Well, hi everybody (Hi everyone), it is Whetu here on my Kiwiavenger blog but first in sport, the All Blacks side (Who were without both Caleb Clarke (Back) & Ethan Blackadder (Hamstring) for this Cape Town test as the pair succumb to injuries sustained in the previous match against the Springboks, therefore joining the likes of Ethan de Groot, Stephen Perofeta & Patrick Tuipulotu as the list of AB's players unavailable that are part of the casualty ward) has been named for round 4 of the Rugby Championship test against the world champion Springboks side on September 7th at DHL Stadium in the Cape Town in the 2nd & final part of the best rivalry of not just of international rugby but of sport as well as the rematch of the previous test in Joburg, but the most recent test between the 2 countries was on the 31st of August which was this year during round 3 of the Rugby Championship where South Africa went on to win the test as they beat New Zealand (Who had Ofa Tu'ungafasi been shown the yellow card for collapsing the maul & that winning try scored by reserve Springbok halfback Grant Williams (Who put New Zealand's last nail in the coffin during the 75th minute), cost us of potentially winning the test) at the famed Ellis Park rugby ground in Johannesburg, so here is the starting lineup according to Razor:
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): Scott Barrett (Captain, Crusaders/Taranaki)
5 (No.5 lock): Tupou Vaa'i (Chiefs/Taranaki)
LOOSE FORWARDS
6 (Blind side flanker): Wallace Sititi (Chiefs/North Harbour)
7 (Open side flanker): Sam Cane (Chiefs/Bay of Plenty)
8 (Number 8): Ardie Savea (Moana Pasifika/Wellington)
BACK LINE
HALVES
9 (Half-back): Cortez Ratima (Chiefs/Waikato)
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): Mark Tele'a (Blues/North Harbour)
14 (Right wing): Sevu Reece (Crusaders/Southland)
& 15 (Fullback): Will Jordan (Crusaders/Tasman)
& 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): Sam Darry
20 (Reserve loose forward): Luke Jacobson (Who is healthy again as he returns from injury, therefore taking Samipeni Finau's place to cover at the loose forward position)
21 (Reserve half-back): TJ Perenara (Who is dropped to the bench to make way for Cortez Ratima with Ratima being elevated to the starting lineup as the starting halfback)
22 (Reserve midfielder): Anton Lienert-Brown
& 23 (Reserve back): Beauden Barrett (Who is also dropped to the bench to replace Mark Tele'a with Tele'a being promoted to the starting lineup on the left wing side as he replaces the injured Caleb Clarke)
And there has been an update where it's all fun & games for the All Blacks until they lose to the world champion Springboks side (Who claim the Freedom Cup for the first time since 2009 in which New Zealand (Who have dropped their 3rd under current coach Scott Robertson following another tough game that we had, in just 2 games but our last win was against Argentina at the garden of Eden at Eden Park in Auckland during round 3 of the Rugby Championship, & the first time since last year that we have been defeated twice in a row on the bounce (First against the South Africans during a pre-RWC friendly & then against France during the opening match of the tournament, & now it's the Boks this year in both Johannesburg & Cape Town) held it from 2010 until most recently this year, but South Africa have always been ultra-competitive since they began their reign as the world champions in 2019 in which they won their 3rd out of 4 Rugby World Cups) again at DHL Stadium in Cape Town during the 2nd & final part in the best rivalry in not just of international rugby, but of sport as well which has been concluded in which we were totally gutted about the result (And I only watched the first half (Including a yellow card by All Black winger Sevu Reece for taking Willie le Roux out in the air on a Springbok player in which for the 4th game in a row that an AB's player had to be sent to the sin bin (So too is Tyrel Lomax in the last 10 minutes for flooring South African winger Cheslin Kolbe without the ball on the kick chase which meant the Springboks went in for the kill, as Malcolm Marx got the winning try similar to Grant Williams did in Joburg after a yellow card against Ofa Tu'ungafasi for cynically collapsing the maul that derailed us of a certain Rugby Championship test victory, off a rolling maul which sent the All Blacks come crashing down to earth for another test defeat), but our discipline is far worse than the rest of the tier 1 rugby playing nations because of the legislations being made as part of the rulebook) but I didn't watch the 2nd because of South Africa I fear were always gonna win, & they did