As a match its a lesson in the value of possession in the right parts of the field. They just choked the life out of the Chiefs; who were guilty of making errors at the times when they might have got themselves into the game.

Given you’ve said reactions appreciated hopefully nobody is going to be sad if they get spoiled by the Super Rugby final thoughts i’m about to share! :)

It wasn’t a close match so for neutrals (and Chiefs fans) in some ways it might not have been that good to watch. But as a Rugby fan sometimes you just have to appreciate it when a team is so on song, with the right game plan for the situation executed perfectly. The Blues were simply incredible last night the most dominant performance i’ve watched in a long time in a match against teams that ought to be fairly evenly matched.

This was a 2015 All Blacks vs France quarter final level demolition of the Chiefs who tried mightily and defended massively but just couldn’t find a way to get into, then stay in the game at all. The Blues forward pack, 1-8 and then the reserves were just relentlessly physical and didn’t let up for the whole 80 minutes. Tuipulotu was deserving MotM; but Akira Ioane was also massive in his last game for the club. Hoskins Sotutu was a bit quieter, Darry played well, Tu’ungafasi was great until he left early in the 2nd half and Riccitelli for an otherwise unheralded #2 in NZ really put his hand up to be Cody Taylor’s understudy with Taukeiaho under an injury cloud.

Some of the stats are actually kinda mind boggling. The Blues dominated possession 67%-33%, which is insane to start with, but they had 39% possession in the Chiefs 22m. Ie, the Blues had more possession attacking the Chiefs line, than the Chiefs had across the whole field. Blues only had to make 82 tackles to the Chiefs 215, and made 513 metres off 153 carries to the Chiefs 256 off 78.

The score would suggest its not worth watching but if you’ve got the time its a clinic in how to play wet weather rugby .

This sort of thing is pretty consistent with the anecdotal rumours about Luxon’s interactions with pilots and other staff while heading up Air NZ. Which sorta pushes those stories from the probably just made up, to actually maybe they are legit after all. Some of the scuttlebutt stories basically alleged he was a total a-hole; which, yeah I can see it.

I mean a souped up compensator Ford Ranger aint cheap is it!

Patrick Tuipolotu is out for 6-7 weeks with medial ligament injury; so its going to be a young lock combination for the Blues in the semi-final. The Brumbies had scrum trouble against the Highlanders, but might find it a bit easier to compete at set piece time and at the collision without having Tuipolotu against them.

It’ll be an interesting game on Friday!

In NZ there’s not much downtime either, but its in a different form - there’s a few different paths.

The top NZ pros will be in Super Rugby camps from the New Year and the season runs through to basically the end of June.

Then there is a split where the best will be on All Blacks duty through the July test window, most will then have a break before heading up north in November for the End of Year / Autumn Internationals. They’ll get back to NZ around the start of December and have a few weeks off before starting again.

The SR players that aren’t All Blacks will gradually filter into their NPC teams depending on how far into the finals they played. Annoyingly, even though the All Blacks aren’t in it, the NPC doesn’t actually start until August and runs all the way until the end of October. Those players will get most of November off, but will start assembling for SR training camps again in December.

So that covers the bulk of the best kiwi players, but there’s still more Rugby to account for.

Some NPC players will play in Japan instead of SR, and plenty of others will be over in the USA playing MLR. So for those players, while they might get more weeks off in between seasons they then have to pack up & move away from home for half the year too.

Those NPC players that don’t pick up a contract in Japan or MLR are most likely just semi-pro; so will go back to being plumbers, farmers or builders for the rest of the year.

But NZR is possibly missing a trick here with the fortunate timing on both JL1 & MLR that could help with the NPC affordability/competitiveness ratio. I don’t know exactly how well it could work but encouraging a full working relationship between a given NPC team and both a Japanese & USA based pro teams where the young players likely to make it as full time pros or the guys who are right on the cusp but can’t quite make SR still get to play as full time pros just sounds sensible to me.

