New Zealand - I don't GET IT

[Easy 10]

OK, so England is a major European powerhouse, fully modernised and developed, and supposedly BIG PLAYER in Europe, with a population of say 50 - 60 million aye ?

New Zealand is a couple of islands in the middle of nowhere, as an afterthought to Tazmania, mostly made up of sheep, mountains, film sets for Lord of the Rings, has a couple of big-ish towns about the size of Burgess Hill, and has a total population of about 4 million, most of whom are a bunch of weird cavemen with tattoos living in the hills who wouldn't know a mousemat from a sanitary towel.

Yet they can STILL f*** us at rugby and crickert.

I don't understand.

 

[ack]

Rugby is coz they can use the islands with blood relatives.
Cricket is coz they can ship out the old hands and bring in youngsters without the press going for blood if they lose,unlike here,where the press are calling for heads on any defeat.

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Rugby is coz they can use the islands with blood relatives.
Cricket is coz they can ship out the old hands and bring in youngsters without the press going for blood if they lose,unlike here,where the press are calling for heads on any defeat.

AND we're England. Remember San Marino. It makes no sense. It makes English sport exciting/grim.

 

[Seagull over NZ]

But population doesn't necessarily mean anything. India has a billion people but they aren't ten times as good as England. NZ is good at rugby as generally that is the only sport they care about. As a result the cream of their athletes (which every country will have) plays rugby. Our cream doesn't play rugby, its only the cream that just so happen to go to public schools that do.

As for cricket, its their number 1 summer sport and the number of people that play cricket as a % of the population is far higher than it is here. The club I used to play for in Auckland used to have 6 teams playing on a Saturday and the club was rammed with kids in the morning who just couldn't get enough of cricket.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

But population doesn't necessarily mean anything. India has a billion people but they aren't ten times as good as England. NZ is good at rugby as generally that is the only sport they care about. As a result the cream of their athletes (which every country will have) plays rugby. Our cream doesn't play rugby, its only the cream that just so happen to go to public schools that do.

That is gradually changing now that professionalism is now well and truly established in Rugby Union. However, it is always going to be difficult when there are a distinct lack of playing fields for state funded schools, particularly rugby fields. On that note, I read that not a single state school has a grass cricket pitch in Sussex!

I was a great detractor of the All Blacks using the islanders and syphoning off the talent, but now feel rather hypocritical as I am a huge fan of Leslie V! I watched a fair bit of rugby in Fiji and it is amazing how the whole island is rugby obsessed. The kids seem to play rugby before they can talk.

 

[house your seagull]

i was wondering this when we lost to wales in the 6 nations, england maybe has 10 times as many nationals as wales yet they beat us at rugby - could this be down to more funding per head to developing rugby specifically in wales? why does this not translate into football - i can only presume a country needs to have some sort of deep held affiliation with a sport to start with.

 

[Gwylan]

That is gradually changing now that professionalism is now well and truly established in Rugby Union. However, it is always going to be difficult when there are a distinct lack of playing fields for state funded schools, particularly rugby fields. On that note, I read that not a single state school has a grass cricket pitch in Sussex!

I was a great detractor of the All Blacks using the islanders and syphoning off the talent, but now feel rather hypocritical as I am a huge fan of Leslie V! I watched a fair bit of rugby in Fiji and it is amazing how the whole island is rugby obsessed. The kids seem to play rugby before they can talk.

Is it true that no state school in Sussex has a cricket pitch? I know Varndean College has, cos I played on it 18 months ago - does Varndean use that? There also used to be a pitch between the boys' school and the girls' one (ie between the College and the School) - has that now gone? The field certainly hasn't been built over.

But the lack of fields generally is a disgrace: I know that Varndean has lost at least two football pitches since I was there and I'm sure that there are plans to hack more away.

As for syphoning of talent by the All-Blacks: I could never understand the English moaning about this.Just off the top of my head, I can think of Mike Catt, Dewi Morris, Kyran Bracken, Victor Ubogu and Matt Stevens who have been nicked by England - well before the Volcano.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

Yet they can STILL f*** us at rugby and crickert.

