PETE’S PUNCHLINE

The National Sports
  • Whoopee! The Hunters named their squad for 2024 on Friday. Everything seems to be in order. No big ommissions or inclusions. Just straight up and down regular.
  • The Australian cricket team treats the NZ XI the same way Kiwi Super Rugby teams do their Aussie counterparts. Does that make sense?
  • What a disappointing result for the Black Caps against Australia in the first test at the Basin Reserve. Just not good enough. Everybody failed with the bat pretty much. Surprisingly though the spinners on both sides got amongst the wickets. Nathan Lyon got a 10-for from the match and part-timer Glenn Phillips nicked a bag of five from an innings.
  • LeBron James passed 40,000 career points over the weekend to be the first NBA player to do that. He’s an all-time great, no doubt. But he ain’t better than MJ, that’s for sure. Simple test to determine this: finals game on the line with seconds on the clock, who do you want to see with the ball?
  • Matty Johns dry retching after going on a crazy scary theme park ride in Vegas is not a fake or him playing up for the cameras, trying to make things dramatic. That reaction is real. Just imagine whatever scenario that makes you want to throw up just from the sight of it and it’s the exact same thing for Matty. My two-year-old vomitted all over me while I was carrying her the other day and apart from feeling “eww yuck” (sorry Bri), I dry-retched a few bars, a completely involuntary reaction.
  • Cripes, the Crusaders are 0-2 after a fortnight of Super Rugby. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Their biggest problem is their playmakers and midfield. Everybody else is doing their job. I wonder what coach Rob Penney is going to do to get the defending champs back on track? He was in charge of the Waratahs in his last gig and they didn’t fare too well. I guess they’re getting their Penney’s worth?
  • Holy Moly. All this time I didn’t know the capital of Nigeria was Abaju. I just assumed it was Lagos until a young collegaue pointed it out to me. I’m blaming my geography/social science teacher back in grade school for that horrendous situation or was it that I was goofing in that class? Conversely, kudos to today’s social science teachers for instilling basic information on national capitals in your pupils. And if you were teaching back in the 1980s and are still teaching today, great job!
  • So the Bunnies and Broncos lost in Vegas. Funny that, since the rabbit’s foot and the horseshoe are supposedly lucky charms. I’m familiar with the rabbit’s foot as an age old good luck charm, but the horseshoe? Then it hit me (figuratively, of course), the horseshoe is only lucky if it doesn’t crack you in the head … while still attached to the horse! Can I get a neigh? – PGTP ([email protected])