I thought that we would start off the new year with a bit of Kiwi comedy, we’ve been cranking out the Pulp Sport DVD’s over the Xmas break and I found this little gem, check it out!

I have some exciting news to share! Anita and I got engaged this past weekend in Langkawi, Malaysia. It was a really special day and everything worked out as planned, she was quite surprised. We have not set a firm date for the wedding as yet, but it will be sometime in 2011/2012 when we return back to Sydney after our Singapore sabbatical. We had a beautiful weekend away, i’m currently uploading some of the photos from the trip now, so check back in a week for a better run-down, it’s Friday and I need a beer!

As I sit down to write this, the Chiefs are on their long-haul journey to Pretoria to play the drop-kicking Bulls, fresh from their win over the Crusaders in this weekends semi final. After leaving at 3am this morning NZ time and making their journey though Australia, then on to South Africa by plane, they make their final stage via bus to Pretoria. As a long time suffering Chiefs fan, it’s nice to finally have them fight it out for the title, and after winning 11 or their last 12 games, they go in with some decent form with two recent hard fought wins over the Hurricanes and one against the Brumbies, even Foxy believes that they can do it.

I’m predicting a pretty hard fought game at altitude, the Chiefs have a bit going against them, but it’s the wrong end of the season for excuses, they’re just 80 minutes away from achieving what all teams set out to do at the start of the season, with just one team, the Bulls standing in their way. Hopefully we see a free running game with Mills leading from the back and Messam churning out some more big hits. It’s gonna be a cracker of a game, and I can’t wait.

I’ll be drinking some Tui to the Mooloo Men on Saturday night!

Richie raises the Bledisloe

Celebrations

After the pain of last year’s World Cup, New Zealand have returned to form and smashed everyone that stood in their way this year (except for a couple of hiccups in the Tri-Nations). We’ve managed to firm up the defence, with only 3 points scored against NZ in the last halves of their past 5 games, and only one try (against Australian in HK) … remarkable. Now, if we can only get this all together for the home world cup in 2011.

Finally, in League, we say tah tah to Ricky, after his blow-up after losing the plot and the Rugby League World Cup, will big Mal Meninga be the next coach?

Results in ’08

What a weekend for Kiwi sport!

The All Blacks marched on to beat Wales with a dominant performance in the 2nd half, rolling on 23 unanswered points, starting to see some fight in the boys again after last year’s Cup. But the All Blacks are back on the top of the IRB table, with one game left before we can claim our 3rd Grand Slam tour over the 4 ‘Home’ nations.

Standoff after the Haka

But that wasn’t all the good news us Kiwi’s had over the weekend, our much under-valued Kiwi Rugby League team rolled over the Kangaroos in Brisbane to win our first Rugby League World Cup. On a night where the bookies cleaned up (having NZ at $6 – $9) the Kangaroos seemed to catch a bit of the All Blacks World Cup choke, which saw them make some silly mistakes and the Kiwi’s run away with the game in the last few minutes and win 34-20.

Kiwi's win RLC World Cup

Maybe the Aussie’s should start their own hybrid game? As for the cricket, that’s a story for another time…

In other news, the IRB Rugby Awards were handed out over the Weekend, with NZ cleaning up a few awards, and DC just missing out on the Player of the Year award.

IRB Player of the Year: Shane Williams (Wales)
IRB Team of the Year: New Zealand
IRB Coach of the Year: Graham Henry (New Zealand)
IRB Junior Player of the Year: Luke Braid (New Zealand)
IRB Sevens Player of the Year: DJ Forbes (New Zealand)
Spirit of Rugby Award: Roelien Muller and Patrick Cotter
Vernon Pugh Award for Distinguished Service: Sir Nicholas Shehadie
IRB Referee Award for Distinguished Service: Andre Watson
IRB International Women’s Personality of the Year: Carol Isherwood
IRB Development Award: Tag Rugby Development Trust and Martin Hansford
IRPA Special Merit Award: Agustin Pichot
IRPA Try of the Year: Brian O’Driscoll, Australia v Ireland

[imgset:72157608063312436,thumbnail,true]

This is hilarious! In the middle of the performance of “Morning Glory” at Toronto’s 2008 Virgin Festival, a man suddenly appears on stage and, without warning, pushes an unsuspecting guitarist Noel Gallagher to the floor, causing a halt in the performance for several minutes until nerves and microphones were reset for the band to resume performing, starting with “The Importance of Being Idle.”

Just check out security laying into the dude in the background, ouch! They’ve cancelled a couple of shows now as well so they can recover from those horrendous injuries … hahah, funniest stuff i’ve seen since…

At least we have our trip to NZ to look forward to, off in a couple of weeks for just under 3 weeks. Thought it was about time I had a look around NZ, it’s been a few years since i’ve been back so it will be choice to see everyone again.

Plus, when we get back there will be new Heroes to watch, haha