There’s already a lot of players going over there, but that’s on their own initiative and very adhoc - probably because those other nations would rather deal with players than NZR (I don’t blame them). But I could see it being beneficial for both sides of the exchange, NZR gets pros in the NPC without having to cover the whole year of salary, Japan or in particular MLR get seasoned pros to help build up the strength of their competition and instill that work ethic into their own players.

Isn’t it mad that the URC and Super Rugby basically finish at the same time?! Even Japan League 1 only finished a couple weeks ago, and the USA’s MLR is closing in on the end of season too! Given its June I guess that means the URC starts quite late, as well as Super Rugby starting quite early. The main impetus for the early start is to be done in time for the winter test window and then leave time afterwards for the NPC. How long that remains the status quo will be interesting.

Their recent form is abysmal, so they’re not progressing beyond the quarterfinals unless some kinda miracle happens. One of the quirks of SR is that its a round & a 1/2 and the 1/2 round is against your home countries clubs for more derbies.

So the Aussie teams play the other aussie teams more than the kiwi teams get to - which can inflate their table position a little bit. The Rebels did really well early in the season, but in the back end fell off the wagon.

I’m on the other side of the tasman; but from what i’ve gleaned over the years…

NZR have been trying to convince RA they can’t support 5 teams for years, both financially and with player depth. The previous more adversarial leadership of RA were determined that that wasn’t true, and that cracking the Melbourne market was crucial. That’s why a few years ago when they did drop a team they dropped the Force who were well supported in favour of the Rebels who struggle to make a mark in a state where Aussie Rules, rules and why for years even though it was obvious that the Rebels were struggling financially they were allowed to spend ever more on recruiting star players.

Not coincidentally, when Australia dropped the Force and went to 4 teams, the Rebels picked up some of their players and had their most successful seasons. So in terms of the competition next year it should mean the 4 remaining Aussie teams will be stronger and probably pick up even more wins against NZ sides. This has been a really successful year (comparatively) for Aus, with 3 teams in the playoffs, and the Brumbies were in the running to top the table and only mathematically lost that opportunity in the final round.

How does an 11 team competition work? I dunno. There’s been suggestion that SR will try to convince the Jaguares to rejoin and they are apparently quite keen but adding a team in Argentina makes it a much more expensive competition and ensures one game every other week that almost nobody in Australasia will watch - so god knows if the main broadcasters would be interested.

The obvious, but difficult, answer is that NZR (in particular) and SR in general need to humbly beseech Japan for some way of having a crossover competition. Japan League 1 & SR finish quite close together now so one option would be to do a post-season competition which is seeded in a way to ensure the top Japanese teams are likely to win & progress through the rounds. Something like the 7s where as you get knocked out of the running for the top trophy you drop into competition for others would make sense.

Would anyone in Japan watch? I dunno. Would anybody in Australasia - probably; it would at least be something different and the best Japanese teams have a lot of star players in their twilight years. Would it be competitive? Who knows.

Yeah I converted mine to the new version - they had a really good guarantee when I bought mine as well which was 10 years, if something breaks send a photo & we’ll send a replacement.

Ive had mine for 10 years and use it daily. Makes pretty good espresso, not as good as a good barista would, but good enough.

https://presso.co.nz/shop/hand-powered-coffee-makers/rok-gc-espresso-maker-silver/

They are pricey given they just do a black coffee and all though.

Just butting in to suggest the Presso.

If you get cycloned and lose power, but have a coffee addiction - then something that can make near Espresso without electricity is a boon!

This is the legal equivalent of “you cut, I choose”.

I love this summary of that latin :)

That I don’t know, though my perspective is that’s up to them to work out and as Pākehā i’ll have to learn how to negotiate that relationship if/when it ever happens.

