h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I will keep the scores updated over the course of the Cup.

Quotes, strange happenings, etc will be added as well.

At the end of the tournament I will rewrite the article, adding pertinent comments from this forum and submit the finished article as an official guide entry, crediting people whose sage comments I pick up and use.

Go New Zealand. Ka mate, ka mate, ka mate

I have a couple of Kiwi friends who are going to Twickenham on Saturday to see their team get beaten. I told them they shouldnt bother!

(But my laughter was hollow and tinged with fear.)

I am also suggesting that the English Rugby team perform our traditional Morris Dance in response to the Haka - that'll intimidate those all-blacks for sure.

Good call Vlad.

Jonah Lomu squaring up to a bunch of Morris Dancers. The mind boggles.

How come you are not going? I went to a test match at Twickkers (?) in the 70s between the Aussies and Poms. Almost broke a leg on a rotten plank masquerading as a seat.

The beer was cold though. As were the pies

It's too tough to get tickets for a game like that. I only found out they were going recently. I was hoping to go see Italy vs. Tonga this weekend, it's a bit more local for me. I'm a Leicester Tigers supporter (although I tend to go to more soccer than Rugby).

I'm at work till 18.00 every day, so that makes getting into the ticket office quite difficult. I may just turn up on Saturday and see if I can get tickets.

Mind, there's a vital soccer game on Saturday between Sweden and Poland that will decide if England got to the European Championships... So much sport so little time.

I understand the difficulty in getting tickets. It has turned into a racket.

Three years ago some friends and I went to a Bledisloe Cup rugby match between Aus and NZ in Melbourne. The travel agencies block booked all the airline tickets and if you wanted to go you had to be part of a package tour which included airfares, accommodation and match tickets.

On a normal (3 day) weekend this trip would cost about $NZ1000. The weekend of the match it was $1800.

In New Zealand I live across the road from Mclean Park and it hosts international cricket matches (and occasionaly big rugby games)which means, at least in summer, the chance of seeing some world class sport at a reasonable price.

This year New Zealand is playing Australia and South Africa in one day cricket internationals at the park. Can't wait.

words with three syllables?! please illustrate with examples. i think i'll be yelling a lot of "spin it wide" and "hurry up Just" (because marshall is always so damn slow at clearing the ball - don't get me wrong, i think he's a great player, he's just even slower than tonu'u which i didn't previously think was possible - is it just me or has he (Just) got slower lately?)

anyway i just got to meet eric rush. like about an hour ago - he popped his head into this very room where i am now (at uni) and i said "you're eric rush" (what was i thinking) and he said "yes" and i took him up to the room he was supposed to be speaking in, and pointed out my co-housesitter (why can't i just put flatmate, it's shorter) who he was looking for, because she was organising the event he was speaking at (the University Blues Awards). Of course i told him i was a big harbour fan, but otherwise i managed to restrain myself from berating him about the team's performance of late. although they seem to be winning an awful lot more since i lost my harbour scarf. and i've had that scarf for six years, so maybe that explains a lot. anyway he seems very nice. not as tall as i had expected thou'. it's a bit disconcerting to be surfing h2g2 and look up and unexpectedly see one of your fav rugby players. you should try it sometime.

sorry this is so long, but i had to share.

hey how was Mehrts' kicking on sunday? (we have no paper either) good to see Tony Brown on the bench against England - hope he gets to play.












words with three syllables?! please illustrate with examples. i think i'll be yelling a lot of "spin it wide" and "hurry up Just" (because marshall is always so damn slow at clearing the ball - don't get me wrong, i think he's a great player, he's just even slower than tonu'u which i didn't previously think was possible - is it just me or has he (Just) got slower lately?)

anyway i just got to meet eric rush. like about an hour ago - he popped his head into this very room where i am now (at uni) and i said "you're eric rush" (what was i thinking) and he said "yes" and i took him up to the room he was supposed to be speaking in, and pointed out my co-housesitter (why can't i just put flatmate, it's shorter) who he was looking for, because she was organising the event he was speaking at (the University Blues Awards). Of course i told him i was a big harbour fan, but otherwise i managed to restrain myself from berating him about the team's performance of late. although they seem to be winning an awful lot more since i lost my harbour scarf. and i've had that scarf for six years, so maybe that explains a lot. anyway he seems very nice. not as tall as i had expected thou'. it's a bit disconcerting to be surfing h2g2 and look up and unexpectedly see one of your fav rugby players. you should try it sometime.

sorry this is so long, but i had to share.

hey how was Mehrts' kicking on sunday? (we have no paper either) good to see Tony Brown on the bench against England - hope he gets to play.

oh now i'm just confused, but thanks, i found it now.

Alas incompetence has raised it's ugly head again.

I cut and pasted the above comments from Spanner Girl, a feisty kiwi sheila, who posted them in another forum.

I hope you get her/our drift. If not have a can of DB or a Slippery Nipple cocktail

Almost the same team against the Poms Spanner Girl. Craig Dowd of the Pink Nation (Auckland) replaces the injured Kees Meeurws

I got to shake Dean Richards (all conquering ex- England and Tigers captain) hand!

