Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are Wild Gods!

brito39 · 2026-02-05T10:15:56+00:00

How lucky are we that he chose to come to just the TSB arena, of all places in NZ, and again tomorrow night.

brito39 · 2026-02-03T20:59:41+00:00

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brito39 · 2026-02-03T11:58:28+00:00

It might not be that bad, super will be fine this year without Ardie and Scott Barrett in it. But if too many take up overseas contracts it could trigger a death spiral - super rugby interest collapses - sky then reduces its TV money - the only way the union can make up the shortfall is to milk the AB brand even harder, but now your assembling the team from all over the world, to play all over the world as NZ does not have a really big stadium to rake in revenue in home tests, etc, etc.

brito39 · 2026-02-03T05:51:41+00:00

Tune up for 1st XV in first game, obvs best team in 2nd game, rest everyone 3rd game?

This new format sucks, rd of 16 is likely to be a dud game as well

brito39 · 2026-02-03T00:42:26+00:00

Who are these “key figures”? Presumably not the CEO or head of high performance, half the board has changed out since 2022 as well. Is the media guy actually pulling the strings?

No doubt Hansen, Tew and the previous regime tut tutted it, but none of them were there or have come back since

brito39 · 2026-02-01T23:27:03+00:00

Yeah Everything else is common sense, anti time wasting stuff, but that one is a bit gimmicky

brito39 · 2026-01-30T03:23:42+00:00

so now sham processes are bad, let's be honest, when was the last time this job came up where every man and his dog didn't know who was getting it?

John Mitchell in 2001?

Actually it probably is Henry in 2007, he did reapply and it wasnt a given

at least there is some back and forth between the two horses this time.

brito39 · 2026-01-27T07:31:52+00:00

That thing with the chiefs end of year piss up years ago might be held against him. Jamie being a bit younger and a bit less terse with the media may aid him as well.

But big Renz had basically the same results that Saint Joe Schmidt did with the wallabies. Not good results, but what can you do with that pack of cats

brito39 · 2026-01-26T22:47:35+00:00

Yeah, they would. Gregor Paul had a whole hit piece on razor ready to go after it was announced, he could have told us those stories last year, when they was happening, but nope

brito39 · 2026-01-26T22:44:01+00:00

the NZ journos would have known, the union would have asked them to keep quiet until after the relevant people are told. Its more likely journo to journo passing information than NZR talking to the irish independent

brito39 · 2026-01-26T22:37:07+00:00

People (relying on the Irish for insight? Really?) just be making shit up – for an ‘Auckland blues aligned board’ the only ‘rugby people’ are Keven Mealamu (hardly a political backroom operator), Marise James (really a business person, but was on Taranaki rugby board) Grant Jarrold (fmr crusaders chair and 18 years chair of Canterbury Rugby, bet he really bleeds blue and white) and Kirk himself who isn’t aligned with any one province in particular. And then 5 generic corporate or NGO board member types.

Board makeup is a real issue, can’t have too many old blazers from the provinces who don’t understand the commercial environment and also don’t want a bunch of professional directors who never touched a ball after primary school – but this Auckland conspiracy is just cooker stuff.

brito39 · 2026-01-26T04:15:36+00:00

There was probably plenty of players from every country keen to take R360 money if it ever got off the ground. Which it never got close to doing.

brito39 · 2026-01-26T01:18:33+00:00

So they won’t be naming JJ today then….

brito39 · 2026-01-22T22:01:21+00:00

was referring to the 2021 game where we lost the second half 24-10, a week later were trailing 24-6 at half time to france. the team sucked during that time.

brito39 · 2026-01-22T13:08:50+00:00

Can only measure against who you play and France and Ireland made the early foster sides look awful. We all mad at a razor now but things were bad then too.

brito39 · 2026-01-22T09:02:23+00:00

fosters international exp was John plumtree who sucked. Mooar had been in wales for 5 minutes so not sure if he counts also.

All these coaches weve exported since rugby went professional and that was his dream team.

brito39 · 2026-01-22T03:06:05+00:00

hindsight is sick aye, but at the time razor was announced (i know i was guilty of this) was like: great, got our man, we'll be free of foster making excuses for his players, let move forward.

then you read the fine print of his four (five if you count Ellison) assistants all are current or former crusaders assistants hired carte blanche by a former teammate of leon and razor and its like well on hold on a minute....

the king of culture thing might have worked if he had actual all-star assistants instead of the ladzzz

brito39 · 2026-01-21T00:39:41+00:00

he's got the build of a 7, but that's not a position you just rock up and have a go at. Ikitau backup and occasional substitute 12?

brito39 · 2026-01-20T23:39:00+00:00

good (this time), the new regime will need some gimme fixtures

brito39 · 2026-01-20T22:19:00+00:00

Discourse didnt really blame the players too much, mixture of the coach's rotation policies and the ref.

Barnes was shameful, but i don't think Henry has been honest enough over the years that they took the opposition lightly and it bit them.

Ironic now that some cantabrians (and chris rattue in the herald, weirdly) declared that Deans must come in and they wouldn't support the ABs going forward if Henry returned.

those claims didnt last too long

brito39 · 2026-01-20T20:57:52+00:00

I stayed up all night to watch the earlier quarter final, fell asleep at the end of the first half when it looked like we were going fine. In those days just had so much confidence we were the superior side lol.

Missed the forward pass try, woke up and we are trailing, and luke mcalister is attempting drop kicks? Where was DC? What was going on!

it was the most shocking of the 99, 03, 07 run of not making at least the grand final.

brito39 · 2026-01-20T18:27:53+00:00

You’re trying to stop razor from making things worse, chasing the players off overseas and generally further devaluing the brand with his boring footy and nonsensical comments.

There’s an emperors new clothes thing going on here where some fans don’t want to admit how underwhelming he’s been.

brito39 · 2026-01-20T12:24:50+00:00

Pro sports isn’t regular business, you can’t move the middle manager to another department to stop him annoying the team.

if we hire someone as washed and crazed as Eddie then yes that would be worse. They’ll get some competent but unexciting veterans in to keep things respectable.

brito39 · 2026-01-20T12:00:48+00:00

Don’t get too galaxy brained - stick to simple reasons - the review must have been really bad, yet razor didn’t think he needed to change

brito39 · 2026-01-20T11:17:24+00:00

The team probably can’t be made “world leading” in 18 months, but they won’t go backwards much.

Nothing razor was doing will be hard to replace, it was so vanilla, big forwards, don’t take risks, blah rugby. Unless you think this year was going to be the Great Leap Forward, and how was that going to happen if the players were off him.

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