Well, what's up guys & girls, it's Whetu Ngapo here on my Kiwiavenger blog but first, the world champion Springboks side (Who haven't won a Southern Hemisphere rugby tournament since 2019 which was World Cup year, & I fear that they might have claimed the heavy favourites tag to win the title this year, but there was a very interesting selection made by coach Johan 'Rassie' Erasmus that they put young Sascha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (Who is one of the rising stars in South African rugby as he is a graduate of the Under 20s before being fast tracked into the senior team) in as the starting first five while they also put Handre Pollard (The best first-five eighth in the world currently) in the reserve back position, but was it the right call? Hell yes they would but they would've put Pollard in as first five with Feinberg-Mngomezulu in the reserve back position) open their account in this years Rugby Championship with a convincing win over the Wallabies (That's their first loss under new coach Joe Schmidt) at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, but rugby history has been made as Argentina (Who were ruthless throughout the entire test led by it's inspirational skipper of ex-Crusader Pablo Matera (Who filled in for regular captain Julian Montoya) & coached by a former test player, Felipe Contepomi), beat the All Blacks (Who without key men, dealt with injury such as the quartet of Luke Jacobson, Stephen Perofeta, Patrick Tuipulotu & captain Scott Barrett in which we were inconsistent on that occasion, but there was a yellow card against All Black blindside flanker Ethan Blackadder for a blatant but careless high tackle on an Argentinian player Joel Sclavi in which the war on malicious, illegal dangerous head contact in rugby continues) for the 3rd time (First it was Sydney 2020, then Christchurch in 2022 (Same year that the Argentinians went on to win the most recent Football World Cup in Qatar) & now most recently Wellington this year, but what went wrong for New Zealand to suffer a defeat against the Argentinians who made history for the 3rd time like that? Because we didn't exactly get it right after our first loss in international rugby since the World Cup final last year against the world champions of the mighty dominant Springboks (And now we are 3 & 1 this year after that dreadful result in Wellington) at Sky Stadium in Wellington (Even though we had a poor record at this city, but our last win came in 2018 against France a year after defeat against the British & Irish Lions which was marred by Sonny Bill Williams who was the first All Black in 5 decades since the late great Sir Colin Meads & the 3rd to be ordered off in a test (Along with the late Cyril Brownlie, Meads, Scott Barrett twice, Ofa Tu'ungafasi, Scott's bro Jordie Barrett, Angus Ta'avao, Brodie Retallick, Ethan de Groot & Sam Cane) before drawing once against Australia in 2020 & losing it twice against both the South Africans in 2018 (That was the year before ending a 12 year wait of winning Rugby World Cups in 2019, then they won the next one last year in France) & Ireland (Who made history becoming the first side since France in 1994 to win a test series against the All Blacks, & the first during the professional era) in 2022 at this ground) which resulted our first defeat under our new coach of 'Razor' & since last years Rugby World Cup final against South Africa in which we had a tough game to start with when we were 5 points ahead at half-time before the Argentinians went in for the kill as they played consistently when they added 13 points to our AB's side who added 10 more (And will there be a turnaround in the next test for New Zealand? Well, absolutely, because our unbeaten run at the Garden of Eden at Eden Park in Auckland is on the line on the 17th of August in which the AB's has never been beaten at that venue & the city since 1994 against France who made history as they won the 2nd test to take victory in the 2 match test series courtesy from 'The try from the end of the world' which etched into French rugby folklore according to the previous blogs that I did, a year before the unthinkable was happened where the Springboks first won the RWC in 1995 which united the country & their late great leader Nelson Mandela in one of by far, South Africa's most iconic sporting moments as I mentioned in my previous blogs) therefore it was a bit of payback to them who lost against us in the semifinal at the World Cup last year (But I wonder the headlines would say: ARGENTINA OVERPOWER AB'S FOR 3RD WIN AGAINST THEM IN WELLY, or more like: ARGY BARGIES SHOCK THE RUGBY WORLD WITH UPSET VICTORY AGAINST NZ, but what a disappointing end for New Zealand, what a match for our viewers right around the world (And it must have been the mistakes that the AB's had which contributed to our boil over defeat, especially at our own goal line (Yeah, terrible stuff, absolutely terrible stuff that hurt us meaning that we were gutted of course, but this is amateur stuff, absolute amateur stuff) in which Will Jordan got a hat-trick of tries & ended the tournament as the top try scorer with 8 along with the late great Jonah Lomu in 1999 & Julian Savea in 2015 (The last time we successfully won a global showpiece rugby tournament).
