Editorial: Singles use rugby to bait a mate

I was interested to hear a radio interview with a Stanford University professor who specialises in the business of sport as I drove to watch the All Blacks play the Wallabies in the Rugby World Cup semifinal on Sunday.

My ears pricked up when he said that New Zealand's devotion to a single sport, rugby, was unrivalled anywhere else in the world.

As it was my fifth trip north for this tournament I recognised that he was probably right.

And that was hammered home to me yesterday when I saw a press release headlined, "Kiwi Girls Use Rugby To Solve Man Drought". Ironically the professor had spoken at length about a Stanford alumni, christian name Tiger, who had done much to solve the man drought in his own neck of the Woods.

Apparently there are 50,000 more females aged 25-49 in New Zealand than men, and with 48 games of rugger to watch, debate and analyse between September 9 and October 23, blokes have been in even shorter supply.

So 43 per cent of New Zealand's single women, according to the latest data from online dating site FindSomeone, are using the term "rugby" in their personal advertisement. For Hawke's Bay women the figure is even higher.

"In an increasingly competitive market they are now baiting the hook with rugby," the company's manager said.

And apparently it's working. The Rugby World Cup is hooking people up across the nation.

With focus on drink-driving having steadily decimated rugby clubrooms, one has to ask if online dating is now the virtual replacement for the social interaction that took place there between male and female.

Blokes who love rugby don't change.

While I would assume - and I know that is dangerous - many female singletons would never have heard the captain's speech-for-the-ages, "I'd like to thank the opposition for the game, and the ladies for the spread", their "rugby" cyberspace targets would certainly partake in a saveloy with bread if provided.

Current Labour MP and former Black Ferns winger Louisa Wall would probably smash me to the ground for even reciting that tongue-in-cheek speech. And policewoman and Wall's former team-mate Regina Sheck would then go over the top as she did to an offender her partner tackled on the motorway in Auckland a few years back.

Now those sheilas really know their rugby.

However I fear some, in the online game, will be using our rugby terminology in vain.

Take a second to think ... Yes, the mind boggles.

Let's hope the coming months won't be littered by the word "breakdown" - communication and relationship that is.

It's official. New Zealand is rugby mad, and the madness is building by the day.