The Weekender 02/05/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 02/05/2010 - 18:55
Welcome along for the ride. I hope you've all had a great week. Let's see what happened around the country this week.
Sport
Well I almost wish I could ignore the Super14! The Bulls beat the Sharks 27-19, the Force beat the Lions 33-12 and the Brumbies beat the Reds 32-12. The Reds may have been upset by the news that star flanker Daniel Braid is returning to NZ next year to compete for an All Blacks jersey. The Chiefs continued their disappointing season letting the Hurricanes away with a 33-27 win near the end of the game. The win did give the Hurricanes a chance at a semi-final spot. The Blues had their semi hopes smashed by the Cheetahs when they were beaten 36-32 in Bloemfontein, and the Crusaders were rocked, thrashed 14-42 by the Stormers. In a game no one would have picked the Highlanders beat the Waratahs 26-10 to dent the 5th placed 'Tah's semi hopes. The table is: Bulls 43, Stormers 38, Crusaders/Reds 34, Waratahs 33, Hurricanes 32, Brumbies 31, Blues 27, Chiefs 26, Sharks 25, Force 18, Highlanders 17, Cheetahs 16, Lions 4.
Matt Giteau was fined $6,300 for criticising kiwi ref Steve Walsh. The TAB has ignored the poor kiwi form in the Super14 to put the All Blacks as tournament favourites for the Rugby World Cup.
The Black Caps did well in their first game of the Twenty20 world champs. Yesterday Nathan McCullum (Brendon's older brother) was man of the match against Sri Lanka with a fine bowling performance (1 for 17 off the first three overs), then in the field he took three catches and then chasing 136 and coming in to bat at 117 for seven he hit 16 off six balls to win the game with a six of the penultimate ball.
In the warm up games the Black Caps beat the West Indies by seven runs, and Ireland.
In other cricket, former Black Cap captain Stephen Fleming coached the Chennai Super Kings to the Indian Premier League cricket title last week with a 22-run win over the Mumbai Indians.
The NZ Warriors had their third loss in a row being beaten 23-16 by the Canberra Raiders. The table is: Dragons/Titans* 12, Panthers* 10, Sea Eagles/Rabbitohs/Roosters/Wests Tigers 8, Bulldogs/Eels/Knights*/Warriors*/Raiders* 6, Sharks/Cowboys*/Broncos 4, Storm* 0 (* 8 games compared to 7).
Scott Dixon won his first race of the season in the IndyCar series at the Kansas Speedway today. He led the final 150 of 200 laps and won by more than 3 seconds. With the second win in a row at Kansas, he took over the lead in the championship.
Kiwi golfer Richard Lee set the lowest-ever score recorded in a professional tournament in New Zealand this week. His second round 59 in the Tauranga Open included eight birdies and an eagle.
Kimberly Smith has broken Allison Roe's 29 year old NZ women's marathon record when she finished in the top-10 in the London marathon this week. She finished eighth in two hours 25 minutes and 21 seconds.
NZ News
Legislation has been introduced so that driver licences can be suspended when people don't pay overdue traffic fines. They will be sent a warning giving them 14 days and then their licences suspended. That makes sense to me - only a little surprised they are only just starting doing it now.
There has been some rain around this week - we even had a night of nice gentle rain. Queenstown & Southland in general has had huge amounts with Lake Wakatipu flooding a few streets around Queenstown over the last two days of the week. Some places around Southland had up to 700mm of rain over the three days and flood warnings were everywhere. The driest spots in New Zealand are still Northland with rainfall inconsistent around the district - but fairly consistent in not being enough.
470: public service positions to be cut by the end of next year as National try to cut back the huge number of bureaucrats that Labour installed during their reign
850: calls to Quitline (compared to the normal 2-300) after news broke of a big tax increase for tobacco with cigarettes to be $17 a packet -
20,000: people turned out in Auckland to protest the government's proposal to mine on conservation land (not the 50,000 they claimed) - funny how the Green party didn't protest when Labour were doing it!
39,292: $ claimed for air travel by ministers for the first three months of this year compared to $134,054 in the September quarter, after it was opened up to public scrutiny
325,000: ticket applications for the Rugby World Cup in the first three days, the sales have been "fantastic" according to RNZ chief executive Martin Snedden
1.35m: $ surplus for New Zealand Football following their on field success in qualifying for the Football World Cup
30m: $ pavilion for NZ at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai - it is already proving to be a hit
400m: $ expected cost to host the Rugby World Cup
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4763 (+0.0097)
EUR 0.5475 (+0.0114)
USD 0.7274 (+0.0100)
AUD 0.7873 (+0.0139)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Dave Moriaty
You won't find this name in the NZ heros list, but Bomber Comander Dave Moriaty won the rare Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for an act of bravery over the Normandy battlefield in 1944. He died this week in Wanganui aged 88.
I've just read his story and it's amazing, you should take the time to read how he saved his crew after being hit by shrapnel.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10641907&ref=rss
Pupil's Question "And that, my master, is fate?"
A young pupil asked, "Master, what is fate."
"Ah, my son, it is what has brought great nations together. It has made the world a smaller place in which to live. It has inspired men of worth to work endless hours. It will some day enable men to span the universe and light years of travel will soon become mere seconds in time."
"Oh, fate! I thought you said freight."
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Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
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