Peter Fitzsimons: One whisky, one kit technician?

COMMENT


There's this great American writer called Hunter S. Thompson, see, and what he does is get himself tanked up on whisky and all kinds of stuff and waits till 3am when he comes in off the porch where he has been sitting nude while shooting his six-gun into the wilderness and then he just writes down what comes into his head and then he breaks all the normal rules of grammar and syntax and writing, but somehow what he comes up with is invariably very readable and sometimes brilliant or at the very least it's different and if the rest of us can't write like him, at least we can mimic his actions and see what comes out. So, half a bottle of whisky behind me, and forty shots fired into the forest around, but it's too cold and wet to be nude so forget it, let's turn our drunken attention to sport and see what happens ...

Like, is Clive Woodward kidding or what, or WHAT?! Twenty-six people are coming as part of his management team for the Lions? Twenty six? You mean like half a deck of cards, or someone who isn't playing with a full deck? You mean that to fully prepare test footballers these days at the highest level, you need about 1.6 professionals per bloke to work them up to it? What the hell do they all do? I mean what is a "KIT TECHNICIAN", and does anyone actually think that the difference between victory and defeat is because one kit technician is better than the opposing kit technician, and anyway is this meant to be a contest between the finest footballers of each country, or a test as to who's got the strongest industrial infrastructure to come up with the best 26 support staff, and are they bloody well going to be travelling in three buses or what, and in the middle of that lot how on Earth could a test team get that wonderful tight bonded feeling of "we are 15 strong men and true" when they can surely bloody well hardly see each other for the thick forest of management who must be perpetually among them and the weird thing is that even though the Olympics only finished six weeks ago, already it seems like an age ago because in the old days every year would have say three or four major sports events that you could focus on, whereas now there is some blockbuster event or other just about every other week and it all kind of blurs together, but against that I met your lovely individual cycling gold medallist Sarah Ulmer the other day at a function in Sydney and if there is a better ambassador for New Zealand then I haven't met her - a truly good woman, who did you proud - not like the New Zealand Consul-General of a few years ago who came to a rugby function and genuinely didn't know who Sean Fitzpatrick was, and I know you think I'm making that up but one thing I don't get about you Kiwis is how come you're still so damned obsessed with the America's Cup. You won it. You did well. You might have even won twice I can't remember, but isn't that enough? After we Australians won it once it was just about the best thing that ever happened to us on the sporting field let alone sporting lake, but after we failed to successfully defend it our interest returned to its proper level for such an incredibly dud sport - which is just about three-fifths of bugger-all and speaking of that amount, does anyone care more than that for the so-called Tri-Nations league test being played in London tomorrow, I think, because someone sent me an email the other day which raised a very good point which is why do the leaguies call it Tri-Nations, as in three nations, when there are ONLY three nations playing league to begin with, so shouldn't they call it "Only Nations" or something like that and I suppose, I suppose, I don't suppose this formula for a column is getting a little tired by now is it? Well let's stop it there. Stop it there. Stop it there, there, there, it can only get better - it's only a stinking America's Cup, I tell you, and you're better than that! - so let's fair dinkum stop. Waiter! More whisky!

* Rugby writer Peter FitzSimons is a former Wallaby.

* He will be taking a break for the summer.

The Lions' management team


Clive Woodward - head coach; Bill Beaumont - tour manager; Andy Robinson - coach; Eddie O'Sullivan - coach; Phil Larder - coach: Ian McGeechan - coach; Gareth Jenkins - coach; Mike Ford - coach; John Feehan - chief executive; Louise Ramsay - team manager; Dave Alred - specialist coach; Dave Reddin - fitness coach; Craig White - fitness coach; Tony Biscombe - video analyst; Gavin Scott - video analyst; James Robson - head doctor; Gary O'Driscoll - doctor; Phil Pask - physiotherapist; Bob Stewart - physiotherapist/masseur; Stuart Barton - physiotherapist/masseur; Richard Wegrzyk - masseur; Dave Campbell - chef; Dave Tennison - kit technician; Louisa Cheetham - media liaison; David McHugh - specialist adviser; Richard Smith - legal support.