SPORTRITE - If Richie dances, we can win the next World Cup

Right then, it has been a while, but the need to expunge all the vitriol has become overwhelming.
Officially, we're over it, have moved on and are all set to lounge about on Sunday morning blissfully unaware of the vague international sporting tournament ongoing in Europe.
The wish now? That Argentina win the whole caboose and enlighten us all to the fact that, when it comes to the Rugby World Cup, anybody can win it.
In the meantime the countdown to Eden Park 2011 is now on.
We now have four years to try to find ways to steel the All Black psyche for these must-win clashes and, in particular, slap Richie McCaw into shape for the task.
Clearly, McCaw is the man for the job. His ability to strike a pose of calm bewilderment behind the goalposts while 20,000 fans (most of them having cashed in their KiwiSaver just to get a ticket in the grandstand) are in emotional meltdown, sets him apart.
Obviously the NZRU need to get an application in to Jason Gunn immediately - McCaw needs to experience the white-hot pressure of a slot on Dancing with the Stars.
We did consider an appearance on Celebrity Wife Swap, but there were two major barriers here. One: The Kiwi version of this ground-breaking show has yet to emerge on any channel you don't have to pay for and enter a four digit code to view. Two: McCaw is still single.
Bugger.
Oh well, Jason Gunn it is then.
If McCaw thinks fronting up to Reuben Thorne's entire extended family singing For they are jolly good fellows at Christchurch Airport is hard to stomach, he needs to book some serious sit down time with Norm Hewitt, All Black Alma Mater and now ballroom dancing aficionado.
Only Hewitt can really explain how to operate outside your comfort zone, which is exactly the area where the All Blacks were found wanting the moment the Frogs lined up on halfway to meet the haka last weekend.
Ali Williams had nowhere to throw his headgear, the French were standing too close. This was the first mistake from referee Wayne Barnes. Meeting the All Black challenge is clearly a breach of IRB rules.
However, we digress, back to Hewitt and the advice he can offer McCaw. The terror of wearing a sheer three-piece negligee, eyeliner, stilletto heels and a tiara knowing you are about to perform several death-defying acts to the beat of a South American version of Fred Dagg's Not a Bad Day For It live on television would leave Cardiff Arms Park for dead.
We are not sure who McCaw's dance partner will be, or what she will be wearing.
Now that is what we would call pressure.
You may have noticed, these are indeed sad and very strange days. Admit it, you are all sitting there with a clear picture of Hewitt in a see-through lace top performing a ballroom version of the haka, and now you are trying hard to not imagine McCaw in stilletto heels.
The blame for this lands squarely at the feet of Ma'a Nonu, who will be on hand to give McCaw tips on how to apply the eyeliner.
Candy Lane will be beside herself trying to offer a breathless analysis of McCaw's performance. "Extensions, work on your extensions. You need to make the audience fall in love with you, fall out of love with you and then back in love with you again. That's the secret of the rhumba."
Exactly. And the lineout, Candy?
McCaw has already mastered this, but not in the games that really matter. Not in the moments when the lights dim, the music starts and Fred Dagg starts singing.
Mind you, McCaw doesn't have to work adjacent to a Pom for four more years. As Dagg might utter in his doleful tones: "You don't know how luckeee you arrrrrre mate, you don't know how luckeee you arrrrre".