Future All Blacks Brawling

Auckland First Fifteen School boys brawling over the weekend in the game between Mangere College 1st XV at Tamaki College.

 Will the Rugby Channel be televising this?  

What? More thuggery in New Zealand rugby?

An ‘after the whistle’ all-in brawl in Auckland over the weekend simply can’t be? 

 

I could not believe my eyes when I read the article.

Help, next thing there will be a school shooting in the U.S.    

One could suggest N.Z Rugby should instigate an expensive, inevitably futile, report into Respect and Responsibility.  

Nah, just kidding.  

Violence is part of rugby’s DNA. 

Hard men are lionised.  

This site hardly touches the surface of the violence that goes on every week in N.Z Rugby.

 

Most of it unreported. 

This incident is the norm, not out of the ordinary.  

 

PS: I wonder how the playing numbers at looking in Auckland Senior Rugby? They would be turning them away at the door one thinks. Not!  

Tuipulotu’s alleged positive drug test will have HUGE ramifications

Sponsors hate having their names tarnished.  

For example in the case of Losi Filipo, Wellington Rugby buckled in part under threats sponsors would pull-out unless he was dumped. 

One global sponsor that takes a hard-line on its athletes taking drugs is Adidas. 

The International Association of Athletics Federation and Tyson Gay have recently had their lucrative deals put through their Bavarian shredder.   

So how will Kasper Rorsted (CEO Adidas) be feeling as he thumbs through Das Spiegel to find All Blacks lock Patrick Tuipulotu has reportedly been caught using a banned substance? 

 

Read the initial story here.   

What sort of drugs/chemical substances we don’t know at this stage.

One would presume ‘performance enhancing’ for example would be viewed in a very, very dim light. 

Were Tuipulotu to be found – these are only allegations at this stage – to be using a performance enhancing substance as opposed to getting caught-out smoking a joint whilst listening to Pink Floyd, this has the potential to develop into a major embarrassing issue for N.Z Rugby.

And they damn well know it. 

That’s why NZ Rugby and ’s local union. Auckland, have been plying the line since November that he’s simply had an "on-going personal matter".     

This from an entity which brandishes the words ‘standards’  and ‘professionalism’ like confetti from Richie McCaws wedding.  

What action will the International Rugby Board take? 

Protocols dictate they know the moment any professional player tests positive even for recreational use.

Especially one playing in the world’s top ranked team. 

The World Rugby dot org site is strangely silent? 

Perhaps they were trying to think of something more original than “on-going personal matter”? 

But now the story has broken.

 

This has legs, ten-times the size of Tuipulotu's.  

It will now run and run despite obvious attempts by N.Z Rugby to snuff-it-out and hide it in the closet.  

Steve Tew will be forced to front the media today. 

"Steve, when did you first know of this positive test?"

"Did Patrick play any games after the positive test was first reported?" 

"What sort of banned substances are we talking here Steve? Recreational or performance enhancing?"

Don't think you'll get a straight answer to any of these pertinent questions. 

Not right away.

But it will all come-out.  

This comes close after the failed Wellingtons Seven’s and my bet is Tew’s time is up.

 

Potentially this could be the most embarrassing thing to happen to N.Z Rugby in the professional era depending on what the banned substance was, when it was first discovered.  

Tarnishing the All Black name forever.

Up-Date Friday 10^th February: The B-Test for a performance enhancing drug came in negative. Apparently 1 positive + 1 negative = you are off the hook. I bet the cycling fraternity would look at this ‘benefit of the doubt’ decision and shake their heads. Sure, mistakes can occur in the testing process, but from the same sample? What are the chances? What exactly was the drug involved? Something you could innocently acquire off the Chemist shelf, or more nefarious akin to under-the-table body-building supplement? Kindly point it out to us on the World Anti-Doping Agency's 2016 Prohibited List.  Why call a positive drug test ‘personal reasons’ when the next time an All Black has to depart from a tour if say his child is sick, the public could think “that’s a smoke-screen”? Why wait so long for the B Sample to be tested? Why, when the news media askes these questions no-one can get a straight answer? One could feel they are hiding something were one was a nasty prick. Not me though.           

 

   

Troy Favell wants Kiwis to “Do as I say, not as I do”

Kiwis are very forgiving people. 

We appreciate that people make mistakes. 

Like former All Black Troy Favell who this week plead guilty to a count of driving with excess breath alcohol.  

Hankies at the ready.

 

Favell wants the whole country to know "I made a terrible, disgusting mistake and an embarrassingly poor decision. Obviously my actions come with consequences and I want to take that on the chin and move forward from this. I want to urge young people to understand - don't get behind the wheel after drinking."

 

Not a dry eye in the court that day.

 

Only Troy forgot to mention in his pleading for forgiveness, that this is the second time he’s been caught DIC, the last time was 1995. 

Do as I say not as I do.  

Then there’s also the little matter of last time he appeared in court. 

No not 1995.  

In 2004 when he admitted assaulting a 23-year-old man.  

His lawyer must love recidivist buffoons like him.

 

Former Auckland Blues boss Peter Scutts found guilty after Serious Fraud Office investigation

In a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office, Scutts was in May found guilty of 16 charges of dishonestly using a document and one Secret Commission Act charge of receiving secret reward for procuring contracts in his former role as New Zealand Wine Company chief executive. 

Scutts is the former boss of the Auckland Blues rugby franchise and naturally came to Court armed with the mandatory references as to his glowing character from the likes of Graham Henry.  

It wasn’t enough for him though, crouching low in the dock to hide as the guilty verdict was delivered.  

As reported in the NBR Justice Mary Peters says she is satisfied Scutts lied in his interview with the SFO when he denied handwriting on particular invoices was his. He told the SFO his son Oliver had prepared particular invoices, not him.

 

Seems like the perfect character to be running a Super Rugby franchise.

An isolated incident: my arse

A teenage boy who was injured in an out-of-control hockey match brawl has been discharged from hospital. 

Two weeks ago, and 11-year-old boy allegedly punched a referee after tackling him to the ground during an under-12 soccer game in Papatoetoe. 

In Christchurch drink driving rugby league players and supporters will be targeted in a major police campaign from next week. 

Incidents in Otago Cricket have included parents and spectators on the sidelines abusing players, coaches and referees and also players making racial taunts to the opposition during the game. 

Racial taunts and violent threats have reduced foreign players to tears after games, a Canterbury Basketball manager says.

 

Only none of the above happened over the last two months.  

Well not in the sports mentioned. 

Instead everyone of these stories involved New Zealand Rugby.   

 

Where you see say Cricket etc, replace with rugby.  

When you see headings like 'Two of the city's Catholic Colleges are embroiled in accusations of racial abuse on the  field' what is the first sport that springs to mind?

And the response from Rugby officials to the 40 person mass brawl that broke out during an under-15 clash between Otahuhu College and Tangaroa  this weekend? 

Former All Black captain, Auckland Rugby Chief Executive and Lead Apologist Andy Dalton stated 'It's a societal problem' and unbelievably ‘It’s an isolated Incident’.

An isolated incident: my arse.