And the All Blacks side has been named for round 2 of the Rugby Championship test against Argentina on August 17th at the garden of Eden at Eden Park in New Zealand's largest city of Auckland (AKA the City of Sails where the AB's have never been defeated at that venue & at the city since 1994 (The year where my cuzzie Paige (My cousin's daughter's mother & my biological aunty's daughter) was born on the 5th of April) against France), but the most recent test between the 2 countries was on August 10th during the Rugby Championship opener where Argentina made history for the 3rd time as they beat New Zealand by 8 points at Sky Stadium in Wellington (Therefore our torrid run in Wellington continues) for our first defeat in international rugby since the World Cup final last year against the world champions South Africa, so here is the starting lineup according to Razor (And chance to bounce back following a defeat like that in Welly):
STARTING XV
FORWARD PACK
FRONT ROW
1 (Loose head prop): Tamaiti Williams (Crusaders/Canterbury)
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): Rieko Ioane (Blues/Auckland)
OUTSIDE BACKS
11 (Left wing): Caleb Clarke (Blues/Auckland)
14 (Right wing): Will Jordan (Crusaders/Tasman)
& 15 (Fullback): Beauden Barrett (Blues/Taranaki)
& REPLACEMENT PLAYERS
16 (Reserve hooker): Asafo Aumua
17 (Reserve loose head prop): Ofa Tu'ungafasi
18 (Reserve tight head prop): Fletcher Newell
19 (Reserve lock): Josh Lord
20 (Reserve loose forward): Sam Cane (Who is brought back into the AB's squad, replacing Wallace Sititi to cover the openside flanker position)
21 (Reserve half-back): Cortez Ratima
22 (Reserve midfielder): Anton Lienert-Brown (Who is dropped to the bench as he makes way for Rieko Ioane who is promoted to the starting XV)
& 23 (Reserve outside back): Mark Tele'a (Who is also dropped to the bench, replacing Will Jordan who is elevated to the starting lineup at right wing)
And we decided to move on from the disappointment of the AB's losing to Argentina in Wellington (For which I'll be going with Pops in January next year because I have never been to Transmission Gully highway before as well as I've never met Norah (Who is 22 months as of today but I always see pictures of her on social media online taken from Pops phone) for my whole life & I haven't met both Norah's grandmother Cathey Middelplaats (57) & Norah's mum as well as Cathey's daughter Paige Ahearn (30) since 2016, even though if the weather is decent as Pops told me during our Sunday roast dinner with Carole at her place on the 11th of August, but we'll definitely stay in a motel once we get there as Pops said to me 2 days later on the 13th of August, even if there is a vacancy available, & also I've never been to Jerry Collins Stadium before which is located in Porirua (And I have been to Sky Stadium before like 4 times) behind them as we head to Paris in France for the Olympics when Dame Lisa Carrington has struck her 7th gold with Alicia Hoskin (That's her 2nd gold since being part of the K4 500 crew with Carrington, Olivia Brett & the young 20 year old Tara Vaughan (Whose idol is Carrington when Vaughan was growing up as a young kid & was 8 when Carrington first collected the gold back in 2012 in London) in the women's K2 500 then it is all plain sailing for Carrington (Whose form had been a bit shaky before Paris quite frankly, manages to overcome her loss of form during the Olympics by defying the odds as she got over it, needless to say) did it again in the women's K1 500 to still become the most successful Olympian from our country as well as still cementing her status as the GOAT as she completed her unprecedented 8th gold medal throughout her illustrious but decorated Olympic career to add to her bronze won in Rio by finishing the story as the 35 year old Carrington from Whahatane in the Bay of Plenty region announced already that the Paris Olympics would be her last as she has already had her swansong by bidding farewell (Her main challenger Aimee Fisher (Who beat Carrington in a pre-Olympic trials before Paris) was out of the medal position as she narrowly missed out on a medal chance & came agonizingly close when Fisher finished 4th in the K1 500 A final) before female golfer Lydia Ko (Who won silver in Rio, then bronze in Tokyo & now gold right there in Paris for the Kiwi who was originally born in South Korea & was the one who twice won in the majors thus confirming her status for her induction into the LPGA Hall of Fame) has struck gold for New Zealand in the golf to cement her status as the immortal when she had her winning score of 10 under which was 2 shots ahead of Germany's Esther Henseleit who became a silver medalist when she finished her score of 8 under during the 4th & final day of the women's stroke play event (& that's golf, moving on), & then all of a sudden that Hamish Kerr (Who was originally from Dunedin in the Otago region, but was educated at Auckland Grammar School) had just became the 2nd Kiwi golden boy at the Olympics along with Finn Butcher (Otago was his home province (He was originally from Alexandra then he lived