Why we will lose

Two reasons...

First - Kidney has picked a team to lose. It is a team picked to defend not attack, to keep the margin of defeat down. A team picked on reputation over form. A predictable team. A winning team would have players picked in each position on form, yet Mike Ross, Leo Cullen, Bob Casey, Keith Earls aren't even on the bench. Why not try a Stringer-Sexton combination? Why not Fitzgerald at full back (when was the last time you saw Kearney pass to a team-mate outside his 22?)? Why not Toner to target the NZ lineout, their only 'weakness'?

Second - confidence and mindset. They just don't have the belief to win. You can face down the haka all you want, but you have to follow up in the early collisions. They will lose because, like me, they are afraid and have already lost in their minds.

But I will still watch in hope...,

A legend retires

I am in shock, Haile Gebrselassie, the greatest distance runner of all-time, has announced his retirement.

I had the privilege of seeing  him edge out Paul Tergat in a sprint finish to win his 2nd straight 10,000 Olympic gold in Sydney. Myself and Dave were far up in the stands but I will never forget the sight of that unbelievable sprint finish. Gebrselassie only lost 3 times to Tergat in 25 races.

2000 Sydney, Olympic 10,000m final

"I did not expect Tergat to attack then," says Gebrselassie. "Usually he goes from about two kilometres out, but that day he waited and waited until the last 200m.

"When he went past me on the home straight, I thought he had won the gold. I thought that was it.

"But I decided I had to try to just track him to the finish line to make it as hard as possible for him. I did not think I could win."

"Tergat did everything he could," says Haile. "He was simply unlucky that it was not his day. I wish that they could have given out two gold medals that day."

"But it was so special to win like that, in that fashion in an Olympic final. I will never forget it."

Source: BBC

I saw him make his marathon debut in London in 2002 when he finished 3rd to Khannouchi. This injury has caught him my surprise I think, he still believed he could take 1 minute of his marathon word record of 2hr 3 min 59 seconds.

Retirement press conference