks on defence and even getting to the stage where NZ could not even secure their own ball from the ruck area.

The All Black Coach Graham Henry has realised the lack of dominance and flair in the game and as a result is making three changes to the starting line up; Injured Adam Thomson will be replaced with Tenarau Latimer, Conrad Smith for Isaia Toeava and Jerome Kaino for Liam Messam who has been dropped from the squad completely!!!

I think the French will be a hard team to beat next week in Wellington as they feast on confidence and they will be thinking to themselves "we can win again". It would be a real blow to NZ to lose twice at home but I fear it could happen.

However we will have to wait until Saturday to find out the results but the All Blacks definitely need to step up their game if they have any chance of beating this French team.

Chiefs News

The Chiefs are currently 2nd on the table. They knocked the Hurricanes off their spot by defeating them at home in the Waikato Stadium it was a sellout event and Chiefs supporters left satisfied as the Chiefs left with a 16-8 victory! Unfortunately the bulls won their game putting the chiefs in second.
Stephen Donald scored all of the points for the Chiefs with 3 penalties, 1 try and 1 conversion, and for the Hurricanes, David Smith scored 1 try which Repia failed to convert, 1 penalty kicked by Willie Repia. Lelia Masaga and Sitiveni Sivivatu also made good impressions after coming back from injuries this week. Lelia Masaga making 2 try saving tackles in the second half helping the Chiefs on their way ( both tackles made on Repia in the left corner right next to the line).

Looking forwards in Super 14 (Chiefs)

The tension is building and the big question is: What is going to happen on Saturday when the Chiefs face off against the Lions at Waikato Stadium in the 8th week of Super 14 2009?and can they win for the third week in a row? Well some of you may be thinking it is obvious that the Chiefs are going to win in their current form, but maybe you are wrong. Even though the Lions have only won 2 of their 6 games this season they could leave as the victors this weekend. Even though they are playing at home the Chiefs have one GIANT negative factor going into this game that could set them back and that is: Sivivatu is still not confirmed to be playing this Saturday after his injury from last weeks game (this could be fatal to the Chiefs back line as he has scored 6 of the 15 tries scored by the Chiefs in their last two games, he is also a key component of the Chiefs team.

My prediction is that the Chiefs will win again this week gaining a bonus point too (if they do they will have 7 bonus points this season. The Chiefs are also one of the 3 teams with 6 bonus points at this stage of the tournament along with the Highlanders and the Blues). My reasons for thinking that the Chiefs will win again this week are: They did not look too bad last week once Sivivatu had been replaced with Dwayne Sweeney, they have got their home crowd behind them and the Lions will have been watching how well they have been performing and know they will have to play well in order to beat them, this will give the Chiefs the psycological advantage.

Anyway those are just my thoughts. We will just have to wait and see what really happens on Saturday but until then feel free to add comments on your views.

Super 14 (chiefs news) updated

I am so sorry I have not been able to publish the latest news on the Super 14 for the last 2 weeks. But now you don't have to wait any longer. Two weeks ago the Chiefs played the Blues at Waikato Stadium the game was so exciting with the Chiefs scoring 9 tries (4 of which were scored by Sivivatu) Sivivatu could have secured the bonus point by himself!!! He also broke the record for the most points scored for the Chiefs by one player previously held by Roger Randal. Also Lelia masaga used some pretty stylish dance moves to celebrate his great try. In the end the Chiefs won with an impressive score of 63-34. It was the best rugby match I have ever gone to watch!!! I really hoped they could keep up the great work and guess what? read the second paragraph and you will find out.

One week later the Chiefs were in Brisbane ready to face the Reds. Before 5 minutes had passed there were points on the Chiefs side of the scoreboard. Sivivatu looked like he was going to gain more tries again in this match scoring two tries before he had to leave the field with a wrist injury. This was disappionting as he hurt it whilst attempting to score his second try that was dissalowed and was not even checked by the TMO even though on the replay it was obvious that he grounded it properly!!! Anyway Dwayne Sweeney replaced him, but within 5 minutes of him being on he was sin binned for a stupid attempted tackle on a player who was in the air. The final score was 50-26 to the Chiefs. Just another fact: the Chiefs have reached an outstanding total of 15 tries in their last two matches and placing themselves 3rd on the table!!! Lets hope they can keep it up for the rest of the season.

Six nations Outcome

Talk about luck of the Irish but I reckon it wasn't luck just hard work and dedication that won Ireland the Six Nations Grand slam this year. The game was tense before it even started as Wales needed to win by over 14 points to gain the top of the table and come out on top but this never happened. In the end Ireland beat Wales 17-15 and came out with their first grand slam in 67 years!!! France also beating Italy 50-8 and England claiming the win over Scotland 26-12.

My Favorite Rugby Player

hey guys I've just found out how to put pics on my blog so I might as well use it so I am going to add a picture of my favorite Rugby player. His name is Matthew Tait he is the centre for England and the reason he is my favorite player is because he is a very strong tackler and a strong runner with an eye for the ball he is constantly creating space and scoring tries.

Super Rugby results

I can't believe it the Chiefs have lost again against the Sharks! With poor refereeing the sharks beat the chiefs. Firstly the sharks's first try (scored by Francoir Steyn) was created by a forward pass this was outragous as the ref was standing right next to the incident! and also consistant killing the ball in the rucks by the sharks forwards with no penaltys given. But refereeing was not the only factor that lost the chiefs the game there was also terrible handling skills by the Chiefs with Kevin o'Neil dropping a text book high ball 2 meters from the goal line with no defenders within 15meters of him and Brendon lenard dropping the ball during a sprint to the line! Delaney had a nightmare too he missed a try because he could not be bothered to get away from the touch line when attempting to score a try as a result he was knocked into touch, this was even worse because he knew we needed the conversion to gain the lead anyway and stephen donald had less chance of scoring a conversion from the touch line than beneath the posts. You would think a super 14 fullback would be able to step a forward to secure a try!!!!!

Final score 15-22 to the SHARKS :-(

A suprising win by the hurricanes against the crusaders has put them third on the table while the Crusaders are 6th

Rugby

Rugby is my favorite sport it involves running around a field with a ball. the aim of the game is to get as many points as possible by either touching the ball over the goal line or kicking it over the posts. the game was invented in a place called Rugby in England when a boy called Webb Ellis chose to pick up the ball and run with it in a game of football. Because of this the rugby world cup is called the Webb Ellis Cup after Webb Ellis himself it is played for every four years luckily i got to stand next to it when England won it in 2003 . The world cup has been played 6 times and the winners were NewZealand, Australia, South Africa, Australia again, ENGLAND!!!!!!!!! and most recently by South Africa again BOOOO!!!

My breif discription of rugby is "Rugby is a game played by men with odd shaped balls."TM