in Dunedin (Which was Kerr's birthplace) before being based in Auckland) as Kerr successfully won the athletics high jump event (He had won the jump off against an American competitor named Shelby McEwen (Who was Hamish Kerr's main opponent during the jump off) to win in order to become Olympic champion & make history which was a key highlight for me this Olympics in which Kerr provided the clutch moment when former New Zealand hepathlete of Sarah Cowley who was working as a commentator when she famously uttered when Kerr went on to win as Cowley was getting excited & had gone berserk: "YES HE CAN!") in which a record 9 gold medals won by New Zealand at Paris this year (10 now since Ellesse Andrews (The world champion who is 24 years of age as of today & was 4 when her sporting heroine Sarah Ulmer collected the gold in Athens way back in 2004) picked up her second gold as well as our 10th & final gold medal for New Zealand in Paris at the Olympics in the women's sprint track cycling as she beat her German opponent of Lea Frederich who won the silver for her country in the women's sprint final consisting of the best of 3 first to 2 format therefore extending our record for most gold medals won by New Zealand at the Olympics because we're 2 ahead of the previous all-time record set in LA in 1984), is by far, the most successful Olympic Games ever of our country to date of all time, surpassing the now previous all-time record set in Los Angeles in 1984 with 8 (And we had a disappointing Rugby World Cup in France last year in which the ever popular All Blacks missed out on World Cup glory which went to the Springboks side who were still champions of the world in a story billed as the scars of '23 due to a costly red card by AB's captain at the time of Sam Cane thwarted us, but our country had a great but most excellent success at the Olympics we ever had in Paris this year with a record 9 golds to our tally (Or 10 as of today) to go along with the 7 silvers & both bronzes (It's up to 3 as of today), but China could end up topping the medal table at the end of the Olympics for the first time since their home games at Beijing 2008 with their remarkable 39 golds, just 1 ahead of United States after the penultimate day (But there has been an update as the Americans finish the games on top of the medal table, but ahead of the Chinese (Who had won the same gold medals as with the US) based on a countback for most medals won, but I heard that American Generation Z pop princess of Billie Eilish (Who recently released her single LUNCH as I heard it on the Brian FM radio station) had performed during the closing ceremony of Paris 2024 in which me & Pops missed it but I've got it on record just in case (And that's all that we got for, see you then in Los Angeles, California, United States for the next Olympics in four years time in 2028, mate wa), but unfortunately somehow, I deleted it).
And I've recently got the PS5 slim now, & I'm always falling in love with my PS5 slim (Well, the PS5 slim is sorta like my romantic partner just like Pops has with his partner slash mate Carole) because of the 1 GB being packed with storage so I moved my original PS5 to the living room & if I get the PS5 Pro if it's available, I'll move my PS5 slim to the living room while I'm giving my original PS5 to my cousin Paige (And I don't know whether she's into gaming unlike her husband Jarrod who plays with his Xbox according to my cuzzie emailing me in 2016 when he played GTA Online, but I prefer both GTA San Andreas (Definitive edition on the PS4 via I play on the PS5 slim console) & Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360 version also via I play on the Xbox Series X console) as my favourite GTA games (And I secretly play both of them indeed, but the main games that I play on my PS5 Slim console is Gran Turismo 7 (PS5), Tekken 8 (PS5), Soulcalibur VI (PS4), Star Wars Battlefront II (PS4, 2017 version) & F1 2020 (PS4).
And finally news straight out of the United States as US Vice President & Democratic presidental candidate Kamala Harris has maintained her lead in 3 key states against the former US president Donald Trump (The one who met UFC boss Dana White before as I briefly saw on TV with UFC being a global phenomenon according to the estimates (And Kiwi based Nigerian Israel Adesanya is due to fight against a South African of Dricus du Plessis who is the champion at UFC 305 held at RAC Arena in Perth, WA, Australia on the 18th of August) with the US general election 3 months away (And I fear that the likelihood of World War III could be happening if Trump loses to Harris but if Trump beats Harris & wins, Israel's invasion of Hamas would likely end according to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who recently met Trump at the heavily secure Mar-el-Lago in Florida, but Israel's sickening war on Hamas would've not occurred if Trump had been re-elected as the US president in 2020/21 but who knows?).
So that is my 566th blog of the year 2024 (MMXXIV) & my 42nd of this year, viva Ukraine & Palestine.
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