Well, hi everybody, this is Whetu Ngapo here on my Kiwiavenger blog but first, I have announced that I decided to go to Wellington next year in January 2025 (But the Wellington holiday goes ahead as planned, but on only one condition that Cathey, Paige & Norah will have to be there in Welly especially in Petone for the time being) with either Pops or Pops & Carole or Pops, Aunty Tan & Rejean if both Aunty Tan & Rejean are here since Dad dropped out of taking me there due to his work commitments that he's currently tied up with meaning that he won't make it, mainly for whanau reasons because of my willingness of meeting Paige Ahearn (My 30 year old cousin/cuzzie who is in fact my bestie as well as honorary sister just like Kelsey Nicholls & my imaginary mate) again mainly who I have not seen her since 2016 along with Paige's mum Cathey Middelplaats (My biological aunty who could be in the mix as my bestie along with Andy Webb just like Paige & Andy's wife Kelsey, but Cathey is old because she is 57 now) as well as Paige's daughter & Cathey's granddaughter Norah who I have never met in my whole life (And I've once said that Cathey Middelplaats is a bit of both a Alanis Morissette (The famous female Canadian-American pop rock singer), Danielle Cormack (Famous Kiwi actress who once appeared on Wentworth as well as Shorty Street & movies such as Channeling Baby, the Price of Milk & Without a Paddle) & Famke Janssen (The famous female Dutch actress who appeared in I Spy, Taken & the X-Men trilogy) lookalike, while Cathey's daughter Paige Ahearn (Who is a full time mum as of today by always taking care of her daughter Norah (I'm not sure what is her surname (It might be Williams-Ahearn but I don't know it at all) but I know Paige's husband Jarrod's surname, & it is Ahearn according to the email that she sent to me circa mid 2016 to early 2018 & she managed to marry Jarrod last year after years of dating together like she first dated him at 18 a year after getting her full drivers license at 17, meanwhile she safely came back home along with Jarrod in 2020 from London in the UK just right before the start of the global COVID pandemic after spending nearly 3 years over there on an OE (Overseas experience) as Pops told me before 4 years ago) reminds me of both Black Ferns 7s rugby player Sarah Hirini & Sky Sport TV presenter Kirstie Stanway because of her uncanny as well as close but remarkable resemblance to both in contrast of Pops looking like the late great British actor Sean Connery as well as Dad who is a bit of a doppelgaenger of former New Zealand cricketer Daniel Vettori & for me, well I look like Austin Powers from the Austin Powers movie trilogy according to the comment from Pops in 2017 (Smashing baby, yeah baby yeah! Oh behave, but Pops once saw an Austin Powers impersonator way back when the city of Wellington that once had a rugby sevens event), but I'm into fashion because of my new shirt & jacket that Pops gave it to me as well as my girly hair & glasses, reminds me of being a fanboy of the Britpop rock music genre inspired by the former frontman of the UK Britpop band, the Verve of Richard Ashcroft.
And the latest on the Olympics such as the France men's sevens team claimed gold against the 2 time gold medalists Fiji (Who I thought should've won in the end) in the gold medal match all thanks to the AB's old foe of Antoine Dupont who would finally claim the gold after appearing in the quarterfinal with the French national team who fell short to the eventual champions South Africa at last year's Rugby World Cup, but in the rowing department as Emma Twigg didn't get the gold that she deserved for as she got beaten by the Dutch competitor who snatched gold from her who Twigg was having a tough race by claiming silver therefore unable to follow it up to her success in Tokyo (And our country is 14th on the medal table (And 15th according to the updated medal table as of August 5th) but we're stuck on both golds (Which was won by the Black Ferns sevens led by both co-captains of the departing Sarah Hirini & Risi Pouri-Lane in women's rugby sevens, then Francis & Spoors in the rowing women's double sculls) along with 4 silvers (Such as Finn Butcher for example who is now an Olympic champion in the canoe slalom as he had a perfect start before he got the gold ahead of a British opponent & World No.1 of Joseph Clarke who got the silver then the German competitor named Noah Hegge had claimed the bronze, then it was Ellesse Andrews in the women's keirin track cycling when at that moment as Andrews who became the 1st woman from New Zealand to win an Olympic track cycling event since Sarah Ulmer herself in Athens, Greece way back in 2004 & the women's K4 500m consisting of Tara Vaughan, Olivia Brett, Alicia Hoskin & the GOAT herself of Dame Lisa Carrington (It's a 6th gold medal for Carrington (Who is in her final ever Olympics in Paris before possibly retiring) since she made her debut in London in 2012) & just the one bronze (Including the sisters from Whanganui such as Jackie Gowler & Kerri Williams), but the People's Republic of China currently lead the medal table ahead of the US, & it is reminiscent of Beijing 2008 where the Chinese ended up topping the medal table after the Olympic Games at their home Olympics in Beijing (And there was Zheng Qin Wen (The one that was runner up to Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open earlier this year) who claimed gold in the women's tennis as she defeated her Croatian opponent Donna Vekic (The one who beat New Zealander Lulu Sun in the ladies singles quarterfinals at Wimbeldon) in the women's gold medal match, becoming the first female Chinese player to do so while the gold medal match in the men's singles is set, it is going to be Novak Djokovic of Serbia against Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, in a rematch of the gentlemen's singles final at Wimbeldon which had gone in the way of the Spaniard of Alcaraz, but there has been an update as Djokovic has finally becoming the Olympic champion in men's tennis as he got payback from Wimbeldon as he had beaten Alcaraz who had to settle for the silver (And the bronze medal went to the Italian of Lorenzo Musetti) in one of another greatest revenge stories in sport of all-time compared to Israel 'The Last Style Bender' Adesanya's win over Alex Pereira last year at UFC 287 & there is a new king in the athletics 100m event which was won by an American competitor of Noah Lyles who thought that he got beaten by a Jamaican Kishane Thompson (Who thought he had it before Lyles (Who revealed that he had COVID when he narrowly missed out on winning the 200m because it went to a competitor from Botswana named Letsile Tebogo who was the first African in history to win the 200m & also the United States who were favourites to win the 4x100m title, but got disqualified which resulted in Canada led by its sprinter Andre De Grasse, becoming the Olympic champion while Aunty Tan who alluded to me on the phone on the 12th of August as she was so damn impressed about it, especially the result in which the people of Canada were stoked) had been declared the Olympic champion) but wow, he got it! As he is now the new world's fastest man as well as the first American since Justin Gatlin in 2004 at Athens to claim gold in the 100m (Then it was the GOAT of Usain Bolt who dominated the next 3 in Beijing 2008, London 2012 & Rio 2016 before the Italian of Lamont Marcell Jacobs took over from him last time out in Tokyo 3 years ago).
