Colin Hawke (Australia)
Has he moved to the Gold Coast or something, Big Col is from Timaru!! Must be that-there brain drain. In fact Kevin Yates (ex-Pom) proves the brain drain has been happening for some time (yes that is a dumb prop joke - clever rather than funny however).
As for the first few minutes, Big Col does his early sort outs and before you know it, Merhts has 9 points to his credit.
The crowd at Cone Stadium thought that a penalty for Tiatia's facial on Jack was a bit harsh. But I thought that you would expect this sort of thing to get a bit of treatment by the Ref early on, and indeed it did!
Comments during the first half - Big Col: "Stop the interference in the air" - Tiatia, etc, all over the Crusaders jumpers at kick-offs "Shoulders up thank you" - instructions to the front rows, closely followed by two penalties for collapsing the scrum, one to each side.
Things were going well until no-one saw the head high tackle! Typical that one of our team was on the receiving end!
Quote of the match must go to J.C. who said that the Crusaders should have taken the 3 points just before half time. He turned from indignant to embarassed just as that try was scored by the pocket rocket Afato So'alo!
Certainly So'alo doesn't crash the centre, but he is just the right short and is so fast, he just breezes through. Pity that he didn't tackle Jonah later on, but you can't have everything.
All I really want to say about the second half is... Bloody Australian Refs!!!
Can't really blame him though, most of the crap was of the self induced variety. Colin Hawke was alright, pity about the Crusaders.
Not the best game in the history of Crusaderdom, but at least Tiatia got to have a bit of a rest, so what little justice there is, was visited on the Crusaders for a wee while, but when you keep throwing dodgy passes, you keep losing advantage.
Somebody give me another beer! No mate... don't care which one, just make it one by a Brewery who hasn't locked out its West Coast workers in the last week!
ps: They are trying to convince me to critique Andrae Watson in the all Blue game, but a) Its just too easy. And b) I don't think that my ears could stand the continuous whistle!