by successfully pulling it off once again to win 4 in a row against New Zealand for the first time since 1949, & are now on track of winning the Rugby Championship for the first time since 2019 according to the comment from Dad during Father's Day that he fears that the South Africans might gain the upper hand of winning the Southern Hemisphere rugby tournament (And in the other game that the Wallabies of Australia got comprehensively beaten by Argentina in Santa Fe which was the Aussies worst test defeat to date against the Argentinians), & they could be the team to beat) just like in the previous test in Joburg in which we were totally gassed out during the 2nd half despite we fought themselves back in the contest (And it might be the AB's bench that has been lacking by causing a bit of weakness of losing another test in which we scored no tries but just penalty goals, so that's what went wrong for us) for a tiny bit (In which we led at halftime but we kept losing our lead in the 2nd half as the South Africans always turned it around not once but twice), but it wasn't to be as New Zealand's quest of retaining the Rugby Championship, has been short lived (And we're not playing the Boks again until next year, but Australia is our main focus next in our bid to retain the Bledisloe when we square off against our Trans-Tasman foe on the 21st of September at Accor Stadium in Sydney for the penultimate round of the Rugby Championship).
And it was at Frank Bar on the 7th of September this year that I went with both Carole & Pops where I saw a man looking like Taranaki, Blues & All Blacks player Stephen Perofeta (The one who went to Whanganui Collegiate, & he once played for Whanganui in the Heartland Championship in 2015 whilst at school, moments before being signed by Taranaki in 2016 then the Blues a year later in 2017, & has been there since), & then all of a sudden that it was indeed him when Pops came over to meet the man known as 'Stevie P' to have a chat then he took a photo of me & Stevie twice (Although Pops posted it on Facebook but he told me about Leon missing me according to the comment below), but I didn't know that he's in my hometown of Whanganui maybe that he didn't want to go on trip with the AB's to South Africa because he is currently injured at the moment so he is such a nice but friendly, polite & respectful man in which Perofeta was my first famous person I've ever met since Otago & Highlanders rugby player Jona Nareki (Brother of current Whanganui Heartland Championship player Peceli Malanicagi) in 2020 & of course, was my first celeb sighting since Stan Walker (A famous singer who was the former champion of Australian Idol in 2009) last year in which me, Pops & Carole were at Mud Ducks (And I remember that comment about me not trying to recognize that guy but I saw him anyway), & I was like wow when I reacted after I saw & met him.
And finally in the sports department as we head into the tennis as both Americans of Jessica Pegula & Taylor Fritz fell short in the women's & men's singles finals of the US Open (Which was overshadowed by the Olympic champion Novak Djokovic's defeat in the hands of an Aussie of Alexei Popyrin during one of the matches that Carole watched which went down to the wire, just like Tasman winning the Ranfurly Shield for the first time against Hawke's Bay in Napier on September 7th) respectively against Aryna Sabalenka & Italian Jannik Sinner who both picked up grand slam championships where they started & ended the year as champions, but the latest on the Louis Vuitton Cup in Barcelona, Spain as Emirates Team New Zealand pick up the victory against the returning Alinghi Red Bull Racing in one of the races which was during the tricky conditions (And in the motor racing department as our own Kiwi of former 3 time Supercars Champion & also 3 time Bathurst 1000 winning driver of Shane van Gisbergen is set to compete full time with Trackhouse Racing with their 3rd car in next year's NASCAR Cup Series championship season), but there has been an update in the yachting department as Orient Express Team France are out of the Louis Vuitton Cup in Barcelona with a poor 1-7 record while the defenders Emirates Team New Zealand have a 8-2 record (And our chances of a win in one of their races against Luna Rossa were exactly robbed by a thunderstorm, moments before getting disqualified for persistently sailing over the boundary line), then INEOS Britannia is the best of the challengers so far of making it to the semifinal stages of the challenger series competition.
So that is my 569th blog of the year 2024 (MMXXIV) & my 45th of this year, viva Ukraine & Palestine.
No comments:
Post a Comment