Underthinking the Crusaders Rugby boots.

So in the weekend, I went to the Highlanders-Crusaders game, and being a Highlander fan, I can't bring myself to discuss the rugby itself. What did catch my attention however was the Crusaders backlines rugby boots.

Its hard to tell from the above photo, but we have among others, Sonny Bill Williams highlighter green, Israel Dagg banana yellow, Robbie Fruen Red. I am not sure where they brought these boots although I do have my suspicions.

I think Pascall have gotten into making rugby boots.

I guess it helps identify the players, because I don't know about you, but I was forever getting Sonny Bill Williams and Israel Dagg mixed up.

Sonny?

Oh wait that's Sonny, good thing he has that tattoo or I would never know.

 I mean the fact that Sonny Bill could quite literally eat Israel Dagg, or at the very least throw him with a one handed off load, should also be a clue.
But seriously how did the players manage to get these boots through the Crusaders management? One of the most Traditional unions in the country.

How I imagine Crusaders team meetings

 I remember back in my day, if any one wore anything but Black boots (i think white was the only other option), they were deemed to be a show-off, and you needed to make that guys living hell for the rest of the game to remind him of his position in life.

"Why did I wear the white boots for? Why?"

But I guess Sonny Bill is pretty big, so trying to make his life a living hell would be pretty hard. Keeping them clean would be difficult too, now I know what you are saying why keep them clean, they are going to run on a muddy paddock. That's what I used to say too, when the 1st XV players used to make me or one of my other 3rd form chums wash their boots, the night before a big game. I mean on a rainy day, there boots would literally be clean when they put them on, and that would be it.

Seriously 10 seconds of clean, then the rest is this.

But to be fair it did make the players look smart when they first ran out with the matching uniforms, and the clean BLACK boots. I don't imagine players clean their boots much anymore, and you know who I blame.

Latham, pull your socks up you filthy mongrel

I understand that your socks can fall down during a game, its just the nature of the sport, but just like the clean rugby boots, when you first run on the field the socks all pulled up looks quite smart. Chris Latham used to come on the field with his socks around his ankles. It shows a lack of respect, if I was the coach I would have brought his some of those elastic doo-hickeys that hold your socks up, or I would have made him do Calf raises for a month, so that his socks wouldn't be able to slip down past his massive calves.

"My socks will stay up, My socks will stay up, My sock...."

Underthinking Commonwealth

First of all I must lay my cards on the table, I do not understand why we need the commonwealth games. I have never gotten into it, I don't understand it, and to be honest I would be happy if it was gone.
For starters you don't even have to be a real country to attend the commonwealth games. There are only 54 nations in the commonwealth, yet 71 teams attend the games. How you may ask?

"....53,54....fifty-..nah I can't see anymore."

Well for starters Great Britain decides since they are the leader, then they should probably get more than one entry, so for the purpose of the games they seperate not only into the 4 home nations (Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland) but also declare any bit of land not physically attached to the mainland a country (Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man). I mean if they can do that why don't New Zealand send a South Island, North Island, Chatham Island and Stewart Island delegation?

Norman unveils the mascot for the 2010 Chatham Island team

To be fair to the Motherland though, us colonies have joined the party ie NZ with Tokelau, Cook Islands etc and Australia with Norfolk Island. Despite the fact made up countries can compete in these games...

The people of Starwaria are always proud when their team enters the stadium

....we still don't get a great cross section of the world competing at the games

There are more places not highlighted than highlighted.

But that's not the end of it, so we are starting with roughly 20% of the worlds countries. So the talent pool is already severely limited, then the top competitors from nations that are eligible to compete don't because they don't view it as prestigious (Usain Bolt, Caster Semenya, even our own Greg Henderson).
What exactly do you claim to be if you win a commonwealth medal?
I mean for example in weightlifting as far as I can tell the highest ranked commonwealth country is Canada at 16th equal, so at best you are 16th best in the world with a gold in commonwealth. (Presuming of course each country only has one good guy which is unlikely so you maybe barely cracking the top 30)

From a limited number of countries, and out of the people that actually decided to turn up I am the best at my sport

Then some of the other sports they have at the commonwealth games? They have greco-roman wrestling despite the fact neither the Greeks nor the Romans attend the games, they have Judo despite the fact the Japanese aren't there, they have table tennis yet no Chinese. When is the last time you saw a non-Chinese competitive table tennis player? This is second only to being a white sprinter in poor sporting career decisions.

Arthur Spriggs the last competive non-Chinese Tennis player sadly passed in 2003

Out of the other sports that are involved, I think the only one where the commonwealth games is the pinnacle is Lawn Bowls.
I mean the rugby 7's, quite a commonwealth dominated sport is without places like Italy, France, Ireland (real Ireland), Argentina, USA (Shown some promise of late), so hardly the pinnacle of the sport.
The netball, a sport only played in the commonwealth as far as I know, is really only a competition between Australia and NZ, an event that occurs every other Tuesday, just with different made up titles on the line, so hardly pinnacle. Netball in that sense is kind of like WWE where the competitors just decide to which titles to put on the line, imagine if that was the case.....

Okay so its agreed we are competing for the Fisher-Paykell, World Champ, Asia-Pacific Champ, but not the South Pacific or Commonwealth titles?

I mean I don't want to detract from the effort all the athletes and competitors put in, but at the end of the day if you are not good enough to be the best in the world, should you actually be a professional athlete? Perhaps you have underthought your profession?