UTU France UTU!!!

 The All Blacks beat the Australian Wallabies 20-6!  Yayyyy!!!

It means New Zealand goes on to play France in the finals next week, and even the French guys I was chatting with yesterday simply rolled their eyes, shrugged their shoulders and said "Poor France!" and "We don't stand a chance!" and "If we win, France will be so excited, those players will get a ticker-tape parade through the streets of Paris."

And really, when all is said and done, yesterday's game was the true final, and the France game - although we will definitely be watching next week - is simply mopping up afterwards!

Because that NZ vs Oz game was magnificent. If you missed it, kick yourself! It was truly truly amazing, but, gosh, you have never seen so much blood.  Honestly, watching it, you felt like you were in Ancient Rome watching gladiators at the Colosseum.

And about that game: I wasn't sure about the All Blacks tactics.  First half - which was so relentless you could barely breathe - what with your heart in your mouth and all! - they made all their moves. However, in the second half, they simply stopped the Wallabies making any moves which just turned the game into this relentless steamroller, which wasn't nearly as exciting, but certainly caused a LOT of blood.

Of course, the best moment was straight out of Cirque du Soleil. What happened was this Wallaby had the ball and this All Black went to tackle him, tumble-turned over his back, and grabbed the ball out of his hands on the way down.  Spectacular!  Of course the entire thing was an accident but everyone laughed because ... well, we can all pretend it's a spectacular new All Black tactic.  In fact, it's so spectacular, I'm sure the move will end up on youtube so you will end up seeing it for yourself.

Just checked and it's not up yet, although there is one clip from yesterday already there, but just the final minutes when Oz tried to score and it was so close it really looked like it was going to happen, but NZ didn't let it. Only watch if you're into steamrollers.

However, I did find this which shows you just how seriously cute some of these guys are:




Oh, and the other thing worth noting was that the All Blacks had none of their best players. All The Big Names were out with injuries. However, here's the thing about the All Blacks ... whenever they lose their best players, the others turn into best players. All those guys who are simply wonderful supports for the downright brilliance of The Big Names, without those Big Names on the field, they show their own downright brilliance and it always turns into "I didn't know he was that good!" and "I'm so glad he finally came into his own." It's true talent all the way down!

Oh, and the joke was that they were so low on real All Blacks that they pulled two little fellows off their skateboards and stuck them into the game. One of the little fellows is actually on that clip I mentioned but haven't included here.  Maybe I should get it now so you can see him for yourself:



He's at the end, with full frame at 2.36. And you can pick him out because he's the winsy wee thing getting a big hug from one of the big guys!

Actually, everyone was talking about those two winsy little fellows because it's really stuff of a Disney film. They were both small town players, but someone had spotted them and thought they had something special ... so, without enough REAL players for the semi-finals, they were plucked out of obscurity for the match.  And they both distinguished themselves, the winsy one for always been there in the thick of things, and the other - the little ginger-haired one - for continuing to play despite pints of blood pouring down his face.  This was his big moment and he wasn't going to let a little thing like a broken nose stop him, and it was so charming everyone was on his side.

So that's it!  All Blacks through to the Finals, and it's against France ... so a real trouncing will be a nice UTU (Maori for "Revenge") for NZ.

REMEMBER THE RAINBOW WARRIOR!!!! 

GO ALL BLACKS!!!