And also the latest on the football stuff in England just before the brand new Premier League season which is due to get underway on the 17th of August such as fines being handed out against defending Premier League champions Manchester City for nearly $3 million for deliberately delaying the game (Which is a lesser known rule) 22 times during their home games as they repeatedly coming out late for both the beginning of matches & after half-time (In a headline billed as: TIME IS MONEY) with their coach Pep Guardiola expected to make changes in an effort to shorten his half-time team talks, according to the statement from Premier League but when will Manchester City's invicibility of winning Premier League championships end? If they shorten all those half time team talks to avoid getting fined again for deliberately delaying the game (And unlike Newcastle United that in 1995-96 that they nearly won the Premier League because they had their best chance of winning the English league which had gone the way of Manchester United (And Leicester City had managed to pull it off to win the Premier League championship in 2015-16 which was the greatest giant killing Cinderella stories of all time in akin to a David against Goliath battle, in terms of the history of English football by an Italian manager named Claudio Ranieri (The ex-Chelsea coach) who acquired cheap players such as Frenchman N'Golo Kante, Austrian Christian Fuchs, Jamaican Wes Morgan & Englishman Jamie Vardy).
And finally the All Blacks team has been named for our opening Rugby Championship test against Argentina in 2 days time on August 10th at Sky Stadium in the nation's capital of Wellington (AKA Welly, the Windy City & Wellywood), but the most recent test between the 2 countries was last year during the Rugby World Cup semifinal where the All Blacks (Who have never lost a test since last years ill-fated Rugby World Cup final against the defending world champions South Africa at the Stade de France (Venue for so much of the Paris Olympics this year) in Paris, France in October 2023) had a comprehensive win against the Argentinians with Will Jordan scoring a hat-trick in which he was the top try scorer at rugby's global showpiece event in 2023, so here is the starting lineup according to Razor:
STARTING XV
FORWARD PACK
FRONT ROW
1 (Loose head prop): Ethan de Groot (Highlanders/Southland)
2 (Hooker): Codie Taylor (Crusaders/Canterbury)
3 (Tight head prop): Tyrel Lomax (Hurricanes/Tasman)
SECOND ROW
4 (No.4 lock): Tupou Vaa'i (Chiefs/Taranaki)
5 (No.5 lock): Sam Darry (Blues/Canterbury)
LOOSE FORWARDS
6 (Blind side flanker): Ethan Blackadder (Crusaders/Tasman)
7 (Open side flanker): Dalton Papali'i (Blues/Counties Manukau)
8 (Number 8): Ardie Savea (Captain, Moana Pasifika/Wellington)
BACK LINE
HALVES
9 (Half-back): TJ Perenara (Hurricanes/Wellington)
10 (First five-eighth): Damian McKenzie (Chiefs/Waikato)
MIDFIELD
12 (Second five-eighth): Jordie Barrett (Hurricanes/Taranaki)
13 (Centre): Anton Lienert-Brown (Chiefs/Waikato)
OUTSIDE BACKS
11 (Left wing): Mark Tele'a (Blues/North Harbour)
14 (Right wing): Sevu Reece (Crusaders/Southland)
& 15 (Fullback): Beauden Barrett (Blues/Taranaki)
& REPLACEMENT PLAYERS
16 (Reserve hooker): Asafo Aumua (Who replaces George Bell to return at the reserve hooker position role)
17 (Reserve loose head prop): Ofa Tu'ungafasi (Who also replaces Ethan de Groot with de Groot elevated to the run-on XV therefore covering the loose head prop position)
18 (Reserve tight head prop): Fletcher Newell (Who replaces Pasilio Tosi to cover at tight head prop)
19 (Reserve lock): Josh Lord (Who also replaces Sam Darry (Who is elevated to the starting lineup as the starting no.5 lock) to make a return to test rugby after a long injury layoff)
20 (Reserve loose forward): Wallace Sititi
21 (Reserve half-back): Cortez Ratima (Who is dropped to the bench to replace Noah Hotham with TJ Perenara returning from injury as the starting halfback)
22 (Reserve midfielder): Rieko Ioane (Who returns as he makes way for Jordie Barrett who is promoted to the starting XV)
& 23 (Reserve outside back): Will Jordan (Who plays his first All Black test since last years Rugby World Cup final before injury took him out for the entire Super Rugby Pacific campaign this year for the Crusaders)
So that is my 565th blog of the year 2024 (MMXXIV) & my 41st of this year, viva Ukraine & Palestine.
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