That’s not a position i’ve always held, but over the years as i’ve read books like ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee’ and other stories about the dispossession of indigenous people i’ve come to a much more complicated understanding of the price that was paid for the privilege I enjoy. It’s uncomfortable, but that’s a minor inconvenience compared to the cost others paid.

Just as a suggestion; because its interesting stuff. Maybe have a read of some of the work the Waitangi Tribunal has produced over the years.

What’s been happening in recent years is Act, Don Brash and others approaching the issue with race baiting sound bites. Its mostly vibes and bad faith.

Compare it to the huge amount of research and historical context the Tribunal has put into their work.

https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/news/report-on-stage-1-of-the-te-paparahi-o-te-raki-inquiry-released-2/ https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/WT-Part-1-Report-on-stage-1-of-the-Te-Paparahi-o-Te-Raki-inquiry.pdf

In any case, to understand where Maori are coming from, its important to remember this finding: "… rangatira who signed te Tiriti o Waitangi in February 1840 did not cede sovereignty to the British Crown.

Ie, if sovereignty wasn’t ceded back in 1840 why should any Maori give two hoots what Seymour thinks?

It would just be a different representative body negotiating the relationship with the pakeha crown I guess. Its entirely their choice as to whether they want to represent as individual iwi or as a whole in that relationship.

I think about it like it seems pretty normal that at an official level the NZ Government talks to the Australian Federal Government, not to the Melbourne mayor :)

A lot of folks don’t understand that the recent more moderate approach by the Crown is still not following the Te Reo version of the treaty which means the approach still does not meet international legal standards for which version matters.

Its really not that impossible to tell. There’s loads of work done over years by historians and lawyers that have helped to bring understanding to the document.

Bear in mind a treaty is effectively a contract, and the Te Reo version was the one signed by the vast majority of Iwi. And even if they had signed both, my non-lawyer understanding is that international falls on the side of the one in the indigenous language in situations like this.

So, now its 2024, the agreement has to be interpreted to come across into English law language norms; and understanding of historical context and meanings of terms matters, that’s why its a bit fuzzy but that’s just the way it is. Act saying its not clear is more a sign that they reject the consensus that has emerged among experts than that there is no clarity.

The principles were clarified. Act just disagree with them so want to change the principles. Partly that’s libertarian principle, but its also just race baiting electioneering. Changing the principles to what Act wants might remove ambiguity and make it clear but its done unilaterally and effectively reneges on the Crown’s commitment to the treaty.

If you want to know why Maori might be angry about that, try telling your bank you have changed your understanding of your responsibilities on a loan document and won’t be meeting their expectations anymore.

Exactly; the statement will have been reviewed by lawyers who would have suggested rewording it.

I just want to jump in here as the whole thing about the tonnes of factual errors stuff…

A lot of the allegations about the accuracy of their data basically came down to arguments about the validity of statistics garnered from testing methodology; and how Labs guy claimed their methods were super good, vs other content creators claiming their methods were better.

My opinion is that all of these benchmarking content creators who base their content on rigorous “testing” are full of their own hot air.

None of them are doing sampling and testing in volume enough to be able to point to any given number and say that it is the metric for a given model of hardware. So the value reduces to this particular device performed better or worse than these other devices at this point in time doing a comparable test on our specific hardware, with our specific software installation, using the electricity supply we have at the ambient temperatures we tested at.

Its marginally useful for a product buying general comparison - in my opinion to only a limited degree; because they just aren’t testing in enough volume to get past the lottery of tolerances this gear is released under. Anyone claiming that its the performance number to expect is just full of it. Benchmarking presents like it has scientific objectivity but there are way too many variables between any given test run that none of these folks isolate before putting their videos up.

Should LTT have been better at not putting up numbers they could have known were wrong? Sure! Should they have corrected sooner & clearer when they knew they were wrong? Absolutely! Does anybody have a perfect testing methodology that produces reliable metrics - ahhhh, im not so sure. Was it a really bitchy beat up at the time from someone with an axe to grind? In my opinion, hell yes.