This Weekend’s Rugby

The last match of the Tri-Nations will be played in NZ on saturday. The Wallabies versus the All Blacks.

I’m hoping for a step up in competance from both teams. They can (obviously) both play amazing rugby when things stick. But the last two matches against South Africa have shown that the continuing quality is lacking.

The All Blacks seem to be unable to get things happening in the back line. Which seems wierd to me. I always thought they had the best backline in the world. But then Tana left. And Carter stopped playing complete games every time. You know, it occurred to me that maybe .. maybe this is all a plan. That they’re just playing below par so that it _looks_ like everyone else has a chance for the world cup.

The Wallabies on the other hand have come from almost nothing. Playing way below par against teams that were .. below par. But then, against the All Blacks, and the Springboks in SA .. they step it up about ten notches. Which is awesome. Just like to think they can maintain that level of product.

So here’s to a great game of rugby on saturday night/afternoon. Certainly, with the last couple of weeks games in hindsight, it should be a game either team can win.

Weekend Clear

Left my laptop at work on Friday afternoon with the clear intention of picking it up later that evening. It’s now Monday morning, and the laptop never made it home.

Not sure if anyone else out there watched it, but there was an interesting game of rugby on early Sunday morning (our time). Australia played Wales. It ended up a draw.

It was a good game. Attacking rugby, great defence, and some amazing plays. Latham again demonstrated that he is without peer at the back of the field. He caught a ball on the 22 and made it through at least 4 defenders to score down the sideline. Very cool. He’s got better momentum (leg-pumping) than a lot of forwards, and the desire to never give in.

It was sad to see George Smith not even on the bench. I get that they are experimenting. And that Phil Waugh offers leadership. I hope he’ll be back for the next test.

‘Nuff about the rugby. I’ve got work todo.

Cheers,

Wallaby Programming

It was an exciting tension. The buildup suggested that the pieces of code could either fall together or fall apart. There was the possibility of genius, laced with the reality of last year’s crushing failure.

Ha ha.

I’m talking, of course, about the first Test played by the Wallabies last night, against England.

It was a pretty cool game. We enjoyed it, although I was worried for the first half that it was going to be a game without a try. But then we came good, in the end.

The bit of programming, because this has to have something to do with development, was the actual programming of the ads. This really ground my gears, wound ’em up tight.

I realise you have to have ads, given the way television operates. But these were programmed really, really badly. Instead of skipping looking at the crowd after a penalty was blown, the camera would pan to the crowd, and then, just before the restart, go to an ad. By the time we returned, there had been at least one play that was lost to the elements of fox and those people actually attending the match.

Perhaps it was a haphazard piece of work. Maybe they had a rookie programmer on that day. Whatever it was, it was lame.

As a once semi-almost-something Aussie TV Guy used to say, parodied.

Lame. Lame. Lame.

A Bad Brain Freeze

Apologies for the lack of any posting the last couple of days. I recently discovered what a lumbar puncture is .. and that my back has either too much fat or too many muscles to allow for one. So two doctors and five long pokey tries later, and they still couldn’t get to my spinal fluid.

I had a bit of an episode at rugby training. The fires of a thousand suns exploding in my head .. that sort of thing. Not that I’m making light of the situation .. okay, i am. It was pretty scary at the time. With that much pain I wasn’t so much scared as pragmatic .. kind of out of body .. well, if this is it Lord .. look after the wife and kids..

But anyway. There were no side-effects, nothing the doctors could latch onto. So no prognosis either.

The result is that I’ll probably not play rugby for a while :) ..

Cheers,