Manchester United 3 v Portsmouth 0

Hello All

Another big weekend of sport just been with the All Blacks trouncing England at Twickenham whilst the day before Rach and I venture once more to Old Trafford to watch Rooney and co dish out some more punishment to Portsmouth.

Man U went up two nil within the first ten minutes and the result was never in doubt, finishing three nil at the end.

Anyway to the right is a picture of the Man U team warming up, starting from the left, Saha, Silvestre, Vidic, Ferdinand, Brown, Ronaldo, Rooney and Scholes.

To the left is an in game shot with Giggs retiring in the foreground, Saha at far left, Rooney centre, Carrick at far right and Ronaldo at the top.

All Blacks v France on TV next week and then on the Eurostar to Paris for the big game at the Stade de France - can't wait.

Oh and before I go definitely Lowe for NZRL chairman - the mad men have finally completed their take over of the asylum.

Manchester United v Newcastle

Itinerary

Well peeps - there is essentially nothing happening on the Warriors front at present and the league Tri-nations bores me so in order to keep the blog alive lets focus on what I will be up to sport watching travel wise over the next few weeks.

Here is my sporting travelling itinerary kicking off next weekend:

4 November - Manchester United v Portsmouth at Old Trafford

18 November - All Blacks v France at Stade de France in Paris

25 November - All Blacks v Wales at Millenium Stadium in Cardiff

So should be a good few weeks, and seriously I will be posting some pics when I get my act together.

Some news

Hello to all the peeps out there

Well the NRL season is now well and truly over. Broncoes champions - reminds me of the early nineties and those Alfie Langer teams. Was a bit disappointed to see Melbourne lose after being so successful all year but I digress.

A little bit of Warriors news for the fans out there - big Logan Swann is returning to the Warriors fold on a one year contract to add depth to the back row corps after playing in England. Frankly this may be a case of swapping one Pedestrian for another but I have almost forgotten what Swann is like so we will have to wait and see what he produces.

Warriors have also upgraded the contracts of five development players seemingly in an effort to ensure they stay at the club. These guys are all currently in the Allied Workforce "elite development" team and will now form part of the first team squad. The players in question are Constantine Mika, Miguel Start, Malo Solomona, Scott Jones and Russell Packer. None of whom mean anything to me at present but we will see if any breakthrough to the first team in 2007.

And in terms of what I have been up to - I travelled to Manchester last weekend to watch Manchester United beat Newcastle at the theatre of dreams Old Trafford. Was a great time for Rach and I and if you are extra lucky I will post some pics of the big day on the blog during the offseason. However I note that Rooney's form is still in the trough and England's 2-0 loss to Croatia is just further disappointment.

End of season mode

Hello All

Well what can I say, nothing to report on the Warriors front. Months of offseason stretching out in front of us.

Warriors had their end of season do and Rovelli won Rookie of the year and Price player of the year. Seems like fair results to me although Cleary looks to have gained a bit of weight in the photo to the right.

Of course there is the NRL grand final and Melbourne and the Broncoes are to face off in an NSW free final. I can never get too excited about these games when the Warriors are all over the for the year but it is a big sporting occassion and if anyone has thoughts please feel free to put them down here.

League tri-nations is coming up - kiwi squad has been named - but I have trouble getting enthusiastic about it.

And of course Harbour won the Ranfurly sheild, I look forward to seeing them defend it for longer than 1 game.

Also I hear Lowe was seriously in the running for the Sharks job but got passed up for Ricky Stuart. That decision seems like a no-brainer for the Sharks, do you really want to appoint captain insano to run your franchise?

Anyway you lucky people in NZ are heading to Spring now so that must be nice for you.

I am having fun fun fun at work as per usual. Big news for the peeps is the upcoming 10km run in Amsterdam that I have somehow signed up for. The training has been average at best to date and only two weeks to go till the big day, Sunday 15 October 2006.

Also a date to watch out for is judgement day for double JJ - 11 November 2006 - when James James"Judgement Day" Dellow will step into the ring to box for real against ..............another accountant yet to be announced. Check out the JD training blog for awesome progress pictures.

