The Weekender 08/08/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 08/08/2010 - 17:01
Welcome to the week!
Sport
The NZ men's hockey team haven't been doing too well in the Champions Trophy despite a good warm up against France. After a 1-9 loss to the world champs they then lost 2-5 to the Olympic champs Germany. They then had a 3-1 win over Netherlands. However they've missed out on a spot in the finals after losing 4-3 to England.
Last weekend the Warriors had another hiccup in their fight for the play-offs after being beaten 28-20 by the Gold Coast Titans. However this weekend they thrashed Cronulla 37-10.
Table: Dragons* 30, Panthers*/Roosters*/Titans/Wests Tigers 28, Sea Eagles/Broncos/Warriors 26. Outside of the top eight: Rabbitohs 24, Eels 22, Knights*/Raiders* 20, Bulldogs* 18, Cowboys/Sharks 14, Storm 0. (* 19 games compared to 20).
Last weekend in the NPC Wellington beat Tasman 20-11. This week Canterbury just snuck past Manawatu 27-26, and Southland defended the Ranfurly Shield against Otago 16-12. Waikato had a last minute 21-18 win over Auckland when Dwayne Sweeney scored 50 seconds after the final siren. Bay of Plenty thrashed Hawke's Bay 30-11 and Taranaki beat Tasman 33-11. And finally at half time Counties-Manukau lead Wellington 23-3. Update: Counties-Manukau are on the top of the ITM cup table after a 31-25 win over Wellington!
All Whites star Winston Reid has signed a great deal with English Premier team West Ham. The deal was worth around NZ$8.7m which makes a mockery of all the NRL wage caps & rugby players wages. Perhaps when Winston retires he could buy an NRL club.
Valerie Vili has changed her coach but hasn't yet been able to regain her form. In March Valerie's two and a half year winning streak was ended by Belarussian Nadezdha Ostapchuk and Valerie has lost four more times.
The Silver Ferns kicked off their Commonwealth Games build up with a 92-28 thrashing of Samoa in only the fourth time the teams have met.
The All Blacks had their fourth tri-nations game last night - and had a terrible game. Australia had a fantastic game doing far far better than the last week. And the All Blacks still won 20-10. The game started the same with three quick tries, but then it turned into a real test match. The All Blacks seemed to kick more than normal - so perhaps they were testing their defence, and the defence held. So that's nine wins in a row over the Wallabies - record equalling, and the All Blacks retain the Bledisloe Cup.
And in the record of the week, Tony Woodcock became the highest capped test prop on 67.
NZ News
After the large amount of public concern over the sale of farmland to overseas companies, the government has signalled that their review of foreign investment rules are unlikely to result in many changes. The review was launched last year & hoped to encourage more foreign investment.
In a humorous tale (if politics can be at all humorous), there was a story this week how Labour leader Phil Goff has weighed into the Auckland Super City mayoral race by giving the "left" a rark-up to rally them against the "National pawns". Rather funny since he was doing so by addressing the 'Labour pawns'.
In a crazy follow up to the Chris Carter saga, he has taken two-months of taxpayer-funded sick leave. And wow! if he is absent from parliament after that, his pay of $2800 per week is docked - by $10 per week. Sounds like a great job to me! In a TV3 survey people were asked if Chris Carter was correct that Phil Goff was a nice guy but he couldn't lead the Labour party to victory in the next election. Of the voters, 42% said he was correct, a further 32% thought Labour couldn't win regardless of who the leader is.
A New Zealand soldier, Lieutenant Timothy O'Donnell, was killed and two others injured in Afghanistan this week, while on a routine patrol.
Tim O'Donnell was awarded the Distinguished Service Decoration for an incident while serving in Timor Leste in 2007. He was NZ's first combat casualty in Afghanistan.
1: % per day discount (up to 50%) now required by councils who are late in processing resource contents, this may help with more than a third of resource consents being delayed
3.5: m squid washed by on a Wellington beach
5: people have died on mountains around the country this winter. A climber on Mount Ruapehu & a snowboarder at Mt Hutt are the most recent
59: % of kiwis polled either agreed or strongly agreed that New Zealand should be a completely Smokefree nation by 2020 (down from 64% who thought so in May)
94: $ expected to be saved on the cost of a trip to Australia if NZ & Australian governments could agree to drop immigration checks & passenger charges
440: metre & $340m Victoria Park Tunnel project is on track
33,000: $ civil law suit against a vandal for graffiti damage by the Auckland City Council
81,521: pupils have been stood down or suspended from NZ schools for drug use, verbal or physical assaults, since 2007
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4604 (-0.0022)
EUR 0.5527 (-0.0020)
USD 0.7337 (+0.0102)
AUD 0.7998 (-0.0028)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Eric Tindill
Eric died on Sunday aged 99. The legend is the only kiwi to both play and officiate in test matches for both rugby and cricket.
Read more about him here http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10663042&ref=rss
Foot Snuggle
On a chilly winter evening, my husband and I were snuggled together on the floor watching television. During a commercial break, he reached over and gave my foot a gentle squeeze.
"Mmmmm," I said. "That's so sweet."
"Actually," he admitted sheepishly, "I thought that was the remote."
Check
out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42
Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
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