The Weekender 27/06/2010
Welcome to the home of the All Whites Football team!
Sport
The All Whites journey came to an end this week, but they did amazingly well. If there was one story of the week it would be how NZ 'won' a shock 1-1 draw with Italy. Shane Smeltz put us into the lead (from a slightly off side position) and Italy caught up with a penalty after a blatant dive in our box. And then we held on for the rest of the game. What a game.
The All Whites left the tournament unbeaten (three draws against top teams) and finished third in their group - ahead of the current world cup holders Italy! We are immensely proud of what our team has accomplished & it was well worth a couple of 2AM starts this week to watch the games.
As an indication of how far New Zealand came, after early reports of how NZ didn't even deserve to be at the World Cup, many people from the coach Ricky Herbert & captain Ryan Nelsen to a huge number of people in NZ, were all disappointed at not progressing through to the next round - that in itself speaks volumes.
Last week Ryan Nelsen was name World Player of the Week by the Goal.com website. My player of the tournament was goal keep Mark Paston who played so well.
The All Blacks continued their good start to the international season (pre-season?) with a 29-10 win over Wales here in Hamilton last night. Wales never really threatened & got a consolation try near the end of the game. The match was the fortieth win for Richie McCaw as captain, surpassing Sean Fitzpatrick as NZ's most successful captain.
It has been confirmed the Sonny Bill Williams will play for the Canterbury in the national champs and for the Crusaders in the Super 15.
Hosea Gear got himself a hat-trick for the NZ Maori as they beat England 35-28 & continued their centenary rugby celebrations. It was only a second string English team but that is the second win for the Maori's in the last three meetings against the English.
And finally for rugby, NZ won the third junior world rugby title in a row after thrashing Australia 62-17 in the final. Julian Savea was the fourth kiwi in a row to be named the IRB junior player of the year.
Swimmer Nick Ferrif won the 100m breaststroke convincingly in the Oceania Champs in Samoa on the second day. On the first day NZ won nine medals including four golds for Andrew McMillan getting two in 200m freestyle & 200m butterfly, Samantha Lee won the 50m butterfly sprint, and Dylan Dunlop-Barrett won the men's 1500m freestyle.
In the trans tasman netball league, the Waikato/BOP Magic secured their spot in the top four, and the Southern Steel also joined them after the Firebirds were beaten by the Perth Fever. So with the regular season ended the table was: NSW Swifts 26, Adelaide Thunderbirds/Waikato-BOP Magic 18, Southern Steel 16, Queensland Firebirds/Northern Mystics 14, Melbourne Vixens 12, West Coast Fever 8, Central Pulse/Canterbury Tactix 2.
The New Zealand Warriors beat the Roosters 20-18 after Kevin Locke scored in the dying seconds but then he left the field in agony. The Warriors were down 8-18 with six minutes to go before Manu Vatuvei started a come back.
Brent Tate is leaving the Warriors & heading to North Queensland. He has said that he is only leaving to be closer to family.
Juliette Haigh & Rebecca Scown won the coxless pair gold medal at an international meet in Munich.
NZ News
One of NZ's major wine brands has been renamed. Montana Wines has become Brancott Estate with the name change being rolled out globally in Sept/October. The change is due to the brand's 'American' name where Montana would have been associated with the state, and the NZ region of Marlborough would have been associated with the cigarettes.
This week had the shortest day of the year - so summer is on it's way, right?
0.6: % GDP - the economy has been growing - if slowly - for the last year
30.5: % support for Labour, a big drop after their credit card scandals - John Key has 49.6% support as Prime Minister, followed by Phil Goff on 5.1% (& Helen Clark on 4.9%!)
1,480: bureaucrat jobs were cut last year as the government tries to reign in spending - 500 more to go over the next year, that's only 5%. Labour tripled the number of bureaucrats during their three terms
10,000: kms of NZ roads were filmed & assigned ratings, there were no 1 star or 5 star roads, 39% were 2 star, 56% were 3 star & 5% were 4 star
240,000: $/year will be the salary of the new Auckland Supercity mayor
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4745 (-0.0022)
EUR 0.5778 (+0.0072)
USD 0.7144 (+0.0086)
AUD 0.8178 (+0.0070)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Sir Harold Gillies
AESTHETIC RECONSTRUCTOR
The introduction of more ferocious weapons and trench warfare in the First World War resulted in devastating injuries. A new type of surgery was needed. Rhinoplasty, skin grafts, and facial reconstructions have been practised for centuries. However, it was New Zealander Sir Harold Delf Gillies who standardised these techniques and established the discipline of 'plastic surgery'.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/gillies.html
Computer Repair
An office technician got a call from a computer user. The user told the tech that her computer was not working. She described the problem and the tech concluded that her computer needed to be brought in and serviced.
He told her, "Unplug the power cord and bring it up here and I'll fix it for you."
About ten minutes later she showed up at his door... with the electrical cord in her right hand.
Check
out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42
Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
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