Well I say hand, it was more like a huge paw.

Vlad.

why the Pink Nation? i mean being from harbour i have a semi-pathological hatred of Auckland, but Pink Nation? what does that mean? i was sitting on the terraces at eden park one time when Auckland was playing Wellington i think, and Zinzan was wearing white shorts with kick butt on his underpants, so that every time he bent over ... not that i usually look at that, but they put it up on the big screen. frankly i think the auckland players spend too much time on their hair. and far too much time gloating.

Exactly. Poseurs, expecially people like Spencer. They also spend an inordinate amount of time on their cell phones. It doesn't go down well here in sunny Hawke's Bay where men are still men and the women like it that way.

Pink Nation, think Heroes Parade. We have Blossom Festivals.

i agree with you whole-heartedly about spencer - he struts around the field like he owns the god damn park. hey Harbour beat Canterbury tonight! is this a sign of the end times? or was Rush just playing well because he met me last night? (methinks i think too much of me)

btw the Hero Parade was great - dancing our way along ponsonby road on a saturday night (its just a glorified march really)

Watched the game on TV. Good win for Harbour.

Rush was interviewed on TV. He is retiring at the end of the season.

All we need now is for Hawke's Bay South (Otago) to beat Wellington. Might be tough with two of their best HB boys away with the All Blacks. Randall and Kronfield.

I prefer the Wine Trail around the various HB wineries on a sunny Sunday afternoon to marches around Auckland. The singing tends to be better as well.

may i say that otago, is in fact north harbour south, and the adopted second favourite team of nearly everyone i know (except dunedinites, or people whose teams do not make a division worth mentioning). my dream final would be otago wasting auckland at the 'brook (me on the terraces) given that there is little chance of harbour making it. otago is the true scarfie team (btw have you seen scarfies - jeff wilson got into the credits as rugby god - so true)

may i also suggest that the singing is better because of wine-tinged ears and wine-oiled throats - i've heard some damn good singing on marches, although the lyrics usually leave something to be desired.

oh and while i remember, sorry about this, most of the queer people i know actually don't support auckland, even the aucklanders. which is a bit odd. i think it has something to do with homophobic attitudes within the union, but i'm just taking a stab in the dark

With their win today Harbour have qualified for the semi-finals.

Haven't seen the movie but people I know enjoyed it.

And of course Hawke's Bay is an integral part of the Hurricanes a team containing TWO rugby gods. Umunga and Cullen.

Talking about bad singing - Swing High, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot has to be the worst rugby song of all time.

I remember some of the songs we used to sing in rugby clubrooms and on rugby bus trips. A bit risque for h2g2 though.

i have followed harbour religiously for the last eight years, and with slightly less vigour for as long as i can remember before that - the first season i can't pay as much attention and we start doing well - well the first season since that horrible final in 1994 - what a terrible match, it put me off going to the park for ages, the atmosphere was so violent and ugly. brawls on and off the field. alcohol everywhere, especially inside under-age aggro young boys. urrrgggh. not my idea of a good time. (and we lost) (badly)

scarfies is good - especially the geunine rugby footage from the Brook. i went with my non-rugby friends, and they couldn't understand why i got so excited that they had the real quinn commentary. philistines.

well now that manawatu has been assimilated i suppose hawkes bay can count a large number of stars . what's the deal with that anyway, have they sorted their stuff out yet? my father is from manawatu, and almost every all black for the last ten years seems to have played for manawatu according to his reckoning (which may be a bit faulty, looking at his contribution to the gene pool)

sweet chariot can be fantastic if sung by a huge crowd spontaneously at night, walking back across grafton bridge. but other than that i find it largely unremarkable. especially as a rugby song. i have a soft spot for the rugby world cup song though, despite the fact that it is a rip off of holst's Jupiter from the planets (which was also ripped off for i vow to thee my country, princess diana's favourite hymn)

The Vikings, Manawatu-Hawke's Bay combined, has been disbanded. Both teams are now in division 2. They are struggling because their stars were attracted by the big momey on offer by the Super 12 teams.

Cullen played for Manawatu and is now contracted to Wellingtom. There are numerous others. The smaller regional areas cannot match the big boys checkbooks. I find it all rather sad.

Must get off to bed. A big game on TV at 4am this morning. Scotland v Uruguay and them at 8am another biggie. France v Namibia.

yeah, i sympathise about the chequebook thing - i think it would be a great thing for nz rugby for the ranfurly shield to be in the second/third division for a while. provincial towns get so much more excited about it than bigger towns and cities. in auckland events like that are often lost in the immensity of the city (i mean in terms of its size, because we're all so spread out). harbour isn't a very rich union either - there are big problems with the new stadium, which it looks like we couldn't really afford. oh dear. i'm saving up my sleep for 4.30 am on sunday

I've never understood Rugby, but it hasn't kept me from watching when there is nothing else on..........