The Weekender 15/11/2009

Welcome to the home of a Football World Cup team - congratulations the All Whites!

Sport

Not many would have picked it but the All Whites had a huge game in Wellington on Saturday night beating Bahrain (ranked much higher) to get into next year's Football World Cup. Obviously NZ isn't particularly known for being good at soccer but the 1-0 home win (matched with a 0-0 away draw) was enough for them to meet up with the top 23 other teams from around the world in South Africa next year. Rory Fallon scored the only goal just before half time and man of the match was Mark Paston the goalie who among other great work, saved a penalty.

The All Blacks also won over the weekend but it was an unconvincing 6-20 win over Italy. And France upset South Africa 20-13.
Dan Carter has his first trip to the judiciary last week and received a one match ban (not that he was ever going to play in the heavily rotated team anyway), for his tackle which was high, but clearly not intentional and simply slipped upwards during the event. It is suspected the English IRB had a hand in Dan being cited two weeks out from the match up with England.
BNZ has stepped up as a brand sponsor for NZ's five Super 14 teams.
And finally for rugby, Melbourne has been given the nod for a team in the Super 15 rugby union competition from 2011.

Team New Zealand had quite a number of wins & then they lost to British TeamOrigin in the Louis Vuitton World Series, but according to Team boss Grant Dalton they are sailing well & improving all the time. Team NZ beat Oracle, Russian team Synergy, Italy's Azzurra, and the Franco-German boat All4one among others.

Not that the Kiwis were involved but Australia won the Four Nations final beating England 46-16.

In cricket the Black Caps who are touring Pakistan won the one day series with a final game seven run win & then lost both Twenty20 matches in the series.
Captain Dan Vettori overtook Kyle Mills to regain the top ranked ODI bowling spot. Kyle dropped back to 5th with Shane Bond dropping from 5th to 7th. The only kiwi in the top 20 for batting is Brendon McCullum at 14th - hmm the whole batting vs bowling thing shows doesn't it.

Sacha Jones continues to impress in woman's tennis after reaching the quarter-finals in a $US50,000 tournament in Phoenix, Arizona.

The NZ Breakers bounced back from a 20 point loss to Perth to beat them 83-74 in Auckland on Thursday night.

The Black Sticks are doing well in the men's World Cup qualifying tournament in Invercargill with the most recent game a 6-1 win over China.

Valerie Villi has been nominated for the 2009 world Athlete of the Year award. She is along side sprinters Usain Bolt & Tyson Gay.

NZ News

Maori MP Hone Harawira got in quite big trouble for his ill conceived email from last week (& rightly so). He has apologised (for the email but not the sentiment) and apparently been told by the leaders of the Maori party that he should resign or be kicked out, but he has remained defiant and says he won't resign. The email generated 365 complaints to the Race Relations Commissioner who has said he won't be investigating.

Probably the biggest political news snuck in after the All Whites win, but will have a huge long term effect - the US has announced a trade deal with eight countries including New Zealand. This was something that I had thought was put on the back-burner by the current US administration. There is no time table but this is a great step forward, the deal is worth billions to NZ - just take a look at the opportunities for real dairy products in the US ;-) John Key caught up with Barack Obama for Apec meetings in Singapore.

Construction of the 2.4km Victoria Park road tunnel project began this week.

The Numbers Game

6.05: $/kg for milksolids announced by Fonterra for dairy farmers - up $1.50 on the forecast & worth an extra $110,000 for the average farmer
15: drownings in October - the five year average is 10
64: caught in an Auckland police drink-driving blitz stopping 13,000 cars
68: % of maori now support the National-Maori government deal made at the last election - 96% of National supporters support it!
300: (only?) motorcyclists protested the ACC changes which will triple their ACC levy - including one who hit car leaving the protest & broke his leg & will no doubt require ACC for his self inflicted injury
3,200: eggs went into the world's longest chocolate log in Whakatane at 35.79m long
35,500: All White fans in the sell out game against Bahrain at the Cake tin
355,000: $ median national house price - a 10 year high
4,331,600: the population of NZ on September 30th
5.7m: $ fraud by Scott Alwyn Mackenzie classified as serious commercial fraud by the judge resulted in a prison sentence of 3 years 8 months
7m: $ windfall expected from the World Cup qualifier in Wellington over the weekend

Finance NZ Dollar

GBP 0.4463 (+0.0091)
EUR 0.4994 (+0.0102)
USD 0.7439 (+0.0177)
AUD 0.7977 (+0.0075)

The Weekender NZer of the week

Edmund Hillary
KING OF THE WORLD
He explored places where no human being had gone before, conquered Everest and captured a world's imagination. Yet where others would have been content to admire the view, look down and bask in the sheer individuality of achievement, for Sir Edmund Hillary it was only the beginning of a lifetime of service to others.
http://www.nzedge.co.nz/heroes/hillary.html

Joke of the Weekender

Doctor's Orders
Doctor: "I see you're over a month late for your appointment. Don't you know that nervous disorders require prompt and regular attention? What's your excuse?"
Patient: "I was just following your orders, Doc."
Doctor: "Following my orders? What are you talking about? I gave you no such order."
Patient: "You told me to avoid people who irritate me."

Weekender Photos

This week I went for a trip with some friends & we called in to Karangahake Gorge for the amazing windows walk & I even took a couple of photos.
Check out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42/Fandeys#

Darren Harrison: darren@harrison.gen.nz
The Weekender: mailed weekly (Sunday nightish)
Website: www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
{If these just fill up your junk mail, then send me an email & I'll take you off the list | The Weekender is not a verified news source, sometimes it's even just an opinion}