New Zealand Warriors: April 2009

Hello again, I hope everyone had a good Easter break. I must apologise for being a bit slack in keeping up the blog so far this season. The demands of work together with the Easter holidays and planning for the winding up of our time in London at the end of June this year are meaning I am devoting less time than I would like to the blog. With that said, there is so much material in the Warriorsblogosphere that I would like to touch on that I almost don't know where to begin.

First up a narrow loss last week to the Knights sounds like a real nailbiter. A whole season can get decided by tight losses like this one and the Warriors need to be able to win these games when they are in with a shot. I got a text about this result whilst I was in sunny Port Isaac in Cornwall for the Easter holidays.

This weeks game at home against the Roosters is looking like a good chance to get the season moving once again in the right direction with the return of Price and Vatuvei. The team need support more than ever so try and get along there for the kickoff at 2pm if you are going to be in Auckland.

The Hoff reckons this season is over already and that we should start planning for next year. Cleary Year V may well be one to look forward to - particularly since I should be back resident in NZ by then and hopefully with season ticket in hand. But lets not give up on Cleary Year IV just yet.

Did any readers of this blog snap up tix for Simon and Garfunkel in Auckland by the way? I would be there in a shot if I was in AK, Bridge over Troubled Water is like a Warriors anthem!

I also saw this article about the opportunity for the Warriors to play at Eden Park - this just seems wrong to me. For one thing Eden Park as the article suggests is not a great rugby or league ground anyway - its a cricket ground. As such the stands are not that close to the sidelines. Also despite the fact that it can seem a bit desolate at times with the new East Stand Mt Smart delivers a decent match day experience and has developed a history as the Warriors home such that it would seem unfortunate to just toss away. Why the club/council didn't pursue a redevelopment of Carlow Park we shall never know as that to my mind would have made the Warriors into a central part of the Auckland city scene in the way that the caketin in Wellington fits elegantly into the life of Wellington as a city. Anyone with any thoughts or first person closeup views on the Eden Park redevelopment progress please feel free to chime in on this.

Big couple of weeks in the English football season. Massive Champions League second leg results this week with Man U overcoming Porto on a Ronaldo wonder goal and Arsenal destroying Villareal at home. Now Man U play Arsenal in one semi and Chelsea play Barcelona in the other. This is champagne football and one of the best sporting products out there. This week we have the FA Cup semi finals which I understand are on free to air live TV in NZ? Man U v Everton and Arsenal v Chelsea present another couple of very watchable encounters.

As the NBA Playoffs begin - you know I am going to be backing Lebron and the Cavs to win it all this year, qualifying first in the east with the best record in the NBA and only losing two games at home all season so far.

And after all that I haven't even mentioned the now slightly old story about former NRL player Todd Carney who took nude photos of himself on a temporary mobile which he then returned to Telstra who gave the phone with said photos to someone else who then disclosed them to the papers. You may also enjoy this old article, headline "Todd Carney revelation: I've been an idiot". I could not make this stuff up if I tried. I would call this a brain explosion but its a much more long term thing than that. More like permanent brain injury.