2007 Calendar

Hi all, I'm back from a brief, but good, holiday in the land where Rugby rates as the number one sport for the country by a long shot. It was good to be back, and I noticed that there were several massive advertisements in Auckland that were already counting down the days, hours, mintues, and even seconds to the Rugby World Cup. Definitely New Zealand is full of Rugby mad people that think of nothing else, or so it would seem.

While I New Zealand I thought that I would gague the confidence of the nation after the northern hemisphere rout the national team had delivered last year, hard on the heels of the successful Tri-Nations campaign. I conducted a highly dubious and unscientific question and answer poll of taxi drivers, publicans, people on the street, all of whom were self prclaimed experts on the game.

It is fair to say that even for New Zealand, these wary souls did not display any form of confidence at all, and to suggest that the New Zealand fan is arrogant is a long way from the mark. Ask anyone, and the kiwis will be the first to say that they have seen this before from their national team, and they fell at the last hurdle. When asked to name where the danger lies, most will point to South Africa, France, and Australia in that order. There is no over confidence among the public, and they are all hoping this keeps the team down to earth, and aware of the fact that there are many sides out there with the class and skills to best them on the day of the quarter, semi, and final!

Before I close this post which really serves as notice to all the fans out there that I am back in business, I must give you all this link put together by our friends at Rugby Heaven. While not in the league of some of the more attractive looking calendars I have seen for the coming year, this certainly has most of the stuff that you would want to know on it. Click here to see the calendar. See you all again soon.