Brain explosion frenzy

I love reading the NZ press I can't beleive what is happening at home. National and Labour sex scandals would be awesome, if only the thought of any of the protaganists actually having sex wasn't so horribly foul.

Anyway the real gold is the fact that now the warriors season is over the general public are picking up the mantel and having chronic brain explosions of their own, in fact the competition is close for brain explosion of the week, but I think the winner is the Christchurch chronic gambler turned repeat armed robber whose lawyer actually described his offending in court as the consequences of a quote "brain explosion". Brilliant.

However the close runner up is Clint Brown - so drunk in Taupo of all places that he managed to get beaten to within an inch of his life and lose his job.

If those in NZ have input on the playoffs that would be good I see Brisbane have qualified and St G are favourites going into a semi final with Melbourne. I had thought Melbourne were running away with the title but apparently St G are favourites - I guess their form has been pretty good lately then? I am so far away from knowing at the moment it is really poor form on my part. I have been stuck in the office for far too long with no time for internet surfing.

Seems like a long time till the NRL 2007 kicks off but I will try and keep the blog alive over the extremely long off season. Warriors off season news should start kicking in around new year.

Comments always appreciated and idle premiership chit chat is also worth a shot.

Season wrap up

Well another long hard NRL season comes to a close for the Warriors with a tough Loss to Brisbane in Queensland. While the big boys head off into the playoff sunset the Warriors are left to rue their points deduction and kiss goodbye to Brent Webb.

A few bright points coming out of a season with Cleary stamping his authority on the team and bring in effective and cheap Australian talent. Hohaia looks to showing some of the form that might make him a bright hope for the future and he is still a young player. Axing the boozers is a very clear message to this team that Cleary wants a serious tone to prevail at the club and I like it.

As an aside to the Sione axing Cleary is now shopping for another lock and it looks like the options are fairly limited. Anyone have any creative ideas on this one?

Herald reports that the Warriors seeking to sign Sonny Bill when he comes off contract at end of 2007 - apart from the fact that Sonny has demonstrated for all to see just how fragile his body is - this is a recipe for salary cap disaster unless the Warriors axe Price and Wiki. That could be a possibility at the end of 2007 with Price off contract but it would be something like the biggest league contract ever to sign him and he might not even play a match.

Overall if we look at Cleary Year One in perspective it starts to look like a pretty good season:

Year Coach Owner CEO W L D Win % Table Playoffs
1995 Monie ARL Robson 13 9 0 59.09% 10th* none (*2 point deduction for 14 players on field)
1996 Monie ARL Robson 10 11 1 45.45% 11th none
1997 Monie/Endacott ARL MacGowan 7 11 0 38.89% 7th none(SL)
1998 Graham Tainui+Lowe McKewen 9 15 0 37.50% 15th none
1999 Graham Tainui+Lowe McKewen 10 14 0 41.67% 11th none
2000 Graham Tainui/Watson McKewen 8 16 2 30.77% 13th none
2001 Anderson Watson Watson 12 12 2 46.15% 8th qualifying final
2002 Anderson Watson Watson 17 7 0 70.83% 1st grand final
2003 Anderson Watson Watson 15 9 0 62.50% 6th semi-final
2004 Anderson/Kemp Watson Watson 6 18 0 25.00% 14th none
2005 Kemp Watson Watson 10 14 0 41.67% 11th none
2006 Cleary Watson Scurrah 12 12 0 50.00% 10th* none (*4 point deduction for salary cap breach )

Cleary is up there in the top four seasons ever for the Warriors - together with 1995, 2002 and 2003 - a bit sad really but these are the only four seasons that the Warriors have won 50% or more of their games. 1995 and 2006 would have both been playoff years but for points deductions.

Anyway Cleary Year One bodes well for the future and I like to think of it like the Anderson 2001 season where he scraped the team into the playoffs in eighth spot only to take them to the grand final in 2002. That is where I want to see Cleary Year Two end up!

It would be great if everyone would add their comments to their post on their impressions of the season that was. I want to see more comments than ever before on this blog for a single post - lets get some dialogue going - this should be alot more like talkback than it in fact is.
Lastly it is very sad to see Steve Erwin pass away in a ghastly sting ray accident. He was a real character and a global superstar.