@chris-b said in Has Hansen gone stale?:
@mokey said in Has Hansen gone stale?:
@mariner4life Can you imagine trying to explain those years to kids nowadays.
Well, poppets, we had some rough times. The Wallabies were on top of the world. Locks kicked. Richie cried. Anton couldn't count. The French routed us. John was on a journey...Has someone still got that Gorgeous Grogan post as he rode into the sunset...?
Ladies, Gentlemen and Adults of Indeterminate and/or Transitional Gender
May I present to you Peak Fern, the most awesome post ever. Shared by long lost and departed @Gorgeous_Grogan (I added the @ just in case he’s still lingering …) the day after 23 October 2011 …
Enjoy.
(Sorry cloud image didn't work ... imagine it )
Ding dong the Witch is dead
Today, without a hint of overstatement, I can now die a happy man. Before I indulge you as to why first look at this picture of lovely little clouds...
(Cloud image)
They are as light and as fluffy as my soul today.
Now look outside your window gentlemen. Does the sun not shine a little brighter today? Does the grass not appear a little greener? Does the World not appear as though it has returned to a blissful harmonious state after seeming strangely off-kilter for the last 2 and a half decades or so? As you listen to birds warbling "The Hallelujah Chorus" in glorious symphonic unison, contemplate this simple truth...
Our team, yes OUR team.....are Champions of the World.
In the last World Cup of our lifetimes to be played on home soil, the annointed spiritual guardians of our great game have faced their demons, and stared them down. With an irresistible fusion of pure, concentrated mana, Aaron Crudens' lefty, and the terrifying power of an all-consuming Blackness, they have inscribed their indelible legacy into the pages of history forevermore. And if that act wasn't sufficiently "Brad Thorn" enough, we did it.....
...Without Dan Carter
...Without Dan Carters replacement
...We even did it without our cancer surviving, mono-bollocked, rough-headed Carter-replacement-replacement for fucks sake, it reads like a hollywood script. (Come on Peter Jackson, get off your arse and do something for New Zealand, prove you're still street. "Invictus II - The Redemption", it's as good as written)
...We did it with half a McCaw
...Against the Wallabies in a sudden death semi-final
...Twice against France
...In the style and spirit of the '87 pioneers (We even did it with cute little white collars on)
...With so many others gleefully, even desperately willing us to choke
Furthermore, for once our unparalleled player depth actually DID count for something at the pointy end. The Cartel redeemed themselves. The Duck redeemed himself. After falling twice Richie McCaw (The greatest living New Zealander bar none, now surely the undisputed greatest All Black, possibly player, of all time and general all round good fluffybunny) finally gets his reward (and probably an instant knighthood, a minted coin, maybe a postage stamp and at the very least an undie commercial).
Yes, for today my friends, we finally lay to rest the ghosts of failed campaigns, heartbreaking memories of drop goals in overtime, intercepts, forward passes, and explosive diaherrea. Tears of grief, humiliation and ridicule, missed opportunities, disastrous selection policy, fate, merciless sledging, raw disbelief and referees. Of fallen warriors such as Cullen, Jonah, Zinzan and Tana who deserved more for the blood they spilt in black and who fought and fell on foreign soil, with the Silver Fern on their chest.
Today is a rebirth.
Today I can watch rugby and actually enjoy it again (rather than through my fingers, with a burning, twisting knot of anxiety and nausea in my stomach)
Today I will no longer have to wonder if we will EVER win another world cup.
Today we no longer have to hear the "Choker" tag burning in our ears (usually from supporters who jump on the French because their own teams have been knocked out long before us, might I add)
Today I no longer have to hear the (annoyingly inaccurate and lazy) cliche about the All Blacks peaking between World Cups or about "losing their aura"
Today that evil little goblins' "Four more years" sledge suddenly hurts no more.
Today I will no longer have to watch our team flog themselves to exhaustion season after season trying to live up to impossible expectations under intense public scrutiny, conquering all before them, winning test after test yet always having one eye on an looming World Cup which will apparently invalidate it all (but we've still got our 85% winning record right guys?.....Guys?)
Today I no longer have to endure losing a World Cup and then listening to pasty, bandwagon-jumping, fair-weather twats with shit ginger Tarquin haircuts who know less than nothing about rugby, regurgitating the latest bullshit trendy newsfeed narrative that's been fed to them as though they have aaaaaaany fucking idea what they're talking about.
Today I became genuinely impervious to any bitter trolling that Welsh "journalists" may scrawl about the All Blacks. Negative articles will now simply slide right off like so much dust off a gumboot (as opposed to previously, when it was more like say, irritating dog turd nuggets mashed right into the sole, requiring a stick or some other implement to extricate from the tread, and even though you're sure you got it all there always still seems to be a vague lingering turdy smell following you around all day, even after you've given them a couple of good goings over with the hose, (maybe you got a bit on your sleeve).......Anyway, what I was getting at is that the petty squealing of "the Irrelevant" matters not when you're the World Champions. Yep you heard that right, WORLD CHAMPIONS...(And yes, even now when they'll probably just put out articles claiming we can only win the thing at home)
Today brothers and sisters, "The Curse" has lifted.
As pathetic as it may sound, after the continual gut-wrenching failure and heartache I have endured for my entire adult life, over a quarter of a century, today IS that important. Indeed we may never lift another world cup in my lifetime. But to me at least, it simply no longer matters. Say it with me now.....It No. Longer. Matters. We knocked the bastard off. The searing agony of 4.5 million Kiwis has been extinguished, and now we all get to ride off merrily into the sunset to our pre-planned victory parade in our big-arsed jumbo with our front row repainted all over the front. See kids? Dreams do come true.
All Blacks.................Fuck yeah!
