The Hurricanes went down by one point to the Sharks 21-20 last night in New Plymouth. Argh!!!! The game was a tough one, and the Sharks kept their defence rock solid. The Canes 'almost' got there, but their winger Kinikinilau lost the ball over the tryline, and David Holwell attempted a drop kick goal in the dying stages, but missed.

The Waratahs were beaten by the Bulls - 38 to 27. The Tahs didn't really seem to have a look in, and the play of the match goes to the Bulls' Bezuidenhout who got the ball at the ruck and leapt over the pile of bodies strewn before him to put the ball over the tryline. Nice one!

Sadly my Under 11s got walloped today as well..... good thing it was a trial game :)

Laterz

Three of the Queensland Reds came to visit our club yesterday afternoon to host a clinic with the juniors - Reds' lock Nathan Sharpe and the Breakers' now Reds hooker Tai McIsaac, and Reds winger Peter Hynes! Here's a couple of pics:

Tai McIsaac! The boys pose!
.. and sign autographs! ... and have a run!

Going to be a hard act to follow tonight :) Go the Canes tonight - enjoy this weekend's Super 12 everyone :)

Cheers!

Morgan Turinui is on the starting side for the Waratahs/Bulls clash tomorrow - cool!

Mat Rogers is still suffering from his ankle injury - have to wait and see if he is cleared to play this weekend.

Kids had a fab time with three of the Reds yesterday afternoon - pics later on today.

Cheers!

Just visited the Top Tipper web site - they look after the tipping comp. Seems the server was down due to a 'Denial of Service' attack. I read a report earlier in the week where several of the gaming sites have been victims of extortion... hackers go for the web site server and then demand thousands of dollars to stop. Sounds like a 1950's gangster movie plot gone cyberage doesn't it?! I have no idea if that's what happened to top tipper or not, but just thought I'd share that tidbit :)

Laterz!

Alrighty - it's that time of the week. Actually, I'm a day early with tips this week, but I've been doing so poorly with my tipping that I think maybe I should change the whole concept to 'the weekly death knells' :) Anyway, here goes!

The Reds and Blues have byes!

Friday night:
The Hurricanes over the Sharks in New Plymouth

Saturday:
The Bulls over the Waratahs in Pretoria (sorry Tah's)
The Highlanders over the Cats in Dunedin - here's hoping the Highlanders play both halves this weekend!
The Crusaders over the Chiefs in Hamilton - I reckon it's about time the Crusaders get going
The Stormers over the Brumbies in Cape Town - my beloved Brumbies... I apologise but the Stormers are going well!

Wonder if I'll do better than 2 correct picks this week!

The 'New Zealand Herald' reported today that the big boy winger Rupeni Caucaunibuca who plays for the Auckland Blues will be heading for Europe at the end of this Super 12 season - no doubt in search of the big dollars he could earn over there. Caucau is yet to confirm or deny the report.

My weekly six nations throw in - good to see Robin McBryde and Duncan Jones back playing for Wales. Can the Welsh go just that bit better than they did in the World Cup last year against England this weekend? Just maybe!

The Reds have a bye this weekend - that means we get to have 2 or 3 of them at the club for a coaching clinic with the boys tomorrow afternoon :) I'll take pics!

Found some very cool screensavers today over at Planet-rugby.com No prizes for guessing which one I downloaded, but there's something for most rugby fans on that page!

Tim Walsh has been released by the Leeds club and will be heading back to Queensland to play as five-eight back up for Elton Flatley. The news is good for Walsh, but not so good for Nathan Williams or Paul Warrick (sevens player) who were both popular choices locally.

When the Reds take on the Waratahs on May 8 they will be playing at Suncorp stadium in Brisbane. No Ballymorons on that day! The Reds are hoping to set a new Super 12 attendance record. The current record is 41,645 and was set in Sydney back in 2002 when the Brumbies played the Tahs at home. Suncorp stadium is the best (really large) rugby stadium I've been to - mostly because the ground is built for rugby. Other stadiums have been built for multi-purpose use like cricket, AFL, etc and so they're oval shaped. Gotta like having the crowd in and around the action so closely.

Over in the land of the current world cup buyers, er I mean holders.. heh.. trouble seems to have raised it's head yet again! Seems that some of the players' Twickenham match tickets (the one against Ireland in the 6 nations.. the one Ireland won 19-13) made their way onto the black market. Uh oh! Seems that King Clive was none too happy with some of his boys once he got word.

Later!

The server for the tipping comp appears to be down.... I'll check on it later...

Lucky I didn't change my Reds/Blues tip. 20-3 to my boys- Yay!! Chris Latham showed the form that I kept prattling on about during the rugby world cup and why I found it difficult to believe he wasn't on the Wallaby run on side every game. But moving on, he bunged on a fantastic performance, as did Daniel Heenan - once he got back from the sin bin in the first half. Nice one!

Earlier on Saturday the Hurricanes had a convincing win over the Cats - 42-25 scoring 5 tries from Ward, Nonu, Tito, Tuipolutu, and Kinikinilau, which gave the Hurricanes a bonus point as well.

And that's where my tipping success ended. The Bulls got up over the Brumbies 32-21 and the Waratahs went down to the Stormers by 4 points (27-23). At least the Tahs got a bonus point for their efforts.

So, at the end of round 4, the Waratahs sit on top of the table with 16 points, the Stormers hot on their heels on 15, the Brumbies a point behind on 14, followed by the Bulls on 13. The Reds and Sharks share 5th and 6th positions with 10 points a piece. Where are the Kiwi teams? Not in the top 6 as yet!! That's got to be a first for Super 12 - but I won't be ruling any of them out just yet.

Off to update the points table...