Err, last Rugby World Cup? Who was in the Final? That's the highest you can get. The final before that? Who won the World Cup?

Think you're being a bit selective in the way you present you case chum!

 

[CHAPPERS]

Is it true that no state school in Sussex has a cricket pitch? I know Varndean College has, cos I played on it 18 months ago - does Varndean use that? There also used to be a pitch between the boys' school and the girls' one (ie between the College and the School) - has that now gone? The field certainly hasn't been built over.

But the lack of fields generally is a disgrace: I know that Varndean has lost at least two football pitches since I was there and I'm sure that there are plans to hack more away.

As for syphoning of talent by the All-Blacks: I could never understand the English moaning about this.Just off the top of my head, I can think of Mike Catt, Dewi Morris, Kyran Bracken, Victor Ubogu and Matt Stevens who have been nicked by England - well before the Volcano.

I've got a feeling the Varndean pitch might have been built on. Stringer used to have a decent enough astro surface and an okay strip but they are no longer, the strip was built over when they put the new gym up.

The two sets of nets down at the schools were also abandoned a couple of years ago. Me and a mate tried to find some nets in the Brighton area last year and the only ones we could find that were accessible were up at Sussex uni.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Because its pretty much the only two sports they play.

Also as someone else said they use the pacific islands as feeder teams.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Is it true that no state school in Sussex has a cricket pitch? I know Varndean College has, cos I played on it 18 months ago - does Varndean use that? There also used to be a pitch between the boys' school and the girls' one (ie between the College and the School) - has that now gone? The field certainly hasn't been built over.

But the lack of fields generally is a disgrace: I know that Varndean has lost at least two football pitches since I was there and I'm sure that there are plans to hack more away.

As for syphoning of talent by the All-Blacks: I could never understand the English moaning about this.Just off the top of my head, I can think of Mike Catt, Dewi Morris, Kyran Bracken, Victor Ubogu and Matt Stevens who have been nicked by England - well before the Volcano.

I definitely remember reading about it, possibly in the Times, but an absolute minefield of information on the internet, so very little hope of finding the actual article.

I thought that those guys had much closer links to England than Leslie, certainly distant relatives...? I used to love watching Ubogu. He used to rip at least one pair of shorts per game!

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Right, I think I have misled with Sussex, but certainly Brighton & Hove.

Kevin Mitchell: Let the children play - and they'll learn about a lot more than sport | Columnists | guardian.co.uk Sport

"While Murray was out there in the streets, swinging his injured wrist ever so gingerly to spread the word for tennis, a thousand kids from 24 schools in London and five in Sussex rolled up at Lord's to watch and play cricket, many for the first time. The once crusty and unapproachable MCC opened its doors to the innovative cricket charity, Chance To Shine, who are helping to bring the game back to state schools. They will introduce cricket to 90,000 children in 1,200 schools this year.

The south coast could certainly do with some help. In the whole of Brighton and Hove (population 261,000) there is not a single turf pitch at any state school. The Sussex Cricket Board are trying; on Thursday they held a tournament that attracted 16 primary schools, but they have a lot of ground to make up."

 

[crodonilson]

They may be good at Rugby and competitive at Cricket but they're useless at pretty much everything else other than crown green bowls.

 

[London Calling]

OK lets look at Australia:

A New Zealand plus: great at Cricket, rugby (both types), swimming, australian football. not bad at football, running and generally everything else............and their women are fitter.

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

Our cream doesn't play rugby, its only the cream that just so happen to go to public schools that do.

I think you'll find that rugby is now widely played in the English state schools - from personal knowledge it certainly is in Hants, Surrey and Sussex. This and the expansion of mini/junior/colt rugby at club level over the past 20 years is down to the RFU getting its finger out and doing a decent job (for once) by providing financial and technical support, training coaches etc - something the FA could learn a lot from. As examples, Jeremy Guscott, Johnny Wilkinson and Simon Shaw all played their early rugby for small local clubs (Farnham & Cranleigh) before moving on to Bath, Wasps etc and the Sussex Schools Champions in 2003 were The Weald Comprehensive School from Billingshurst (who, as of Tuesday, had a grass cricket pitch).